Confucius was born in 551 B.C. After his death the gratitude of the sovereigns and the admiration of the peoples gave him a rank almost divine. Every city built temples to him, not as a god whom they worshipped, but as a man whom they venerated as a benefactor, and as the master respected by the nation as a great saint in civil life. There are not to be found many images or pictures on Oriental porcelain of Confucius or his followers, for the reason stated that Confucius simply settled a system of morality.
Taoism differs from the doctrines of Confucius in that it is a gross religion made of superstitious local beliefs in fetishes and demons curiously amalgamated with the higher metaphysical doctrines of the philosopher Lao-tseu, who was born 604 B.C. He included nearly all of the old Chinese religions, which Confucius had reformed by taking away its superstitions. This he did in order to fight more advantageously against the reforms of Confucius. In reality, this religion agrees with others; we may say that all the doctrines of all the religions make a great difference between the beliefs of the common people and those of philosophers and of learned men, for in the higher sense the doctrines of Lao-tseu and his eminent disciples were able to be maintained without danger of comparison against those of Confucius or the most illustrious thinkers of ancient India. Taoism in its popular form recognised a supreme God creator of the world, similarly named to the God recognised by Confucianism, Thien, Heaven, or Tien-kong, God of Heaven, but above him he places a Trinity called the "Three Pures," really the "Three Pure Ones," of whom Lao-tseu was one, representing the spirit of knowledge or of wisdom. Below this Trinity is found a multitude of gods, genii, demons, spirits of Heaven, of the earth, of the sea, of the waters, of the mountains, of the rivers, of the provinces, of the cities, of the villages, &c., all designated under the collective name of Chens, "spirits." For the most part these are ancient heroes, literary men or philosophers deified; hence the gods, such as the eight immortals, are often found as images, or used as decorations, upon vases and other pieces of Oriental porcelain. We give two figures as illustrations.