As regards ancestral worship, we have record of a display of disregard for it by the lords of Lû in Confucius's time; [285] and the general attitude of Confucius himself, religious only in his adherence to old ceremonies, is incompatible with a devout environment. It has been disputed whether he makes a "skeptic denial of any relation between man and a living God"; [286] but an authority who disputes this complains that his "avoiding the personal name of Tî, or God, and only using the more indefinite term Heaven," suggests "a coldness of temperament and intellect in the matter of religion." [287] He was, indeed, above all things a moralist; and concerning the spirits in general he taught that "To give one's self to the duties due to men, and, while respecting spiritual beings, to keep aloof from them, may be called wisdom." [288] He would never express an opinion concerning the fate of souls, [289] or encourage prayer; [290] and in his redaction of the old records he seems deliberately to have eliminated mythological expressions. [291] "I would say," writes Dr. Legge (who never forgets to be a missionary), "that he was unreligious rather than irreligious; yet, by the coldness of his temperament and intellect in this matter, his influence is unfavourable to the development of true religious feeling among the Chinese people generally, and he prepared the way for the speculations of the literati of medieval and modern times, which have exposed them to the charge of atheism." [292] The view that there was a very early "arrest of growth" in the Chinese religion (Menzies, History of Religion, p. 108), "before the ordinary developments of mythology and doctrine, priesthood," etc., had "time to take place," is untenable as to the mythology. The same writer had previously spoken (p. 107) of the Chinese system before Confucius as having "already parted with all savage and irrational elements." That Confucius would seek to eliminate these seems likely enough, though the documentary fact is disputed.