Note 56 — Chapter VII · FALLACIES IN POPULAR ARGUMENTS

So far we have seen that the opponents of the “Universal” theory presume in their argument that devil-worship has no relation to true god-worship, and we may note that it never even entered the heads of such men as Darwin and Lubbock that it would ever be held that these are essentially identical. Nor is this peculiar opinion held by clerics who have studied devil-worship on the spot. Thus the Rev. Arthur H. Smith, D.D., twenty-two years a missionary in China, describes56 the fear of goblins and devils which figures so largely in Taoism; but, far from suggesting the presence of the religious instinct, he laments its total absence. Among his many pertinent observations I commend the following to the serious consideration of those who believe in a universal religious instinct and in a progressive revelation: “If the Chinese ever did recognise the true God, that knowledge has certainly been most effectually lost, like an inscription on an ancient coin now covered with the accumulated rust of millenniums.57... Sir Thomas Wade, whose long familiarity with China and the Chinese might be supposed to entitle him to speak with authority on so plain a question as whether the Chinese have or have not a religion, has recently published his opinion as follows: ‘If religion is held to mean more than mere ethics, I deny that the Chinese have a religion.’”58