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This etext was prepared by Rick Davis of Ashigawa, Japan, with assistance from David Steelman, Taiwan.
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THE CHINESE CLASSICS
with a translation, critical and exegetical notes, prolegomena, and copious indexes
by
James Legge
IN FIVE VOLUMES
CONFUCIAN ANALECTS THE GREAT LEARNING THE DOCTRINE OF THE MEAN
PROLEGOMENA.
CHAPTER I. OF THE CHINESE CLASSICS GENERALLY.
SECTION I. BOOKS INCLUDED UNDER THE NAME OF THE CHINESE CLASSICS.
1. The Books now recognised as of highest authority in China are comprehended under the denominations of 'The five Ching [1]' and 'The four Shu [2].' The term Ching is of textile origin, and signifies the warp threads of a web, and their adjustment. An easy application of it is to denote what is regular and insures regularity. As used with reference to books, it indicates their authority on the subjects of which they treat. 'The five Ching' are the five canonical Works, containing the truth upon the highest subjects from the sages of China, and which should be received as law by all generations. The term Shu simply means Writings or Books, = the Pencil Speaking; it may be used of a single character, or of books containing thousands of characters. 2. 'The five Ching' are: the Yi [3], or, as it has been styled, 'The Book of Changes;' the Shu [4], or 'The Book of History;' the Shih [5], or 'The Book of Poetry;' the Li Chi [6], or 'Record of Rites;' and the Ch'un Ch'iu [7], or 'Spring and Autumn,' a chronicle of events, extending from 722 to 481 B.C. The authorship, or compilation rather, of all these Works is loosely attributed to Confucius. But much of the Li Chi is from later hands. Of the Yi, the Shu, and the Shih, it is only in the first that we find additions attributed to the philosopher himself, in the shape of appendixes. The Ch'un Ch'iu is the only one of the five Ching which can, with an approximation to correctness, be described as of his own 'making.'
1 g. 2 . 3 g. 4 g. 5 g. 6 §O. 7 K.
'The Four Books' is an abbreviation for 'The Books of the Four Philosophers [1].' The first is the Lun Yu [2], or 'Digested Conversations,' being occupied chiefly with the sayings of Confucius. He is the philosopher to whom it belongs. It appears in this Work under the title of 'Confucian Analects.' The second is the Ta Hsio [3], or 'Great Learning,' now commonly attributed to Tsang Shan [4], a disciple of the sage. He is he philosopher of it. The third is the Chung Yung [5], or 'Doctrine of the Mean,' as the name has often been translated, though it would be better to render it, as in the present edition, by 'The State of Equilibrium and Harmony.' Its composition is ascribed to K'ung Chi [6], the grandson of Confucius. He is the philosopher of it. The fourth contains the works of Mencius. 3. This arrangement of the Classical Books, which is commonly supposed to have originated with the scholars of the Sung dynasty, is defective. The Great Learning and the Doctrine of the Mean are both found in the Record of Rites, being the thirty- ninth and twenty-eighth Books respectively of that compilation, according to the best arrangement of it. 4. The oldest enumerations of the Classical Books specify only the five Ching. The Yo Chi, or 'Record of Music [7],' the remains of which now form one of the Books in the Li Chi, was sometimes added to those, making with them the six Ching. A division was also made into nine Ching, consisting of the Yi, the Shih, the Shu, the Chau Li [8], or 'Ritual of Chau,' the I Li [9], or certain 'Ceremonial Usages,' the Li Chi, and the annotated editions of the Ch'un Ch'iu [10], by Tso Ch'iu-ming [11], Kung-yang Kao [12], and Ku-liang Ch'ih [13]. In the famous compilation of the Classical Books, undertaken by order of T'ai-tsung, the second emperor of the T'ang dynasty (A.D. 627-649), and which appeared in the reign of his successor, there are thirteen Ching, viz. the Yi, the Shih, the Shu, the three editions of the Ch'un Ch'iu, the Li Chi, the Chau Li, the I Li, the Confucian Analects, the R Ya [14], a sort of ancient dictionary, the Hsiao Ching [15], or 'Classic of Filial Piety,' and the works of Mencius. 5. A distinction, however, was made among the Works thus
1 l. 2 y. 3 j. 4 . 5 e. 6 . 7 O. 8 P§. 9 §. 10 KT 11 C. 12 . 13 . 14 . 15 g.
comprehended under the same common name; and Mencius, the Lun Yu, the Ta Hsio, the Chung Yung, and the Hsiao Ching were spoken of as the Hsiao Ching, or 'Smaller Classics.' It thus appears, contrary to the ordinary opinion on the subject, that the Ta Hsio and Chung Yung had been published as separate treatises before the Sung dynasty, and that Four Books, as distinguished from the greater Ching, had also previously found a place in the literature of China [1].
