1 Ana. XV. i. 2, 3. 2 ay, G, bM, GQg. 3 Ana. XI. ii. 4 Ana. VII. xviii. 5 Ana. XIII. xvi.

and who is he that will change it for you? Than follow one who merely withdraws from this one and that one, had you not better follow those who withdraw from the world altogether?' With this he fell to covering up the seed, and gave no more heed to the stranger. Tsze-lu went back and reported what they had said, when Confucius vindicated his own course, saying. 'It is impossible to associate with birds and beasts as if they were the same with us. If I associate not with these people,— with mankind,— with whom shall I associate? If right principles prevailed through the kingdom, there would be no need for me to change its state [1].' About the same time he had an encounter with another recluse, who was known as 'The madman of Ch'u.' He passed by the carriage of Confucius, singing out, 'O phoenix, O phoenix, how is your virtue degenerated! As to the past, reproof is useless, but the future may be provided against. Give up, give up your vain pursuit.' Confucius alighted and wished to enter into conversation with him, but the man hastened away [2]. But now the attention of the ruler of Ch'u — king, as he styled himself — was directed to the illustrious stranger who was in his dominions, and he met Confucius and conducted him to his capital, which was in the present district of I-ch'ang, in the department of Hsiang-yang [3], in Hu-pei. After a time, he proposed endowing the philosopher with a considerable territory, but was dissuaded by his prime minister, who said to him, 'Has your majesty any officer who could discharge the duties of an ambassador like Tsze-kung? or any one so qualified for a premier as Yen Hui? or any one to compare as a general with Tsze-lu? The kings Wan and Wu, from their hereditary dominions of a hundred li, rose to the sovereignty of the kingdom. If K'ung Ch'iu, with such disciples to be his ministers, get the possession of any territory, it will not be to the prosperity of Ch'u [4]? On this remonstrance the king gave up his purpose; and, when he died in the same year, Confucius left the State, and went back again to Wei. The duke Ling had died four years before, soon after Confucius

[Sidebar] B.C. 489.

had last parted from him, and the reigning duke, known to us by the title of Ch'u [5], was his grandson, and was holding the principality against his own father. The relations

1 Ana. XVIII. vi. 2 Ana XVII. v. 3 y. 4 See the vO, l@a, p. 10. 5 X.

between them were rather complicated. The father had been driven out in consequence of an attempt which he had instigated on the life of his step-mother, the notorious Nan-tsze, and the succession was given to his son. Subsequently, the father wanted to reclaim what he deemed his right, and an unseemly struggle ensued. The duke Ch'u was conscious how much his cause would be strengthened by the support of Confucius, and hence when he got to Wei, Tsze-lu could say to him, 'The prince of Wei has been waiting for you, in order with you to administer the government;- - what will you consider the first thing to be done [1]?' The opinion of the philosopher, however, was against the propriety of the duke's course [2], and he declined taking office with him, though he remained in Wei for between five and six years. During all that time there is a blank in his history. In the very year of his return, according to the 'Annals of the Empire,' his most beloved disciple, Yen Hui, died, on which occasion he exclaimed, 'Alas! Heaven is destroying me! Heaven is destroying me [3]!' The death of his wife is assigned to B.C. 484, but nothing else is related which we can connect with this long period. 9. His return to Lu was brought about by the disciple Yen Yu, who, we have seen, went into the service of Chi K'ang, in B.C. 491.

[Sidebar] From his return to Lu to his death. B.C. 484-478.

In the year B.C. 483, Yu had the conduct of some military operations against Ch'i, and being successful, Chi K'ang asked him how he had obtained his military skill;— was it from nature, or by learning? He replied that he had learned it from Confucius, and entered into a glowing eulogy of the philosopher. The chief declared that he would bring Confucius home again to Lu. 'If you do so,' said the disciple, 'see that you do not let mean men come between you and him.' On this K'ang sent three officers with appropriate presents to Wei, to invite the wanderer home, and he returned with them accordingly [4]. This event took place in the eleventh year of the duke Ai [5], who succeeded to Ting, and according to K'ung Fu, Confucius's descendant, the invitation proceeded from him [6]. We may suppose that

1 Ana. XIII. iii. In the notes on this passage, I have given Chu Hsi's opinion as to the time when Tsze-lu made this remark. It seems more correct, however, to refer it to Confucius's return to Wei from Ch'u, as is done by Chiang Yung. 2 Ana. VII. xiv. 3 Ana. XI. viii. In the notes on Ana. XI. vii, I have adverted to the chronological difficulty connected with the dates assigned respectively to the deaths of Yen Hui and Confucius's own son, Li. Chiang Yung assigns Hui's death to B.C. 481. 4 See the vO, l@a. 5 s. 6 See Chiang Yung's memoir, in loc.

while Chi K'ang was the mover and director of the proceeding, it was with the authority and approval of the duke. It is represented in the chronicle of Tso Ch'iu-ming as having occurred at a very opportune time. The philosopher had been consulted a little before by K'ung Wan [1], an officer of Wei, about how he should conduct a feud with another officer, and disgusted at being referred to on such a subject, had ordered his carriage and prepared to leave the State, exclaiming, 'The bird chooses its tree. The tree does not choose the bird.' K'ung Wan endeavoured to excuse himself, and to prevail on Confucius to remain in Wei, and just at this juncture the messengers from Lu arrived [2]. Confucius was now in his sixty-ninth year. The world had not dealt kindly with him. In every State which he had visited he had met with disappointment and sorrow. Only five more years remained to him, nor were they of a brighter character than the past. He had, indeed, attained to that state, he tells us, in which 'he could follow what his heart desired without transgressing what was right [3],' but other people were not more inclined than they had been to abide by his counsels. The duke Ai and Chi K'ang often conversed with him, but he no longer had weight in the guidance of state affairs, and wisely addressed himself to the completion of his literary labors. He wrote a preface, according to Sze-ma Ch'ien, to the Shu-ching; carefully digested the rites and ceremonies determined by the wisdom of the more ancient sages and kings; collected and arranged the ancient poetry; and undertook the reform of music [4]. He has told us himself. 'I returned from Wei to Lu, and then the music was reformed, and the pieces in the Songs of the Kingdom and Praise Songs found all their proper place [5].' To the Yi-ching he devoted much study, and Sze-ma Ch'ien says that the leather thongs by which the tablets of his copy were bound together were thrice worn out. 'If some years were added to my life,' he said, 'I would give fifty to the study of the Yi, and then I might come to be without great faults [6].' During this time also, we may suppose that he supplied Tsang Shan with the materials of the classic of Filial Piety. The same year that he returned, Chi Kang sent Yen Yu to ask his opinion about an

1 l, the same who is mentioned in the Analects, V. xiv. 2 See the , sQ@~. 3 Ana. II. iv. 6. 4 See the vO, l@a, p. 12. 5 Ana. IX. xiv. 6 Ana. VII. xvi.

additional impost which he wished to lay upon the people, but Confucius refused to give any reply, telling the disciple privately his disapproval of the proposed measure. It was carried out, however, in the following year, by the agency of Yen, on which occasion, I suppose, it was that Confucius said to the other disciples, 'He is no disciple of mine; my little children, beat the drum and assail him [1].' The year B.C. 483 was marked by the death of his son Li, which he seems to have borne with more equanimity than he did that of his disciple Yen Hui, which some writers assign to the following year, though I have already mentioned it under the year B.C. 489. In the spring of B.C. 481, a servant of Chi K'ang caught a Ch'i-lin on a hunting excursion of the duke in the present district of Chia-hsiang [2]. No person could tell what strange animal it was, and Confucius was called to look at it. He at once knew it to be a lin, and the legend-writers say that it bore on one of its horns the piece of ribbon, which his mother had attached to the one that appeared to her before his birth. According to the chronicle of Kung-yang, he was profoundly affected. He cried out, 'For whom have you come? For whom have you come?' His tears flowed freely, and he added, 'The course of my doctrines is run [3].' Notwithstanding the appearance of the lin, the life of Confucius was still protracted for two years longer, though he took occasion to terminate with that event his history of the Ch'un Ch'iu. This Work, according to Sze-ma Ch'ien, was altogether the production of this year, but we heed not suppose that it was so. In it, from the standpoint of Lu, he briefly indicates the principal events occurring throughout the country, every term being expressive, it is said, of the true character of the actors and events described. Confucius said himself, 'It is the Spring and Autumn which will make men know me, and it is the Spring and Autumn which will make men condemn me [4].' Mencius makes the composition of it to have been an achievement as great as Yu's regulation of the waters of the deluge:— 'Confucius completed the Spring and Autumn, and rebellious ministers and villainous sons were struck with terror [5].' Towards the end of this year, word came to Lu that the duke

