The Creators: A History of Heroes of the Imagination Read Free Page A

compiled by the disciples of Confucius’ disciples, it is not known by that name before the Han dynasty (202 B.C. – A.D . 220). A version compiled near the end of the Han dynasty displacedthe earlier ones, and about A.D . 175 the text was carved on stone tablets. Fragments of those stones have survived, and innumerable editions have since appeared. The
Analects
were one of four Confucian texts given authoritative new editions in 1190 by the Neo-Confucian philosopher Chu Hsi. Along with the
Book of Mencius
, the
Great Learning
, and the
Doctrine of the Mean
, it was one of the Four Books, the Chinese Classics that until 1905 were the subject of the Chinese civil service examinations. The
Analects
offered Confucius’ basic notions, including the idea of benevolence (
jen
) as the leading quality of the superior man, the mean (
chung yung
) or moderation in all things, the will of Heaven (
T’ien
) or the harmony of nature, filial piety or propriety (
li
), and the “rectification of names” (
cheng ming
), or recognizing the nature of things by giving them their right names.
    As the centuries passed, the fragmentary teachings of Confucius were petrified into “Confucianism.” The very word, which would have horrified Confucius, seems to have been invented about 1862 by European Christians and fit their simplistic view of the “religions” of the non-Christian world. Under the Han Empire the teachings of the Master were shaped into an ideology, and became state dogma. Over the next centuries, countless “schools” rose and fell, shaping Chinese culture for the twenty-five hundred years after Confucius.
    But the Confucian emphasis on the family, morals, and the role of the good ruler did not satisfy the popular need for the explanation of man and his place in the universe. Another school grew out of the effort to account for the mystery of the world, the spontaneity of man, and the wondrous variety of nature. This came to be known as Taoism—after Tao or “the way”—drawing on folk currents and building on the writings of a mysterious master, Lao-tzu (c.604–531 B.C. ). An antidote—and a complement—to the rigid moralism of the later Confucians and their state religion, Taoism became both an elevated philosophy and a popular religion. Developing over the years, its doctrines encouraged a sense of freedom in thinkers and artists, and eventually Taoist ideas were incorporated into Confucianism. While the Taoists were interested in man’s relation to the cosmos and to nature, their subtle philosophy had no place for a Creator. As we read in the work attributed to Lao-tzu:
    There is a thing confusedly formed,
    Born before heaven and earth.
    Silent and void
    It stands alone and does not change
    Goes round and does not weary,
    It is capable of being the mother of the world.
    I know not its name
    So I style it “the way.”
    Man models himself on earth,
    Earth on heaven,
    Heaven on the way,
    And the way on that which is naturally so.
    (Translated by D. C. Lau)
    With their belief in “oneness” and “nonbeing” the Taoist poetic imagination was more interested in the unity of experience than in any conceivable power of a Creator to make the new. As Chuang-tzu (flourished fourth century B.C. ), the great follower of Lao-tzu, recalled:
    Once I dreamt that I was a butterfly, fluttering here and there; in all ways a butterfly. I enjoyed my freedom as a butterfly, not knowing that I was Chou. Suddenly I awoke and was surprised to be myself again. Now, how can I tell whether I was a man who dreamt that he was a butterfly, or whether I am a butterfly who dreams that she is a man?… This is called the interfusion of things.
    This feeling for the unity of the world’s processes gave the Taoist Chuang-tzu a stoic power to face his personal afflictions. A friend who came to console him on the death of his beloved wife of many years found Chuang-tzu not grieving or weeping but placidly seated on a mat singing and