THE ORIGIN OF NIHILISM.

A curious article on "Nihilism in China" is publish by the Presse of Vienna. The writer says that Nihilist doctrines first made their appearance in China in the 10th century, Buddhism began to take the place of the old national religion based on the worship of the forces of Nature. The doctrine of the Nirvana, the extinction of the individual, was taken in its material sense, and the State, society, and the family were represented as only deserving of destruction. A succession of bad harvests, which caused a general famine, inclined the masses of the people to support the Nihilist tendency to pull down all existing institutions ; and the consequence was a series of civil wars which put an end to no fewer than six dynasties in a single century. The reign of Nihilism, which produced anarchy and chaos in China, was succeeded in the middle of the eleventh century by that of Socialism, under Wang-ngan-tche, a leader immeasurably superior, we are told, to Proudhon, Lassalle, Bakounin, or Karl Marx. Wang-ngan-tche thought he would be able to construct on the social basis which Nihilism had levelled a new organization of humanity. He was born in 1027, and even the most hostile of his biographers praise his learning, intelligence, and eloquence. The ability and success with which he confuted the arguments of the Nihilists made him popular; and the Emperor Tchentsung invited him to his Court and made him his chief Minister. In 1069 this Chinese Socialist was the most powerful man in the empire next to the Emperor himself. He first issued a decree abolishing all personal properly in land ; the whole country was to be cultivated by the State and its produce equally divided among the people. Other decrees placed all private industries under State management and made them State property, and compelled all capitalists to pay to the State a fifth of their capital every year for five years. Thus the State became the sole possessor of property, both in land and in money, and the only employer of labour ; there were neither rich nor poor in the country, and each man derived his only means of subsistence from the State. It soon appeared, however, that this complicated machinery gave rise to many abuses ; the State proved, as might have been expected, incapable of discharging the gigantic task which had been imposed upon it, and unprincipled persons took advantage of its difficulties to enrich themselves by peculation. Sse-ma-Kuang, one of the most eminent of Chinese statesmen and poets, got up a powerful opposition to the Socialist Minister, who, however, maintained his system for 15 years. At the end of that period the Emperor died, and his widow, who was appointed Regent, recalled Sse-ma-Kuang to the post of Prime Minister, which he had been obliged to vacate on the appointment of Wang-ngan-tche. This was the end both of Socialism and Nihilism in China.
[Emperor Shen tsung ; Scholar Ssu-ma Kuang; Minister Wang An-shih]

 The Sydney Morning Herald 10 May 1880,