1 Ana. XI. xvi. 2 ^{. 3 , sQ ~. According to Kung-yang, however, the lin was found by some wood-gatherers. 4 Mencius III. Pt. II. ix. 8. 5 Mencius III. Pt. II. ix. 11.

of Ch'i had been murdered by one of his officers. Confucius was moved with indignation. Such an outrage he felt, called for his solemn interference. He bathed, went to court, and represented the matter to the duke, saying, 'Ch'an Hang has slain his sovereign, I beg that you will undertake to punish him.' The duke pleaded his incapacity, urging that Lu was weak compared with Ch'i, but Confucius replied, 'One half the people of Ch'i are not consenting to the deed. If you add to the people of Lu one half the people of Ch'i, you are sure to overcome.' But he could not infuse his spirit into the duke, who told him to go and lay the matter before the chiefs of the three Families. Sorely against his sense of propriety, he did so, but they would not act, and he withdrew with the remark, 'Following in the rear of the great officers, I did not dare not to represent such a matter [1].' In the year B.C. 479, Confucius had to mourn the death of another of his disciples, one of those who had been longest with him, the well-known Tsze-lu. He stands out a sort of Peter in the Confucian school, a man of impulse, prompt to speak and prompt to act. He gets many a check from the master, but there is evidently a strong sympathy between them. Tsze-lu uses a freedom with him on which none of the other disciples dares to venture, and there is not one among them all, for whom, if I may speak from my own feeling, the foreign student comes to form such a liking. A pleasant picture is presented to us in one passage of the Analects. It is said, 'The disciple Min was standing by his side, looking bland and precise; Tsze-lu (named Yu), looking bold and soldierly; Yen Yu and Tsze-kung, with a free and straightforward manner. The master was pleased, but he observed, "Yu there!— he will not die a natural death [2]."' This prediction was verified. When Confucius returned to Lu from Wei, he left Tsze-lu and Tsze-kao [3] engaged there in official service. Troubles arose. News came to Lu, B.C. 479, that a revolution was in progress in Wei, and when Confucius heard it, he said, 'Ch'ai will come here, but Yu will die [4].' So it turned out. When Tsze-kao saw that matters were desperate he made his escape, but Tsze-lu would not forsake the chief who had treated

1 See the , sQ ~ and Analects XIV. xxii. 2 Ana. XI. xii. 3 l, by surname Kao (), and name Ch'ai (). 4 See the , sQ~.

him well. He threw himself into the melee, and was slain. Confucius wept sore for him, but his own death was not far off. It took place on the eleventh day of the fourth month in the same year, B.C. 479 [1]. Early one morning, we are told, he got up, and with his hands behind his back, dragging his staff, he moved about by his door, crooning over,—

'The great mountain must crumble; The strong beam must break; And the wise man wither away like a plant.'

After a little, he entered the house and sat down opposite the door. Tsze-kung had heard his words, and said to himself, 'If the great mountain crumble, to what shall I look up? If the strong beam break, and the wise man wither away, on whom shall I lean? The master, I fear, is going to be ill.' With this he hastened into the house. Confucius said to him, 'Ts'ze, what makes you so late? According to the statutes of Hsia, the corpse was dressed and coffined at the top of the eastern steps, treating the dead as if he were still the host. Under the Yin, the ceremony was performed between the two pillars, as if the dead were both host and guest. The rule of Chau is to perform it at the top of the western steps, treating the dead as if he were a guest. I am a man of Yin, and last night I dreamt that I was sitting with offerings before me between the two pillars. No intelligent monarch arises; there is not one in the kingdom that will make me his master. My time has come to die.' So it was. He went to his couch, and after seven days expired [2]. Such is the account which we have of the last hours of the great philosopher of China. His end was not unimpressive, but it was melancholy. He sank behind a cloud. Disappointed hopes made his soul bitter. The great ones of the kingdom had not received his teachings. No wife nor child was by to do the kindly offices of affection for him. Nor were the expectations of another life present with him as he passed through the dark valley. He uttered no prayer, and he betrayed no apprehensions. Deep-treasured in his own heart may have been the thought that he had endeavoured to serve his generation by the will of God, but he gave no sign. 'The mountain falling came to nought, and the rock was removed

1 See the , sQ~, and Chiang Yung's Life of Confucius, in loc. 2 See the Li Chi, II, Sect. I. ii. 20.

out of his place. So death prevailed against him and he passed; his countenance was changed, and he was sent away.' 10. I flatter myself that the preceding paragraphs contain a more correct narrative of the principal incidents in the life of Confucius than has yet been given in any European language. They might easily have been expanded into a volume, but I did not wish to exhaust the subject, but only to furnish a sketch, which, while it might satisfy the general reader, would be of special assistance to the careful student of the classical Books. I had taken many notes of the manifest errors in regard to chronology and other matters in the 'Narratives of the School,' and the chapter of Sze-ma Ch'ien on the K'ung family, when the digest of Chiang Yung, to which I have made frequent reference, attracted my attention. Conclusions to which I had come were confirmed, and a clue was furnished to difficulties which I was seeking to disentangle. I take the opportunity to acknowledge here my obligations to it. With a few notices of Confucius's habits and manners, I shall conclude this section. Very little can be gathered from reliable sources on the personal appearance of the sage. The height of his father is stated, as I have noted, to have been ten feet, and though Confucius came short of this by four inches, he was often called 'the tall man.' It is allowed that the ancient foot or cubit was shorter than the modem, but it must be reduced more than any scholar I have consulted has yet done, to bring this statement within the range of credibility. The legends assign to his figure 'nine-and-forty remarkable peculiarities [1],' a tenth part of which would have made him more a monster than a man. Dr. Morrison says that the images of him which he had seen in the northern parts of China, represent him as of a dark, swarthy colour [2]. It is not so with those common in the south. He was, no doubt, in size and complexion much the same as many of his descendants in the present day. Dr. Edkins and myself enjoyed the services of two of those descendants, who acted as 'wheelers' in the wheelbarrows which conveyed us from Ch'u-fau to a town on the Grand Canal more than 250 miles off. They were strong, capable men, both physically and mentally superior to their companions.

1 QE. 2 Chinese and English Dictionary, char. . Sir John Davis also mentions seeing a figure of Confucius, in a temple near the Po- yang lake, of which the complexion was 'quite black' (The Chinese, vol. ii. p. 66).

But if his disciples had nothing to chronicle of his personal appearance, they have gone very minutely into an account of many of his habits. The tenth Book of the Analects is all occupied with his deportment, his eating, and his dress. In public, whether in the village, the temple, or the court, he was the man of rule and ceremony, but 'at home he was not formal.' Yet if not formal, he was particular. In bed even he did not forget himself;— 'he did not lie like a corpse,' and 'he did not speak.' 'He required his sleeping dress to be half as long again as his body.' 'If he happened to be sick, and the prince came to visit him, he had his face set to the east, made his court robes be put over him, and drew his girdle across them.' He was nice in his diet,— 'not disliking to have his rice dressed fine, nor to have his minced meat cut small.' 'Anything at all gone he would not touch.' 'He must have his meat cut properly, and to every kind its proper sauce; but he was not a great eater.' 'It was only in drink that he laid down no limit to himself, but he did not allow himself to be confused by it.' 'When the villagers were drinking together, on those who carried staffs going out, he went out immediately after.' There must always be ginger at the table, and 'when eating, he did not converse.' 'Although his food might be coarse rice and poor soup, he would offer a little of it in sacrifice, with a grave, respectful air.' 'On occasion of a sudden clap of thunder, or a violent wind, he would change countenance. He would do the same, and rise up moreover, when he found himself a guest at a loaded board.' 'At the sight of a person in mourning, he would also change countenance, and if he happened to be in his carriage, he would bend forward with a respectful salutation.' 'His general way in his carriage was not to turn his head round, nor talk hastily, nor point with his hands.' He was charitable. 'When any of his friends died, if there were no relations who could be depended on for the necessary offices, he would say, "I will bury him." 'The disciples were so careful to record these and other characteristics of their master, it is said, because every act, of movement or of rest, was closely associated with the great principles which it was his object to inculcate. The detail of so many small matters, however, hardly impresses a foreigner so favourably. There rather seems to be a want of freedom about the philosopher.

SECTION II. HIS INFLUENCE AND OPINIONS.

