The first English writer who endeavoured to give a distinct account of Taoism was the late Archdeacon Hardwick, while he held the office of Christian Advocate in the University of Cambridge. In his Christ and Other Masters ( vol. ii p. 67), when treating of the religions of China, he says, “I feel disposed to argue that the centre of the system founded by Laozi had been awarded to some energy or power resembling the ‘nature’ of modern speculators. The indefinite expression Tao was adopted to denominate an abstract cause, or the initial principle of life and order, to which worshippers were able to assign the attributes of immateriality, eternity, immensity, invisibility.”