Ebook: Religions of Ancient China

The problem of the universe has never offered the slightest difficulty to Chinese philosophers. Before the beginning of all things, there was Nothing. In the lapse of ages Nothing coalesced into Unity, the Great Monad. After more ages, the Great Monad separated into Duality, the Male and Female Principles in nature; and then, by a process of biogenesis, the visible universe was produced.

Author:
Herbert Allen Giles (1845 – 1935) was a British diplomat, sinologist, and professor of Chinese language. Giles was educated at Charterhouse School before becoming a British diplomat in China. He modified a Mandarin Chinese Romanization system earlier established by Thomas Wade, resulting in the widely known Wade–Giles Chinese romanization system. Among his many works were translations of Confucius, Lao Tzu, Chuang Tzu, and in 1892 the first widely published Chinese-English dictionary.