1. Confucius died, we have seen, complaining that of all the princes of the kingdom there was not one who would adopt his

[Sidebar] Homage rendered to Confucius by the sovereigns of China.

principles and obey his lessons. He had hardly passed from the stage of life, when his merit began to be acknowledged. When the duke Ai heard of his death, he pronounced his eulogy in the words, 'Heaven has not left to me the aged man. There is none now to assist me on the throne. Woe is me! Alas! O venerable Ni [1]!' Tsze- kung complained of the inconsistency of this lamentation from one who could not use the master when he was alive, but the prince was probably sincere in his grief. He caused a temple to be erected, and ordered that sacrifice should be offered to the sage, at the four seasons of the year [2]. The sovereigns of the tottering dynasty of Chau had not the intelligence, nor were they in a position, to do honour to the departed philosopher, but the facts detailed in the first chapter of these prolegomena, in connexion with the attempt of the founder of the Ch'in dynasty to destroy the literary monuments of antiquity, show how the authority of Confucius had come by that time to prevail through the nation. The founder of the Han dynasty, in passing through Lu, B.C. 195, visited his tomb and offered the three victims in sacrifice to him. Other sovereigns since then have often made pilgrimages to the spot. The most famous temple in the empire now rises near the place of the grave. The second and greatest of the rulers of the present dynasty, in the twenty-third year of his reign, the K'ang-hsi period, there set the example of kneeling thrice, and each time laying his forehead thrice in the dust, before the image of the sage. In the year of our Lord 1, began the practice of conferring honourary designations on Confucius by imperial authority. The emperor Ping [3] then styled him— 'The duke Ni, all-complete and

l Li Chi, II. Sect. I. iii. 43. This eulogy is found at greater length in the , immediately after the notice of the sage's death. 2 See the tq, @, art. on Confucius. I am indebted to this for most of the notices in this paragraph. 3 .

illustrious [1].' This was changed, in A.D. 492, to— 'The venerable Ni, the accomplished Sage [2].' Other titles have supplanted this. Shun-chih [3], the first of the Man-chau dynasty, adopted, in his second year, A.D. 1645, the style, 'K'ung, the ancient Teacher, accomplished and illustrious, all-complete, the perfect Sage [4];' but twelve years later, a shorter title was introduced,— 'K'ung, the ancient Teacher, the perfect Sage [5].' Since that year no further alteration has been made. At first, the worship of Confucius was confined to the country of Lu, but in A.D. 57 it was enacted that sacrifices should be offered to him in the imperial college, and in all the colleges of the principal territorial divisions throughout the empire. In those sacrifices he was for some centuries associated with the duke of Chau, the legislator to whom Confucius made frequent reference, but in A.D. 609 separate temples were assigned to them, and in 628 our sage displaced the older worthy altogether. About the same time began the custom, which continues to the present day, of erecting temples to him,— separate structures, in connexion with all the colleges, or examination-halls, of the country. The sage is not alone in those temples. In a hall behind the principal one occupied by himself are the tablets — in some cases, the images — of several of his ancestors, and other worthies; while associated with himself are his principal disciples, and many who in subsequent times have signalized themselves as expounders and exemplifiers of his doctrines. On the first day of every month, offerings of fruits and vegetables are set forth, and on the fifteenth there is a solemn burning of incense. But twice a year, in the middle months of spring and autumn, when the first ting day [6] of the month comes round, the worship of Confucius is performed with peculiar solemnity. At the imperial college the emperor himself is required to attend in state, and is in fact the principal performer. After all the preliminary arrangements have been made, and the emperor has twice knelt and six times bowed his head to the earth, the presence of Confucius's spirit is invoked in the words, 'Great art thou, O perfect sage! Thy virtue is full; thy doctrine is complete. Among mortal men there has not been thine equal. All kings honour thee. Thy statutes and laws have come gloriously

1 . 2 t. 3 v. 4 jt, v, l 5 tvl 6 WB

down. Thou art the pattern in this imperial school. Reverently have the sacrificial vessels been set out. Full of awe, we sound our drums and bells [1].' The spirit is supposed now to be present, and the service proceeds through various offerings, when the first of which has been set forth, an officer reads the following [2], which is the prayer on the occasion:— 'On this ... month of this ... year, I, A.B., the emperor, offer a sacrifice to the philosopher K'ung, the ancient Teacher, the perfect Sage, and say,— O Teacher, in virtue equal to Heaven and Earth, whose doctrines embrace the past time and the present, thou didst digest and transmit the six classics, and didst hand down lessons for all generations! Now in this second month of spring (or autumn), in reverent observance of the old statutes, with victims, silks, spirits, and fruits, I carefully offer sacrifice to thee. With thee are associated the philosopher Yen, Continuator of thee; the philosopher Tsang, Exhibiter of thy fundamental principles; the philosopher Tsze-sze, Transmitter of thee; and the philosopher Mang, Second to thee. May'st thou enjoy the offerings!' I need not go on to enlarge on the homage which the emperors of China render to Confucius. It could not be more complete. He was unreasonably neglected when alive. He is now unreasonably venerated when dead. 2. The rulers of China are not singular in this matter, but in entire sympathy with the mass of their people. It is the distinction

[Sidebar] General appreciation of Confucius.

of this empire that education has been highly prized in it from the earliest times. It was so before the era of Confucius, and we may be sure that the system met with his approbation. One of his remarkable sayings was,— 'To lead an uninstructed people to war is to throw them away [3].' When he pronounced this judgment, he was not thinking of military training, but of education in the duties of life and citizenship. A people so taught, he thought, would be morally fitted to fight for their government. Mencius, when lecturing to the ruler of T'ang on the proper way of governing a kingdom, told him that he must provide the means of education for all, the poor as well as the rich. 'Establish,' said he, 'hsiang, hsu, hsio, and hsiao,— all those educational institutions,— for the instruction of the people [4].'

1 2 See the jMq§QG. 3 Ana. XIII. xxx. 4 Mencius III. Pt. I. iii. 10.

At the present day, education is widely diffused throughout China. In few other countries is the schoolmaster more abroad, and in all schools it is Confucius who is taught. The plan of competitive examinations, and the selection for civil offices only from those who have been successful candidates,— good so far as the competition is concerned, but injurious from the restricted range of subjects with which an acquaintance is required,— have obtained for more than twelve centuries. The classical works are the text books. It is from them almost exclusively that the themes proposed to determine the knowledge and ability of the students are chosen. The whole of the magistracy of China is thus versed in all that is recorded of the sage, and in the ancient literature which he preserved. His thoughts are familiar to every man in authority, and his character is more or less reproduced in him. The official civilians of China, numerous as they are, are but a fraction of its students, and the students, or those who make literature a profession, are again but a fraction of those who attend school for a shorter or longer period. Yet so far as the studies have gone, they have been occupied with the Confucian writings. In the schoolrooms there is a tablet or inscription on the wall, sacred to the sage, and every pupil is required, on coming to school on the morning of the first and fifteenth of every month, to bow before it, the first thing, as an act of reverence [1]. Thus all in China who receive the slightest tincture of learning do so at the fountain of Confucius. They learn of him and do homage to him at once. I have repeatedly quoted the statement that during his life-time he had three thousand disciples. Hundreds of millions are his disciples now. It is hardly necessary to make any allowance in this statement for the followers of Taoism and Buddhism, for, as Sir John Davis has observed, 'whatever the other opinions or faith of a Chinese may be, he takes good care to treat Confucius with respect [2].' For two thousand years he has reigned supreme, the undisputed teacher of this most populous land. 3. This position and influence of Confucius are to be ascribed, I conceive, chiefly to two causes:— his being the preserver, namely of

l During the present dynasty, the tablet of g, the god of literature, has to a considerable extent displaced that of Confucius in schools. Yet the worship of him does not clash with that of the other. He is 'the father' of composition only. 2 The Chinese, vol. ii. p. 45.

the monuments of antiquity, and the exemplifier and expounder of

[Sidebar] The causes of his influence.

the maxims of the golden age of China; and the devotion to him of his immediate disciples and their early followers. The national and the personal are thus blended in him, each in its highest degree of excellence. He was a Chinese of the Chinese; he is also represented as, and all now believe him to have been, the beau ideal of humanity in its best and noblest estate. 4. It may be well to bring forward here Confucius's own estimate of himself and of his doctrines. It will serve to illustrate the

[Sidebar] His own estimate of himself and of his doctrines.

statements just made. The following are some of his sayings:— 'The sage and the man of perfect virtue;— how dare I rank myself with them? It may simply be said of me, that I strive to become such without satiety, and teach others without weariness.' 'In letters I am perhaps equal to other men; but the character of the superior man, carrying out in his conduct what he professes, is what I have not yet attained to.' 'The leaving virtue without proper cultivation; the not thoroughly discussing what is learned; not being able to move towards righteousness of which a knowledge is gained; and not being able to change what is not good;— these are the things which occasion me solicitude.' 'I am not one who was born in the possession of knowledge; I am one who is fond of antiquity and earnest in seeking it there.' 'A transmitter and not a maker, believing in and loving the ancients, I venture to compare myself with our old P'ang [1].' Confucius cannot be thought to speak of himself in these declarations more highly than he ought to do. Rather we may recognise in them the expressions of a genuine humility. He was conscious that personally he came short in many things, but he toiled after the character, which he saw, or fancied that he saw, in the ancient sages whom he acknowledged; and the lessons of government and morals which he labored to diffuse were those which had already been inculcated and exhibited by them. Emphatically he was 'a transmitter and not a maker.' It is not to be understood that he was not fully satisfied of the truth of the principles which he had learned. He held them with the full approval and consent of his own understanding. He believed that if they were acted on, they would remedy the evils of his time.

