Applying the general principles stated in the preceding chapter,
we find the same cause which operated to restrict the growth of
mythology in general in China operated also in like manner in this
particular branch of it. With one exception Chinese cosmogony is
non-mythological. The careful and studiously accurate historians
(whose work aimed at being _ex veritate_, 'made of truth'), the
sober literature, the vast influence of agnostic, matter-of-fact
Confucianism, supported by the heavy Mencian artillery, are
indisputable indications of a constructive imagination which grew too
quickly and became too rapidly scientific to admit of much soaring
into the realms of fantasy. Unaroused by any strong stimulus in
their ponderings over the riddle of the universe, the sober, plodding
scientists and the calm, truth-loving philosophers gained a peaceful
victory over the mythologists.



CHAPTER IV

The Gods of China


The Birth of the Soul

The dualism noted in the last chapter is well illustrated by the
Chinese pantheon. Whether as the result of the co-operation of the
_yin_ and the _yang_ or of the final dissolution of P'an Ku, human
beings came into existence. To the primitive mind the body and its
shadow, an object and its reflection in water, real life and dream