Confucius, as some of you may know, lived in what is called a period of expansion in the history of China_a period in which the feudal age had come to an end; in which the feudal, the semi-patriarchal social order and form of government had to be expanded and reconstructed. This great change necessarily brought with it not only confusion in the affairs of the world, but also confusion in men s minds. I have said that in the Chinese civilisation of the last ,years there is no conflict between the heart and the head. But I must now tell you that in the period of expansion in which Confucius lived there was also in China, as now in Europe, a fearful conflict between the heart and the head. The Chinese people in Confucius s time found themselves with an immense system of institutions, established facts, accredited dogmas, customs, laws_in fact, an immense system of society and civilisation which had come down to them from their venerated ancestors. In this system their life had to be carried forward; yet they began to feel_they had a sense that this system was not of their creation, that it by no means corresponded with the wants of their actual life; that, for them, it was customary, not rational. Now the awakening of this sense in the Chinese people ,years ago was the awakening of what in Europe to-day is called the modern spirit_the spirit of liberalism, the spirit of enquiry, to find out the why and the wherefore of things. This modern spirit in China then, seeing the want of correspondence of the old order of society and civilisation with the wants of their actual life, set itself not only to reconstruct a new order of society and civilisation, but also to find a basis for this new order of society and civilisation. But all the attempts to find a new basis for society and civilisation in China then failed. Some, while they satisfied the head_the intellect of the Chinese people, did not satisfy their heart; others, while they satisfied their heart, did not satisfy their head. Hence arose, as I said, this conflict between the heart and the head in China ,yearsago, as we see it now in Europe. This conflict of the heart and head in the new order of society and civilisation which men tried to reconstruct made the Chinese people feel dissatisfied with all civilisation, and in the agony and despair which this dissatisfaction produced, the Chinese people wanted to pull down and destroy all civilisation. Men, like Laotzu, then in China as men like Tolstoy in Europe to-day, seeing the misery and suffering resulting from the conflict between the heart and the head, thought they saw something radically wrong in the very nature and constitution of society and civilisation. Laotzu and Chuang-tzu, the most brilliant of Laotzu s disciples, told the Chinese people to throw away all civilisation. Laotzu said to the people of China: "Leave all that you have and follow me; follow me to the mountains, to the hermits cell in the mountains, there to live a true life_a life of the heart, a life of immortality."

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