1 All these passages are taken from the seventh Book of the Analects. See chapters xxxiii, xxxii, iii, xix, and i.

There was nothing to prevent rulers like Yao and Shun and the great Yu from again arising, and a condition of happy tranquillity being realized throughout the kingdom under their sway. If in anything he thought himself 'superior and alone,' having attributes which others could not claim, it was in his possessing a divine commission as the conservator of ancient truth and rules. He does not speak very definitely on this point. It is noted that 'the appointments of Heaven was one of the subjects on which he rarely touched [1].' His most remarkable utterance was that which I have already given in the sketch of his Life:— 'When he was put in fear in K'wang, he said, "After the death of king Wan, was not the cause of truth lodged here in me? If Heaven had wished to let this cause of truth perish, then I, a future mortal, should not have got such a relation to that cause. While Heaven does not let the cause of truth perish, what can the people of K'wang do to me [2]?"' Confucius, then, did feel that he was in the world for a special purpose. But it was not to announce any new truths, or to initiate any new economy. It was to prevent what had previously been known from being lost. He followed in the wake of Yao and Shun, of T'ang, and king Wan. Distant from the last by a long interval of time, he would have said that he was distant from him also by a great inferiority of character, but still he had learned the principles on which they all happily governed the country, and in their name he would lift up a standard against the prevailing lawlessness of his age. 5. The language employed with reference to Confucius by his disciples and their early followers presents a striking contrast with his own.

[Sidebar] Estimate of him by his disciples and their early followers.

I have already, in writing of the scope and value of 'The Doctrine of the Mean,' called attention to the extravagant eulogies of his grandson Tsze-sze. He only followed the example which had been set by those among whom the philosopher went in and out. We have the language of Yen Yuan, his favourite, which is comparatively moderate, and simply expresses the genuine admiration of a devoted pupil [3]. Tsze-kung on several occasions spoke in a different style. Having heard that one of the chiefs of Lu had said that he himself — Tsze-kung — was superior to Confucius, he observed, 'Let me use the comparison of a house and its encompassing wall. My wall

1 Ana. IX. i. 2 Ana. IX. iii. 3 Ana. IX. x.

only reaches to the shoulders. One may peep over it, and see whatever is valuable in the apartments. The wall of my master is several fathoms high. If one do not find the door and enter by it, he cannot see the rich ancestral temple with its beauties, nor all the officers in their rich array. But I may assume that they are few who find the door. The remark of the chief was only what might have been expected [1]' Another time, the same individual having spoken revilingly of Confucius, Tsze-kung said, 'It is of no use doing so. Chung-ni cannot be reviled. The talents and virtue of other men are hillocks and mounds which may be stepped over. Chung-ni is the sun or moon, which it is not possible to step over. Although a man may wish to cut himself off from the sage, what harm can he do to the sun and moon? He only shows that he does not know his own capacity [2].' In conversation with a fellow-disciple, Tsze-kung took a still higher flight. Being charged by Tsze-ch'in with being too modest, for that Confucius was not really superior to him, he replied, 'For one word a man is often deemed to be wise, and for one word he is often deemed to be foolish. We ought to be careful indeed in what we say. Our master cannot be attained to, just in the same way as the heavens cannot be gone up to by the steps of a stair. Were our master in the position of the prince of a State, or the chief of a Family, we should find verified the description which has been given of a sage's rule:— He would plant the people, and forthwith they would be established; he would lead them on, and forthwith they would follow him; he would make them happy, and forthwith multitudes would resort to his dominions; he would stimulate them, and forthwith they would be harmonious. While he lived, he would be glorious. When he died, he would be bitterly lamented. How is it possible for him to be attained to [3]?' From these representations of Tsze-kung, it was not a difficult step for Tsze-sze to take in exalting Confucius not only to the level of the ancient sages, but as 'the equal of Heaven.' And Mencius took up the theme. Being questioned by Kung-sun Ch'au, one of his disciples, about two acknowledged sages, Po-i and I Yin, whether they were to be placed in the same rank with Confucius, he replied, 'No. Since there were living men until now, there never was another Confucius;' and then he proceeded to fortify his

1 Ana. XIX. xxiii. 2 Ana. XIX. xxiv. 3 Ana. XIX. xxv.

opinion by the concurring testimony of Tsai Wo, Tsze-kung, and Yu Zo, who all had wisdom, he thought, sufficient to know their master. Tsai Wo's opinion was, 'According to my view of our master, he is far superior to Yao and Shun.' Tsze-kung said, 'By viewing the ceremonial ordinances of a prince, we know the character of his government. By hearing his music, we know the character of his virtue. From the distance of a hundred ages after, I can arrange, according to their merits, the kings of those hundred ages;— not one of them can escape me. From the birth of mankind till now, there has never been another like our master.' Yu Zo said, 'Is it only among men that it is so? There is the ch'i- lin among quadrupeds; the fung-hwang among birds; the T'ai mountain among mounds and ant-hills; and rivers and seas among rainpools. Though different in degree, they are the same in kind. So the sages among mankind are also the same in kind. But they stand out from their fellows, and rise above the level; and from the birth of mankind till now, there never has been one so complete as Confucius [1].' I will not indulge in farther illustration. The judgment of the sage's disciples, of Tsze-sze, and of Mencius, has been unchallenged by the mass of the scholars of China. Doubtless it pleases them to bow down at the shrine of the Sage, for their profession of literature is thereby glorified. A reflection of the honour done to him falls upon themselves. And the powers that be, and the multitudes of the people, fall in with the judgment. Confucius is thus, in the empire of China, the one man by whom all possible personal excellence was exemplified, and by whom all possible lessons of social virtue and political wisdom are taught. 6. The reader will be prepared by the preceding account not to expect to find any light thrown by Confucius on the great problems of the human condition and destiny. He did not speculate on the creation of things or the end of them. He was not troubled to account for the origin of man, nor did he seek to know about his hereafter. He meddled neither with physics nor metaphysics [2].

[Sidebar] Subjects on which Confucius did not treat.— That he was unreligious, unspiritual, and open to the charge of insincerity.

The testimony of the Analects about the subjects of his teaching is the following:— 'His frequent themes of discourse were the Book

1 Mencius, II. Pt. I. ii. 23-28. 2 'The contents of the Yi-ching, and Confucius's labors upon it, may be objected in opposition to this statement, and I must be understood to make it with come reservation. Six years ago, I spent all my leisure time for twelve months in the study of that Work, and wrote out a translation of it, but at the close I was only groping my way in darkness to lay hold of [footnote continued next page].

of Poetry, the Book of History, and the maintenance of the rules of Propriety.' 'He taught letters, ethics, devotion of soul, and truthfulness.' 'Extraordinary things; feats of strength; states of disorder; and spiritual beings, he did not like to talk about [1].' Confucius is not to be blamed for his silence on the subjects here indicated. His ignorance of them was to a great extent his misfortune. He had not learned them. No report of them had come to him by the ear; no vision of them by the eye. And to his practical mind the toiling of thought amid uncertainties seemed worse than useless. The question has, indeed, been raised, whether he did not make changes in the ancient creed of China [2], but I cannot believe that he did so consciously and designedly. Had his idiosyncrasy been different, we might have had expositions of the ancient views on some points, the effect of which would have been more beneficial than the indefiniteness in which they are now left, and it may be doubted so far, whether Confucius was not unfaithful to his guides. But that he suppressed or added, in order to bring in articles of belief originating with himself, is a thing not to be charged against him. I will mention two important subjects in regard to which there is a conviction in my mind that he came short of the faith of the older sages. The first is the doctrine of God. This name is common in the Shih-ching and Shu-ching. Ti or Shang-Ti appears there as a personal being, ruling in heaven and on earth, the author of man's moral nature, the governor among the nations, by whom kings reign and princes decree justice, the rewarder of the good, and the punisher of the bad. Confucius preferred to speak of Heaven. Instances have already been given of this. Two others may be cited:— 'He who offends against Heaven has none to whom he can pray [3]?' 'Alas! ' said he, 'there is no one that knows me.' Tsze-kung said, 'What do you mean by thus saying that no one knows you?' He replied, 'I do not murmur against Heaven. I do

