but it is exceedingly unlikely that no theories or speculations at
all concerning the origin of themselves and their surroundings were
formed by this intelligent people during the eighteen centuries or
more which preceded the date at which we find the views held by them
put into written form. It is safe to assume that the dualism which
later occupied their philosophical thoughts to so great an extent
as almost to seem inseparable from them, and exercised so powerful
an influence throughout the course of their history, was not only
formulating itself during that long period, but had gradually reached
an advanced stage. We may even go so far as to say that dualism, or
its beginnings, existed in the very earliest times, for the belief in
the second self or ghost or double of the dead is in reality nothing
else. And we find it operating with apparently undiminished energy
after the Chinese mind had reached its maturity in the Sung dynasty.



The Canon of Changes

The Bible of Chinese dualism is the _I ching_, the _Canon of Changes_
(or _Permutations_). It is held in great veneration both on account
of its antiquity and also because of the "unfathomable wisdom which
is supposed to lie concealed under its mysterious symbols." It is
placed first in the list of the classics, or Sacred Books, though
it is not the oldest of them. When exactly the work itself on which
the subsequent elaborations were founded was composed is not now
known. Its origin is attributed to the legendary emperor Fu Hsi
(2953-2838 B.C.). It does not furnish a cosmogony proper, but merely
a dualistic system as an explanation, or attempted explanation,
or even perhaps orly a record, of the constant changes (in modern