[341] A note of Schopenhauer's referring to this says:--"According to letters from Doss" (a friend of S.'s), "dated 26th February and 8th June, 1857, the passages I have here quoted are to be found in Morrison's Chinese Dictionary, Macao, 1815, vol. i. p. 576, under 天 Tëen, although in a slightly different order, in nearly the same words. The important passage at the end alone differs and is as follows: 'Heaven makes the mind of mankind its mind: in most ancient discussions respecting Heaven, its mind, or will, was _divined_ (it stands thus, and not _derived_) from what was the will of mankind.'--Neumann translated this passage for Doss, independently of Morrison's rendering, and the end was: 'Through the heart of the people Heaven is usually revealed.'" [_Editor's Note._] [342] Neumann, "Die Natur-und Religions-Philosophie der Chinesen, nach dem Werke des Tschu-hi," an article in Illgen's "Periodical for Historical Theology," vol. vii. 1837, from pp. 60 to 63. REFERENCE TO ETHICS. For reasons I have stated in the beginning, confirmations of the rest of my doctrine are excluded from my present task. Still, in concluding, I may perhaps be allowed to make a general reference to Ethics. From time immemorial, all nations have acknowledged that the world has a moral, as well as a physical, import. Everywhere nevertheless the matter was only brought to an indistinct consciousness, which, in seeking for its adequate expression, has clothed itself in various images and myths. These are the different Religions. Philosophers, on their side, have at all times endeavoured to attain clear comprehension of the thing and, notwithstanding their differences in other respects, all, excepting the strictly materialistic, philosophical systems, agree in this one point: that what is most important, nay, alone essential, in our whole existence, that on which everything depends, the real meaning, pivot or point (_sit venia verbo_) of it, lies in the morality of human actions. But as to the sense of this, as to the ways and means, as to the possibility of the thing, they all again quite disagree, and find themselves before an abyss of obscurity. Thus it follows, that it is easy to preach, but difficult to found, morality. It is just because that point is determined by our conscience, that it becomes the touchstone of all systems; since we demand, and rightly demand, that Metaphysic should give support to Ethics: and now arises the difficult problem to show that, contrary to all experience, the physical order of things depends upon a moral one, and to find out a connection between the force which, by acting according to eternal laws of Nature, gives the world stability, and the morality which has its seat in the human breast. This is therefore the rock on which the best thinkers have foundered. Spinoza occasionally tacks a moral theory on to his Pantheistic Fatalism by means of sophisms, but more often