[footnote continued from previous page] its scope and meaning, and up to this time I have not been able to master it so as to speak positively about it. It will come in due time, in its place, in the present Publication, and I do not think that what I here say of Confucius will require much, if any, modification.' So I wrote in 1861; and I at last accomplished a translation of the Yi, which was published in 1882, as the sixteenth volume of 'The Sacred Books of 'the East.' I should like to bring out a revision of that version, with the Chinese text, so as to make it uniform with the volumes of the Classics previously published. But as Yang Ho said to Confucius, 'The years do not wait for us.' 1 Ana. VII. xvii; xxiv; xx. 2 See Hardwick's 'Christ and other Masters,' Part iii, pp. 18, 19, with his reference in a note to a passage from Meadows's 'The Chinese and their Rebellions.' 3 Ana. III. xiii.

not grumble against men. My studies lie low, and my penetration rises high. But there is Heaven;— THAT knows me [1]!' Not once throughout the Analects does he use the personal name. I would say that he was unreligious rather than irreligious; yet by the coldness of his temperament and intellect in this matter, his influence is unfavourable to the development of ardent religious feeling among the Chinese people generally; and he prepared the way for the speculations of the literati of medieval and modern times, which have exposed them to the charge of atheism. Secondly, Along with the worship of God there existed in China, from the earliest historical times, the worship of other spiritual beings,— especially, and to every individual, the worship of departed ancestors. Confucius recognised this as an institution to be devoutly observed. 'He sacrificed to the dead as if they were present; he sacrificed to the spirits as if the spirits were present. He said. "I consider my not being present at the sacrifice as if I did not sacrifice [2]."' The custom must have originated from a belief in the continued existence of the dead. We cannot suppose that they who instituted it thought that with the cessation of this life on earth there was a cessation also of all conscious being. But Confucius never spoke explicitly on this subject. He tried to evade it. 'Chi Lu asked about serving the spirits of the dead, and the master said, "While you are not able to serve men, how can you serve their spirits?" The disciple added, "I venture to ask about death," and he was answered, "While you do not know life, how can you know about death [3]."' Still more striking is a conversation with another disciple, recorded in the 'Narratives of the School.' Tsze-kung asked him, saying, 'Do the dead have knowledge (of our services, that is), or are they without knowledge?' The master replied, 'If I were to say that the dead have such knowledge, I am afraid that filial sons and dutiful grandsons would injure their substance in paying the last offices to the departed; and if I were to say that the dead have not such knowledge, I am afraid lest unfilial sons should leave their parents unburied. You need not wish, Tsze, to know whether the dead have knowledge or not. There is no present urgency about the point. Hereafter you will know it for yourself [4].' Surely this was not the teaching proper to a sage.

1 Ana. XIV. xxxvii. 2 Ana. III. xii. 3 Ana. XI. xi. 4 ay, G, art. P, towards the end.

He said on one occasion that he had no concealments from his disciples [1]. Why did he not candidly tell his real thoughts on so interesting a subject? I incline to think that he doubted more than he believed. If the case were not so, it would be difficult to account for the answer which he returned to a question as to what constituted wisdom:— 'To give one's self earnestly,' said he, 'to the duties due to men, and, while respecting spiritual beings, to keep aloof from them, may be called wisdom [2].' At any rate, as by his frequent references to Heaven, instead of following the phraseology of the older sages, he gave occasion to many of his professed followers to identify God with a principle of reason and the course of nature; so, in the point now in hand, he has led them to deny, like the Sadducees of old, the existence of any spirit at all, and to tell us that their sacrifices to the dead are but an outward form, the mode of expression which the principle of filial piety requires them to adopt when its objects have departed this life. It will not be supposed that I wish to advocate or to defend the practice of sacrificing to the dead. My object has been to point out how Confucius recognised it, without acknowledging the faith from which it must have originated, and how he enforced it as a matter of form or ceremony. It thus connects itself with the most serious charge that can be brought against him,— the charge of insincerity. Among the four things which it is said he taught, 'truthfulness' is specified [3], and many sayings might be quoted from him, in which 'sincerity' is celebrated as highly and demanded as stringently as ever it has been by any Christian moralist; yet he was not altogether the truthful and true man to whom we accord our highest approbation. There was the case of Mang Chih-fan, who boldly brought up the rear of the defeated troops of Lu, and attributed his occupying the place of honour to the backwardness of his horse. The action was gallant, but the apology for it was weak and unnecessary. And yet Confucius saw nothing in the whole but matter for praise [4]. He could excuse himself from seeing an unwelcome visitor on the ground that he was sick, when there was nothing the matter with him [5]. These were small matters, but what shall we say to the incident which I have given in the sketch of his Life, p. 79,— his deliberately breaking the oath which he had sworn, simply on the ground that it had been forced from him?

1 Ana. VII. xxiii. 2 Ana. VI. xx. 3 See above, near the beginning of this paragraph. 4 Ana. VI. xiii. 5 Am. XVII. xx.

I should be glad if I could find evidence on which to deny the truth of that occurrence. But it rests on the same authority as most other statements about him, and it is accepted as a fact by the people and scholars of China. It must have had, and it must still have, a very injurious influence upon them. Foreigners charge a habit of deceitfulness upon the nation and its government;— on the justice or injustice of this charge I say nothing. For every word of falsehood and every act of insincerity, the guilty party must bear his own burden, but we cannot but regret the example of Confucius in this particular. It is with the Chinese and their sage, as it was with the Jews of old and their teachers. He that leads them has caused them to err, and destroyed the way of their paths [1]. But was not insincerity a natural result of the un-religion of Confucius? There are certain virtues which demand a true piety in order to their flourishing in the heart of man. Natural affection, the feeling of loyalty, and enlightened policy, may do much to build up and preserve a family and a state, but it requires more to maintain the love of truth, and make a lie, spoken or acted, to be shrunk from with shame. It requires in fact the living recognition of a God of truth, and all the sanctions of revealed religion. Unfortunately the Chinese have not had these, and the example of him to whom they bow down as the best and wisest of men, does not set them against dissimulation. 7. I go on to a brief discussion of Confucius's views on government, or what we may call his principles of political science. It

[sidebar] His views on government.

could not be in his long intercourse with his disciples but that he should enunciate many maxims bearing on character and morals generally, but he never rested in the improvement of the individual. 'The kingdom, the world, brought to a state of happy tranquillity [2],' was the grand object which he delighted to think of; that it might be brought about as easily as 'one can look upon the palm of his hand,' was the dream which it pleased him to indulge [3]. He held that there was in men an adaptation and readiness to be governed, which only needed to be taken advantage of in the proper way. There must be the right administrators, but given those, and 'the growth of government would be rapid, just as vegetation is rapid in the earth; yea, their

1 Isaiah iii. 12. 2 U. See the j, g, pars. 4, 5; &c. 3 Ana. III. xi; et al.

government would display itself like an easily-growing rush [1].' The same sentiment was common from the lips of Mencius. Enforcing it one day, when conversing with one of the petty rulers of his time, he said in his peculiar style, 'Does your Majesty understand the way of the growing grain? During the seventh and eighth months, when drought prevails, the plants become dry. Then the clouds collect densely in the heavens; they send down torrents of rain, and the grain erects itself as if by a shoot. When it does so, who can keep it back [2]?' Such, he contended, would be the response of the mass of the people to any true 'shepherd of men.' It may be deemed unnecessary that I should specify this point, for it is a truth applicable to the people of all nations. Speaking generally, government is by no device or cunning craftiness; human nature demands it. But in no other family of mankind is the characteristic so largely developed as in the Chinese. The love of order and quiet, and a willingness to submit to 'the powers that be,' eminently distinguish them. Foreign writers have often taken notice of this, and have attributed it to the influence of Confucius's doctrines as inculcating subordination; but it existed previous to his time. The character of the people molded his system, more than it was molded by it. This readiness to be governed arose, according to Confucius, from 'the duties of universal obligation, or those between sovereign and minister, between father and son, between husband and wife, between elder brother and younger, and those belonging to the intercourse of friends [3].' Men as they are born into the world, and grow up in it, find themselves existing in those relations. They are the appointment of Heaven. And each relation has its reciprocal obligations, the recognition of which is proper to the Heaven-conferred nature. It only needs that the sacredness of the relations be maintained, and the duties belonging to them faithfully discharged, and the 'happy tranquillity' will prevail all under heaven. As to the institutions of government, the laws and arrangements by which, as through a thousand channels, it should go forth to carry plenty and prosperity through the length and breadth of the country, it did not belong to Confucius, 'the throneless king,' to set them forth minutely. And indeed they were existing in the records of 'the ancient sovereigns.' Nothing new was needed. It was only

