Apart from this, the influence of Confucianism would have been even greater than it was, but for the imperial partiality periodically shown for rival doctrines, such as Buddhism and Taoism, which threw their weight on the side of the supernatural, and which at times were exalted to such great heights as to be officially recognized as State religions. These, Buddhism especially, appealed to the popular imagination and love of the marvellous. Buddhism spoke of the future state and the nature of the gods in no uncertain tones. It showed men how to reach the one and attain to the other. Its founder was virtuous; his commandments pure and life-sustaining.

It supplied in great part what Confucianism lacked. And, as in the Page 63fifth and sixth centuries A. D. , when Buddhism and Taoism joined forces and a working union existed between them, they practically excluded for the time all the “chilly growth of Confucian classicism.

Other opponents of myth, including a critical philosopher of great ability, we shall have occasion to notice presently.