which Europe has lacked altogether; whose history, for all its splendid high-lights, has had thousands of hideous shadows; has not been so noble a thing as we tacitly and complacently assume; but a long record of wars, confusions, disorder, and cruelities, with only dawning now the possibility of that union which is the first condition of true progress, as distinguished from the riot of material inventions and political experiments that has gone by that name.—­But now, back to Mencius again.

In all things he tried to follow Confucius; beginning early by being born in the latter’s own district of Tsow in Shantung, and having a woman in ten thousand for his mother;—­she has been the model held up to all Chinese mothers since.  He grew up strong in body and mind, thoughtful and fearless; a tireless student of history, poetry, national institutions, and the lives of great men.  Like Confucius, he opened a school, and gathered disciples about him:  but there was never the bond of love here, that there had been between Confucius and Tse Lu, Yen Huy, and the others.  These may have heard from their Master the pure deep things of Theosophy; one would venture the statement that none of Mencius’ following heard the like from him.  He saw in Confucius that which he himself was fitted to be, and set out to become.  He went from court to court, and everywhere, as a great scholar, was received with honor. (You will note as one more proof of an immemorial culture, that then, as now the scholar, as such, was at the very top of the social scale.  There was but one word for scholar and official.)—­He proposed, like Confucius, that some king should make him his minister; and like Confucius, he was always disappointed.  But in him we come on none of the soft lights and tones that endear Confucius to us; he fell far short of being Such a One.  A clear, bold mind, without atmosphere, with all its lines sharply defined.... he made free to lecture the great ones of the earth, and was very round with them, even ridiculing them at his pleasure.  He held the field for Confucius—­not the Taoist, but the Mencian Confucius—­against all comers; smote Yang Chu the Egotist hip and thigh; smote gentle Mo Ti, the Altruist; preached fine and practical ethics; and had no patience with those dreamers of the House of Laotse.—­A man sent from the Gods, I should say, to do a great work; even though—­

And then there was that dreamer of dreams, of Butterfly dreams,—­ subtle mystical humorous Chwangtse:  how could it be otherwise than that clear-minded clarion-throated Philosopher Mang should afford him excellent play?  Philosopher Mang (Philosopher of the Second Class, so officially entitled), in the name of his Master K’ung Ch’iu, fell foul of Dreamer Chwang; how could it be otherwise than that Dreamer Chwang should aim his shafts, not a Mang merely, but (alas!) at the one whose name was always on Mang’s lips?—­“Confucius says, Confucius says, Confucius says”—­ cries Philosopher Mang.—­“Oh hang your Confucius!” thinks Chwang the Mystic; “let us have a little of the silence and splendor of the Within!” (Well, Confucius would have said the same thing, I think.) “Let me tell you a tale,” says Chwang; and straight goes forward with it.