1 e, xx. 3. 2 Mencius, I. Pt. I. vi. 6. 3 e, xx. 8.

requisite to pursue the old paths, and raise up the old standards. 'The government of Wan and Wu,' he said, 'is displayed in the records,— the tablets of wood and bamboo. Let there be the men, and the government will flourish; but without the men, the government decays and ceases [1].' To the same effect was the reply which he gave to Yen Hui when asked by him how the government of a State should be administered. It seems very wide of the mark, until we read it in the light of the sage's veneration for ancient ordinances, and his opinion of their sufficiency. 'Follow,' he said, 'the seasons of Hsia. Ride in the state carriages of Yin. Wear the ceremonial cap of Chau. Let the music be the Shao with its pantomimes. Banish the songs of Chang, and keep far from specious talkers [2].' Confucius's idea then of a happy, well-governed State did not go beyond the flourishing of the five relations of society which have been mentioned; and we have not any condensed exhibition from him of their nature, or of the duties belonging to the several parties in them. Of the two first he spoke frequently, but all that he has said on the others would go into small compass. Mencius has said that 'between father and son there should be affection; between sovereign and minister righteousness; between husband and wife attention to their separate functions; between old and young, a proper order; and between friends, fidelity [3].' Confucius, I apprehend, would hardly have accepted this account. It does not bring out sufficiently the authority which he claimed for the father and the sovereign, and the obedience which he exacted from the child and the minister. With regard to the relation of husband and wife, he was in no respect superior to the preceding sages who had enunciated their views of 'propriety' on the subject. We have a somewhat detailed exposition of his opinions in the 'Narratives of the School.'— 'Man,' said he, 'is the representative of Heaven, and is supreme over all things. Woman yields obedience to the instructions of man, and helps to carry out his principles [4]. On this account she can determine nothing of herself, and is subject to the rule of the three obediences. When young, she must obey her father and elder brother; when married, she must obey her husband;

1 e, xx. 2. 2 Ana. XV. x. 3 Mencius, III. Pt. I. iv. 8. 4 kl, DU]; kl, klD, z].

when her husband is dead, she must obey her son. She may not think of marrying a second time. No instructions or orders must issue from the harem. Woman's business is simply the preparation and supplying of drink and food. Beyond the threshold of her apartments she should not be known for evil or for good. She may not cross the boundaries of the State to attend a funeral. She may take no step on her own motion, and may come to no conclusion on her own deliberation. There are five women who are not to be taken in marriage:— the daughter of a rebellious house; the daughter of a disorderly house; the daughter of a house which has produced criminals for more than one generation; the daughter of a leprous house; and the daughter who has lost her father and elder brother. A wife may be divorced for seven reasons, which, however, may be overruled by three considerations. The grounds for divorce are disobedience to her husband's parents; not giving birth to a son; dissolute conduct; jealousy— (of her husband's attentions, that is, to the other inmates of his harem); talkativeness; and thieving. The three considerations which may overrule these grounds are— first, if, while she was taken from a home, she has now no home to return to; second, if she have passed with her husband through the three years' mourning for his parents; third, if the husband have become rich from being poor. All these regulations were adopted by the sages in harmony with the natures of man and woman, and to give importance to the ordinance of marriage [1].' With these ideas of the relations of society, Confucius dwelt much on the necessity of personal correctness of character on the part of those in authority, in order to secure the right fulfillment of the duties implied in them. This is one grand peculiarity of his teaching. I have adverted to it in the review of 'The Great Learning,' but it deserves some further exhibition, and there are three conversations with the chief Chi K'ang in which it is very expressly set forth. 'Chi K'ang asked about government, and Confucius replied, "To govern means to rectify. If you lead on the people with correctness, who will dare not to be correct?"' 'Chi K'ang, distressed about the number of thieves in the State, inquired of Confucius about how to do away with them. Confucius said, "If you, sir, were not covetous, though you should reward them to do it, they would not steal."' 'Chi K'ang asked about government,

1 ayT, R

saying, "What do you say to killing the unprincipled for the good of the principled?" Confucius replied, "Sir, in carrying on your government, why should you use killing at all? Let your evinced desires be for what is good, and the people will be good. The relation between superiors and inferiors is like that between the wind and the grass. The grass must bend, when the wind blows across it [1]."' Example is not so powerful as Confucius in these and many other passages represented it, but its influence is very great. Its virtue is recognised in the family, and it is demanded in the church of Christ. 'A bishop'— and I quote the term with the simple meaning of overseer— 'must be blameless.' It seems to me, however, that in the progress of society in the West we have come to think less of the power of example in many departments of state than we ought to do. It is thought of too little in the army and the navy. We laugh at the 'self-denying ordinance,' and the 'new model' of 1644, but there lay beneath them the principle which Confucius so broadly propounded,— the importance of personal virtue in all who are in authority. Now that Great Britain is the governing power over the masses of India and that we are coming more and more into contact with tens of thousands of the Chinese, this maxim of our sage is deserving of serious consideration from all who bear rule, and especially from those on whom devolves the conduct of affairs. His words on the susceptibility of the people to be acted on by those above them ought not to prove as water spilt on the ground. But to return to Confucius.— As he thus lays it down that the mainspring of the well-being of society is the personal character of the ruler, we look anxiously for what directions he has given for the cultivation of that. But here he is very defective. 'Self-adjustment and purification,' he said, 'with careful regulation of his dress, and the not making a movement contrary to the rules of propriety;— this is the way for the ruler to cultivate his person [2].' This is laying too much stress on what is external; but even to attain to this is beyond unassisted human strength. Confucius, however, never recognised a disturbance of the moral elements in the constitution of man. The people would move, according to him, to the virtue of their ruler as the grass bends to the wind, and that virtue

1 Ana. XII. xvii; xviii; xix. 2 e, xx. 14.

would come to the ruler at his call. Many were the lamentations which he uttered over the degeneracy of his times; frequent were the confessions which he made of his own shortcomings. It seems strange that it never came distinctly before him, that there is a power of evil in the prince and the peasant, which no efforts of their own and no instructions of sages are effectual to subdue. The government which Confucius taught was a despotism, but of a modified character. He allowed no 'jus divinum,' independent of personal virtue and a benevolent rule. He has not explicitly stated, indeed, wherein lies the ground of the great relation of the governor and the governed, but his views on the subject were, we may assume, in accordance with the language of the Shu-ching:— 'Heaven and Earth are the parents of all things, and of all things men are the most intelligent. The man among them most distinguished for intelligence becomes chief ruler, and ought to prove himself the parent of the people [1].' And again, 'Heaven, protecting the inferior people, has constituted for them rulers and teachers, who should be able to be assisting to God, extending favour and producing tranquillity throughout all parts of the kingdom [2].' The moment the ruler ceases to be a minister of God for good, and does not administer a government that is beneficial to the people, he forfeits the title by which he holds the throne, and perseverance in oppression will surely lead to his overthrow. Mencius inculcated this principle with a frequency and boldness which are remarkable. It was one of the things about which Confucius did not like to talk. Still he held it. It is conspicuous in the last chapter of 'The Great Learning.' Its tendency has been to check the violence of oppression, and maintain the self-respect of the people, all along the course of Chinese history. I must bring these observations on Confucius's views of government to a close, and I do so with two remarks. First, they are adapted to a primitive, unsophisticated state of society. He is a good counsellor for the father of a family, the chief of a clan, and even the head of a small principality. But his views want the comprehension which would make them of much service in a great dominion. Within three centuries after his death,the government of China passed into a new phase. The founder of the Ch'in dynasty conceived the grand idea of abolishing all its feudal kingdoms, and centralizing their administration in himself. He effected the revo-

l 2 See the Shu-ching, V. i. Sect. I. 2, 7.

lution, and succeeding dynasties adopted his system, and gradually molded it into the forms and proportions which are now existing. There has been a tendency to advance, and Confucius has all along been trying to carry the nation back. Principles have been needed, and not 'proprieties.' The consequence is that China has increased beyond its ancient dimensions, while there has been no corresponding development of thought. Its body politic has the size of a giant, while it still retains the mind of a child. Its hoary age is in danger of becoming but senility. Second, Confucius makes no provision for the intercourse of his country with other and independent nations. He knew indeed of none such. China was to him 'The Middle Kingdom [1],' 'The multitude of Great States [2],' 'All under heaven [3].' Beyond it were only rude and barbarous tribes. He does not speak of them bitterly, as many Chinese have done since his time. In one place he contrasts their condition favourably with the prevailing anarchy of the kingdom, saying 'The rude tribes of the east and north have their princes, and are not like the States of our great land which are without them [4].' Another time, disgusted with the want of appreciation which he experienced, he was expressing his intention to go and live among the nine wild tribes of the east. Some one said, 'They are rude. How can you do such a thing?' His reply was, 'If a superior man dwelt among them, what rudeness would there be [5]?' But had he been a ruler-sage, he would not only have influenced them by his instructions, but brought them to acknowledge and submit to his sway, as the great Yu did [6]. The only passage of Confucius's teachings from which any rule can be gathered for dealing with foreigners is that in the 'Doctrine of the Mean,' where 'indulgent treatment of men from a distance' is laid down as one of the nine standard rules for the government of the country [7]. But 'the men from a distance' are understood to be pin and lu [8] simply,— 'guests,' that is, or officers of one State seeking employment in another, or at the royal court; and 'visitors,' or travelling merchants. Of independent nations the ancient classics have not any knowledge, nor has Confucius. So long as merchants from Europe and other parts of the world could have been content to appear in China as suppliants, seeking the privilege of trade, so

