GENERAL ARTICLES
THE ELIXIR OF LIFE
The Taoists fell into the belief that
somewhere on earth could be discovered
hidden islands whose inhabitants pos-
sessed immortality. In the third century
before Christ, a Taoist monarch, Shih
Huang, despatched a naval expedition to
discover the “golden isles of the blest,
where dwelt genii, whose business and
delight it was to dispense to all visitors
to their shores a draught of immortality,
compounded of the fragrant herbs which
grew in profusion around them.” The
expedition, however, was lost, and noth-
ing was ever heard from it. Still men
sought to make themselves immortal. All
sorts of foods and herbs were experi-
mented upon, in the hope of finding one
that would confer endless life. “In the
list of those sovereign plants of the
sein we find, for example, the pine and
the cypress, especially the seeds and
their resin, or blood, which are con-
centrations of the vitality of the tree.
Further, we find among such the plum,
pear, and peach, the cassia, and also
various kinds of mushrooms; further-
more, so-called shuh, calamus or sweet-
flag, asters or chrysanthemums, etc. To
account for the capacities of each of
these plants in prolonging life and con-
ferring immortality, Taoism had its
reasons and deductions, derived from
cosmological-animistic philosophy. Of
the other substances bestowing immor-
tality we merely mention gold, jade,
pearls, mother-of-pearl, cinnabar. All
these things, and a great many more,
have, of course, occupied a place in the
pharmacopceia for all ages.”
Then, too, the Taoists by a process of
reasoning demonstrated that the atmos-
phere possessed the germs of immortal-
ity, and was a portion of the deity. Since
“the absorption of these life-bestowing
substances by the body: might be ad-
vantageously connected with the inhala-
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tion of shen directly from the atmos-
phere,” and since the atmosphere was
indeed the very Shen of the universe,
they taught various respiratory exercises,
hoping to obtain endless life by deep
breathing. “Inhalations, deep and long,
exhalation., slow and short, periodically
and in a proper cadence, according to
prescribed rules of the sages, could not
but highly promote assimilation with the
Tao, and produce deathlessness. This
discipline was connected with movements
of the limbs, it having been correctly dis-
covered that such motion exercises an
influence upon respiration. Hence there
was developed a system of indoor gym-
nastics, preached and practised to this
day as highly beneficial in promoting
health and longevity. Slow dances, or
rather marches, and combinations of
paces forming figures, completed the sys-
tem. “The perfect man, wrote Chwang-
tsze, ‘is he who respires even to his
heels,’ so that his body to its farthest
extremities is imbued with the vital ether
of the universe. Thus the same author
goes on to say: ‘Blowing and gasping,
sighing and panting, expelling the old
breath and taking in new, passing the
time like a hibernating bear, and stretch-
ing and twisting the neck like a bird —
all this merely shows the desire for long-
gevity.””
Another writer speaks of these vaga-
ries as follows :—
The mass of Chinese have cast aside the
philosophical and metaphysical speculations of
the old philosopher and his immediate fol-
lowers, and on the small foundations of the
‘Tao Teh King’ a super-structure of hay,
stubble, rubbish, and rottenness has been
raised. ‘They appear to have started off at
a tangent from his ideas, and evolved some
elaborate systems, wandering off into empty
space. The craving of man for immortality
degenerated into a fruitless search for plants,
which, when eaten would confer it; for
charms which would bestow it; for elixirs, the
quaffing of which would send it coursing