Taken together Heaven and Earth thus include all the energies of the universe. The world, as we see it, is, indeed, full of opposing powers, one group (_yang_) representing light and warmth and life, the contrary (_yin_) manifesting themselves in cold and darkness and death.[3] But these are both encompassed by {96} the "Path" or _Tao_, the daily course of the universe, the abiding guarantee of justice in the distribution of good and evil in the human lot. Heaven and earth are thus regarded as themselves active or living; they constantly maintain the order of nature for the welfare of man. In the ancient Odes (which Confucius was supposed to have edited) "heaven" is called great and wide and blue. This is plainly the visible firmament; it is addressed as parent, and sky and earth together are father and mother of the world. They are not spirits, but are themselves animate. "Why," laments Dr. Edkins of his Chinese hearers, "they have been often asked, should you speak of these things which are dead matter, fashioned from nothing by the hand of God, as living beings?" "And why not?" they have replied. "The sky pours down rain and sunshine, the earth produces corn and grass, we see them in perpetual movement, and we therefore say they are living." [3] The sky is the home of the _yang_; the _yin_ are referred to the earth; in curious contrast to its powers of production and nourishment. The Chinese genius was ethical rather than metaphysical. It was not concerned with the Infinite, the Eternal, and the Absolute. But it was deeply impressed with the moral aspects of the sky, its universality, its comprehensive embrace of all objects and powers beneath its far-stretching dome, its all-seeing view, its inflexible impartiality. Its decrees are steadfast, and proceeded from its sovereign sway; and in this capacity it bore the {97} august title of Shang Tî, "Supreme Ruler." The scholastic philosophers of a later day analysed "Heaven" in this capacity into the actual sky and its controlling personality, and Shang Tî became the Moral Governor of the Universe, the equivalent of the western God.