1 . 2 L; Ana. III. v. 3 U; passim. 4 Ana. III. v. 5 Ana. IX. xiii. 6 g, III. ii. 10; et al. 7 XH. 8 .

long the government would have ranked them with the barbarous hordes of antiquity, and given them the benefit of the maxim about 'indulgent treatment,' according to its own understanding of it. But when their governments interfered, and claimed to treat with that of China on terms of equality, and that their subjects should be spoken to and of as being of the same clay with the Chinese themselves, an outrage was committed on tradition and prejudice, which it was necessary to resent with vehemence. I do not charge the contemptuous arrogance of the Chinese government and people upon Confucius; what I deplore, is that he left no principles on record to check the development of such a spirit. His simple views of society and government were in a measure sufficient for the people while they dwelt apart from the rest of mankind. His practical lessons were better than if they had been left, which but for him they probably would have been, to fall a prey to the influences of Taoism and Buddhism, but they could only subsist while they were left alone. Of the earth earthy, China was sure to go to pieces when it came into collision with a Christianly-civilized power. Its sage had left it no preservative or restorative elements against such a case. It is a rude awakening from its complacency of centuries which China has now received. Its ancient landmarks are swept away. Opinions will differ as to the justice or injustice of the grounds on which it has been assailed, and I do not feel called to judge or to pronounce here concerning them. In the progress of events, it could hardly be but that the collision should come; and when it did come it could not be but that China should be broken and scattered. Disorganization will go on to destroy it more and more, and yet there is hope for the people, with their veneration for the relations of society, with their devotion to learning, and with their habits of industry and sobriety; there is hope for them, if they will look away from all their ancient sages, and turn to Him, who sends them, along with the dissolution of their ancient state, the knowledge of Himself, the only living and true God, and of Jesus Christ whom He hath sent. 8. I have little more to add on the opinions of Confucius. Many of his sayings are pithy, and display much knowledge of character; but as they are contained in the body of the Work, I will not occupy the space here with a selection of those which have struck myself as most worthy of notice. The fourth Book of the Analects,

which is on the subject of zan, or perfect virtue, has several utterances which are remarkable. Thornton observes:— 'It may excite surprise, and probably incredulity, to state that the golden rule of our Saviour, 'Do unto others as you would that they should do unto you,' which Mr. Locke designates as 'the most unshaken rule of morality, and foundation of all social virtue,' had been inculcated by Confucius, almost in the same words, four centuries before [1].' I have taken notice of this fact in reviewing both 'The Great Learning' and 'The Doctrine of the Mean.' I would be far from grudging a tribute of admiration to Confucius for it. The maxim occurs also twice in the Analects. In Book XV. xxiii, Tsze-kung asks if there be one word which may serve as a rule of practice for all one's life, and is answered, 'Is not reciprocity such a word? What you do not want done to yourself do not do to others.' The same disciple appears in Book V. xi, telling Confucius that he was practising the lesson. He says, 'What I do not wish men to do to me, I also wish not to do to men;' but the master tells him, 'Tsze, you have not attained to that.' It would appear from this reply, that he was aware of the difficulty of obeying the precept ; and it is not found, in its condensed expression at least, in the older classics. The merit of it is Confucius's own. When a comparison, however, is drawn between it and the rule laid down by Christ, it is proper to call attention to the positive form of the latter, 'All things whatsoever ye would that men should do unto you, do ye even so to them.' The lesson of the gospel commands men to do what they feel to be right and good. It requires them to commence a course of such conduct, without regard to the conduct of others to themselves. The lesson of Confucius only forbids men to do what they feel to be wrong and hurtful. So far as the point of priority is concerned, moreover, Christ adds, 'This is the law and the prophets.' The maxim was to be found substantially in the earlier revelations of God. Still it must be allowed that Confucius was well aware of the importance of taking the initiative in discharging all the relations of society. See his words as quoted from 'The Doctrine of the Mean' on pages 48, 49 above. But the worth of the two maxims depends on the intention of the enunciators in regard to their application. Confucius, it seems to me, did not think of the reciprocity coming into action beyond the circle of his five relations of society. Possibly, he might have

1 History of China, vol. i. p. 209.

required its observance in dealings even with the rude tribes, which were the only specimens of mankind besides his own countrymen of which he knew anything, for on one occasion, when asked about perfect virtue, he replied, 'It is, in retirement, to be sedately grave; in the management of business, to be reverently attentive; in intercourse with others, to be strictly sincere. Though a man go among the rude uncultivated tribes, these qualities may not be neglected [1].' Still Confucius delivered his rule to his countrymen only, and only for their guidance in their relations of which I have had so much occasion to speak. The rule of Christ is for man as man, having to do with other men, all with himself on the same platform, as the children and subjects of the one God and Father in heaven. How far short Confucius came of the standard of Christian benevolence, may be seen from his remarks when asked what was to be thought of the principle that injury should be recompensed with kindness. He replied, 'With what then will you recompense kindness? Recompense injury with justice, and recompense kindness with kindness [2].' The same deliverance is given in one of the Books of the Li Chi, where he adds that 'he who recompenses injury with kindness is a man who is careful of his person [3].' Chang Hsuan, the commentator of the second century, says that such a course would be 'incorrect in point of propriety [4].' This 'propriety' was a great stumbling-block in the way of Confucius. His morality was the result of the balancings of his intellect, fettered by the decisions of men of old, and not the gushings of a loving heart, responsive to the promptings of Heaven, and in sympathy with erring and feeble humanity. This subject leads me on to the last of the opinions of Confucius which I shall make the subject of remark in this place. A commentator observes, with reference to the inquiry about recompensing injury with kindness, that the questioner was asking only about trivial matters, which might be dealt with in the way he mentioned, while great offences, such as those against a sovereign or a father, could not be dealt with by such an inversion of the principles of justice [5]. In the second Book of the Li Chi there is the following passage:— 'With the slayer of his father, a man may not live under the same heaven; against the slayer of his brother, a man must never have to go home to fetch a weapon; with the slayer of

1 Ana. XIII. xix. 2 Ana. XIV. xxxvi. 3 §O, O, par. 12. 4 D§. 5 See notes in loc., p. 288.

his friend, a man may not live in the same State [1].' The lex talionis is here laid down in its fullest extent. The Chau Li tells us of a provision made against the evil consequences of the principle, by the appointment of a minister called 'The Reconciler [2].' The provision is very inferior to the cities of refuge which were set apart by Moses for the manslayer to flee to from the fury of the avenger. Such as it was, however, it existed, and it is remarkable that Confucius, when consulted on the subject, took no notice of it, but affirmed the duty of blood-revenge in the strongest and most unrestricted terms. His disciple Tsze-hsia asked him, 'What course is to be pursued in the case of the murder of a father or mother?' He replied, 'The son must sleep upon a matting of grass, with his shield for his pillow; he must decline to take office; he must not live under the same heaven with the slayer. When he meets him in the marketplace or the court, he must have his weapon ready to strike him.' 'And what is the course on the murder of a brother?' 'The surviving brother must not take office in the same State with the slayer; yet if he go on his prince's service to the State where the slayer is, though he meet him, he must not fight with him.' 'And what is the course on the murder of an uncle or a cousin?' 'In this case the nephew or cousin is not the principal. If the principal on whom the revenge devolves can take it, he has only to stand behind with his weapon in his hand, and support him [3].' Sir John Davis has rightly called attention to this as one of the objectionable principles of Confucius [4]. The bad effects of it are evident even in the present day. Revenge is sweet to the Chinese. I have spoken of their readiness to submit to government, and wish to live in peace, yet they do not like to resign even to government the 'inquisition for blood.' Where the ruling authority is feeble, as it is at present, individuals and clans take the law into their own hands, and whole districts are kept in a state of constant feud and warfare. But I must now leave the sage. I hope I have not done him injustice; the more I have studied his character and opinions, the more highly have I come to regard him. He was a very great man, and his influence has been on the whole a great benefit to the Chinese, while his teachings suggest important lessons to ourselves who profess to belong to the school of Christ.

