Note 330 — Chapter XIV · CONFUCIANISM—II

It need not be supposed that there was anything unique about Confucius's agnosticism. There is evidence enough that he did not stand alone in his attitude of uncertainty with regard to the spiritual world. The writings of Mo Tzŭ (Micius), who taught an attractive philosophy of his own in the fourth and fifth centuries B.C., show inferentially that the question of whether there was or was not a world of spirits was a frequent subject of debate among the learned. Micius himself took the view that "there are heavenly spirits and there are spirits of the hills and streams, and there are spirits of the dead also." He hotly combated the view (which must have been widely current) that no such spirits existed. The subject remained a stock question for debate; indeed once it had been raised, how could it ever have ceased to agitate men's minds? The philosopher Wang Ch'ung (first century A.D.) was a materialist, and besides flouting many prevalent superstitions, such as those relating to virgin-births and other prodigies, he entered the lists against those who sought to prove that dead men continue to have a conscious existence or can exercise any control or influence over their living descendants.