It is a "pantheistic
medley."[15]
Chu Hi and his Japanese successors, especially Ky[=u]-so, argue finely
and discourse volubly about _Ki_[16] or spirit; but it is not Spirit, or
spiritual in the sense of Him who taught even a woman at the well-curb
at Sychar. It is in the air. It is in the earth, the trees, the flowers.
It comes to consciousness in man. His _Ri_ is the Tao of Lao Tsze, the
Way, Reason, Law. It is formless, invisible.
"Ri is not separate from Ki, for then it were an empty abstract
thing. It is joined to Ki, and may be called, by nature, one
decreed, changeless Norm. It is the rule of Ki, the very centre,
the reason why Ki is Ki."
Ten or Heaven is not God or the abode of God, but an abstraction, a sort
of Unknowable, or Primordial Necessity.
"The doctrine of the Sages knows and worships Heaven, and
without faith in it there is no truth. For men and things, the
universe, are born and nourished by Heaven, and the 'Way,' the
'ri,' that is in all, is the 'Way,' the 'ri' of Heaven.
Distinguishing root and branch, the heart is the root of Heaven
and the appearance, the revolution of the sun and moon, the
order of the stars, is the branch. The books of the sages teach
us to conform to the heart of Heaven and deal not with
appearances.
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