Myths and Legends of China - The Original Classic Edition

Оглавление

Werner E. Myths and Legends of China - The Original Classic Edition

Отрывок из книги

Myths & Legends of China

By

.....

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. Page 93

1 Cf. Aristotle's belief that bugs arose spontaneously from sweat.

.....