1 §O, I. Sect. I. Pt. v. 10. 2 P§, Q , pp. 14-18. 3 §O, II. Sect. I. Pt. ii. 24. See also the ay, , l^. 4 The Chinese, vol. ii. p. 41.



SECTION III.

HIS IMMEDIATE DISCIPLES.

Sze-ma Ch'ien makes Confucius say: 'The disciples who received my instructions, and could themselves comprehend them, were seventy-seven individuals. They were all scholars of extraordinary ability [1].' The common saying is, that the disciples of the sage were three thousand, while among them there were seventy-two worthies. I propose to give here a list of all those whose names have come down to us, as being his followers. Of the greater number it will be seen that we know nothing more than their names and surnames. My principal authorities will be the 'Historical Records,' the 'Narratives of the School,' 'The Sacrificial Canon for the Sage's Temple, with Plates,' and the chapter on 'The Disciples of Confucius' prefixed to the 'Four Books, Text and Commentary, with Proofs and Illustrations.' In giving a few notices of the better-known individuals, I will endeavour to avoid what may be gathered from the Analects. 1. Yen Hui, by designation Tsze-yuan (C^, rlW). He was a native of Lu, the favourite of his master, whose junior he was by thirty years, and whose disciple he became when he was quite a youth. 'After I got Hui,' Confucius remarked, 'the disciples came closer to me.' We are told that once, when he found himself on the Nang hill with Hui, Tsze-lu, and Tsze-kung, Confucius asked them to tell him their different aims, and he would choose between them. Tsze-lu began, and when he had done, the master said, 'It marks your bravery.' Tsze-kung followed, on whose words the judgment was, 'They show your discriminating eloquence.' At last came Yen Yuan, who said, 'I should like to find an intelligent king and sage ruler whom I might assist. I would diffuse among the people instructions on the five great points, and lead them on by the rules of propriety and music, so that they should not care to fortify their cities by walls and moats, but would fuse their swords and spears into implements of agriculture. They should send forth their flocks without fear into the plains and forests. There should be no sunderings of families, no widows or widowers. For a thousand

1 lA~qACQCHAh].

years there would be no calamity of war. Yu would have no opportunity to display his bravery, or Ts'ze to display his oratory.' The master pronounced, 'How admirable is this virtue!' When Hui was twenty-nine, his hair was all white, and in three years more he died. He was sacrificed to, along with Confucius, by the first emperor of the Han dynasty. The title which he now has in the sacrificial Canon,— 'Continuator of the Sage,' was conferred in the ninth year of the emperor, or, to speak more correctly, of the period, Chia-ching, A. D. 1530. Almost all the present sacrificial titles of the worthies in the temple were fixed at that time. Hui's place is the first of the four Assessors, on the east of the sage [1]. 2. Min Sun, styled Tsze-ch'ien ({lArl). He was a native of Lu, fifteen years younger than Confucius, according to Sze-ma Ch'ien, but fifty years younger, according to the 'Narratives of the School,' which latter authority is followed in 'The Annals of the Empire.' When he first came to Confucius, we are told, he had a starved look [2], which was by-and-by exchanged for one of fulness and satisfaction [3]. Tsze-kung asked him how the change had come about. He replied, 'I came from the midst of my reeds and sedges into the school of the master. He trained my mind to filial piety, and set before me the examples of the ancient kings. I felt a pleasure in his instructions; but when I went abroad, and saw the people in authority, with their umbrellas and banners, and all the pomp and circumstance of their trains, I also felt pleasure in that show. These two things assaulted each other in

1 I have referred briefly, at p. 91, to the temples of Confucius. The principal hall, called j, or 'Hall of the Great and Complete One,' is that in which is his own statue or the tablet of his spirit, having on each side of it, within a screen, the statues, or tablets, of his 'four Assessors.' On the east and west, along the walls of the same apartment, are the two , the places of the Q G, or 'twelve Wise Ones,' those of his disciples, who, next to the 'Assessors,' are counted worthy of honour. Outside this apartment, and running in a line with the two , but along the external wall of the sacred inclosure, are the two u, or side- galleries, which I have sometimes called the ranges of the outer court. In each there are sixty-four tablets of the disciples and other worthies, having the same title as the Wise Ones, that of , or 'Ancient Worthy,' or the inferior title of , 'Ancient Scholar.' Behind the principal hall is the Rt, sacred to Confucius's ancestors, whose tablets are in the centre, fronting the south, like that of Confucius. On each side are likewise the tablets of certain 'ancient Worthies,' and 'ancient Scholars.' 2 . 3 .

my breast. I could not determine which to prefer, and so I wore that look of distress. But now the lessons of our master have penetrated deeply into my mind. My progress also has been helped by the example of you my fellow-disciples. I now know what I should follow and what I should avoid, and all the pomp of power is no more to me than the dust of the ground. It is on this account that I have that look of fulness and satisfaction.' Tsze-ch'ien was high in Confucius's esteem. He was distinguished for his purity and filial affection. His place in the temple is the first, east, among 'The Wise Ones,' immediately after the four assessors. He was first sacrificed to along with Confucius, as is to be understood of the other 'Wise Ones,' excepting in the case of Yu Zo, in the eighth year of the style K'ai-yuan of the sixth emperor of the T'ang dynasty, A.D. 720. His title, the same as that of all but the Assessors, is— 'The ancient Worthy, the philosopher Min.' 3 . Zan Kang, styled Po-niu (T, r [al. ] ). He was a native of Lu, and Confucius's junior only by seven years. When Confucius became minister of Crime, he appointed Po-niu to the office, which he had himself formerly held, of commandant of Chung-tu. His tablet is now fourth among 'The Wise Ones,' on the west. 4. Zan Yung, styled Chung-kung (Tl, r}). He was of the same clan as Zan Kang, and twenty-nine years younger than Confucius. He had a bad father, but the master declared that was not to be counted to him, to detract from his admitted excellence. His place is among 'The Wise Ones,' the second, east. 5. Zan Ch'iu, styled Tsze-yu (TD, rl). He was related to the two former, and of the same age as Chung-kung. He was noted among the disciples for his versatile ability and many acquirements. Tsze-kung said of him, 'Respectful to the old, and kind to the young; attentive to guests and visitors; fond of learning and skilled in many arts; diligent in his examination of things:— these are what belong to Zan Ch'iu." It has been noted in the life of Confucius that it was by the influence of Tsze-yu that he was finally restored to Lu. He occupies the third place, west, among 'The Wise Ones.' 6. Chung Yu, styled Tsze-lu and Chi-lu (, rl, Sru). He was a native of P'ien () in Lu and only

nine years younger than Confucius. At their first interview, the master asked him what he was fond of, and he replied, 'My long sword.' Confucius said, 'If to your present ability there were added the results of learning, you would be a very superior man.' 'Of what advantage would learning be to me?' asked Tsze-lu. 'There is a bamboo on the southern hill, which is straight itself without being bent. If you cut it down and use it, you can send it through a rhinoceros's hide;— what is the use of learning?' 'Yes,' said the master; 'but if you feather it and point it with steel, will it not penetrate more deeply?' Tsze-lu bowed ' twice, and said, 'I will reverently receive your instructions.' Confucius was wont to say, 'From the time that I got Yu, bad words no more came to my ears.' For some time Tsze-lu was chief magistrate of the district of P'u (Z), where his administration commanded the warm commendations of the master. He died finally in Wei, as has been related above, pp. 86, 87. His tablet is now the fourth, east, from those of the Assessors. 7. Tsai Yu styled Tsze-wo (_, rl). He was a native of Lu, but nothing is mentioned of his age. He had 'a sharp mouth,' according to Sze-ma Ch'ien. Once, when he was at the court of Ch'u on some commission, the king Chao offered him an easy carriage adorned with ivory for his master. Yu replied, 'My master is a man who would rejoice in a government where right principles were carried out, and can find his joy in himself when that is not the case. Now right principles and virtue are as it were in a state of slumber. His wish is to rouse and put them in motion. Could he find a prince really anxious to rule according to them, he would walk on foot to his court and be glad to do so. Why need he receive such a valuable gift, as this from so great a distance?' Confucius commended this reply; but where he is mentioned in the Analects, Tsze-wo does not appear to great advantage. He took service in the State of Ch'i, and was chief magistrate of Lin-tsze, where he joined with T'ien Ch'ang in some disorderly movement [1], which led to the destruction of his kindred, and made Confucius ashamed of him. His tablet is now the second, west, among 'The Wise Ones.' 8. Twan-mu Ts'ze, styled Tsze-kung (, rl^ [al. lB]), whose place is now third, east, from the Assessors. He