SECTION II. THE AUTHORITY OF THE CHINESE CLASSICS.
1. This subject will be discussed in connexion with each separate Work, and it is only designed here to exhibit generally the evidence on which the Chinese Classics claim to be received as genuine productions of the time to which they are referred. 2. In the memoirs of the Former Han dynasty (B.C. 202-A.D. 24), we have one chapter which we may call the History of Literature [2]. It commences thus: 'After the death of Confucius [3], there was an end of his exquisite words; and when his seventy disciples had passed away, violence began to be done to their meaning. It came about that there were five different editions of the Ch'un Ch'iu, four of the Shih, and several of the Yi. Amid the disorder and collisions of the warring States (B.C. 481-220), truth and falsehood were still more in a state of warfare, and a sad confusion marked the words of the various scholars. Then came the calamity inflicted under the Ch'in dynasty (B.C. 220- 205), when the literary monuments were destroyed by fire, in order to keep the people in ignorance. But, by and by, there arose the Han dynasty, which set itself to remedy the evil wrought by the Ch'in. Great efforts were made to collect slips and tablets [4], and the way was thrown wide open for the bringing in of Books. In the time of the emperor Hsiao-wu [5] (B.C. 140-85), portions of Books being wanting and tablets lost, so that ceremonies and music were
1 For the statements in the two last paragraphs, see eX, j , @. 2 e~, , Q, . 3 . 4 gy, slips and tablets of bamboo, which supplied in those days the place of paper. 5 @Z.
suffering great damage, he was moved to sorrow and said, "I am very sad for this." He therefore formed the plan of Repositories, in which the Books might be stored, and appointed officers to transcribe Books on an extensive scale, embracing the works of the various scholars, that they might all be placed in the Repositories. The emperor Ch'ang (B.C. 32-5), finding that a portion of the Books still continued dispersed or missing, commissioned Ch'an Nang, the Superintendent of Guests [2], to search for undiscovered Books throughout the empire, and by special edict ordered the chief of the Banqueting House, Liu Hsiang [3], to examine the Classical Works, along with the commentaries on them, the writings of the scholars, and all poetical productions; the Master-controller of Infantry, Zan Hwang [4], to examine the Books on the art of war; the Grand Historiographer, Yin Hsien [5], to examine the Books treating of the art of numbers (i.e. divination); and the imperial Physician, Li Chu-kwo [6], to examine the Books on medicine. Whenever any book was done with, Hsiang forthwith arranged it, indexed it, and made a digest of it, which was presented to the emperor. While this work was in progress, Hsiang died, and the emperor Ai (B.C. 6-A.D. 1) appointed his son, Hsin [7], a Master of the imperial carriages, to complete his father's work. On this, Hsin collected all the Books, and presented a report of them, under seven divisions.' The first of these divisions seems to have been a general catalogue [8] containing perhaps only the titles of the works included in the other six. The second embraced the Classical Works [9]. From the abstract of it, which is preserved in the chapter referred to, we find that there were 294 collections of the Yi-ching from thirteen different individuals or editors [10]; 412 collections of the Shu-ching, from nine different individuals; 416 volumes of the Shih-ching, from six different individuals [11]; of the Books of Rites, 555 collec-
1 . 2 A. 3 SjBV. 4 BL. 5 vOw. 6 . 7 ^. 8 . 9 . 10 Z, QTa, GEQ g. How much of the whole work was contained in each g, it is impossible to determine. P. Regis says: 'Pien, quemadmodum Gallice dicimus "des pieces d'eloquence, de poesie."' 11 , a, @Q. The collections of the Shih-ching are mentioned under the name of chuan, 'sections,' 'portions.' Had p'ien been used, it might have been understood of individual odes. This change of terms shows that by p'ien in the other summaries, we are not to understand single blocks or chapters.
tions, from thirteen different individuals; of the Books on Music, 165 collections, from six different editors; 948 collections of History, under the heading of the Ch'un Ch'iu, from twenty-three different individuals; 229 collections of the Lun Yu, including the Analects and kindred fragments, from twelve different individuals; of the Hsiao-ching, embracing also the R Ya, and some other portions of the ancient literature, 59 collections, from eleven different individuals; and finally of the lesser Learning, being works on the form of the characters, 45 collections, from eleven different individuals. The works of Mencius were included in the second division [1], among the writings of what were deemed orthodox scholars [2], of which there were 836 collections, from fifty-three different individuals. 3. The above important document is sufficient to show how the emperors of the Han dynasty, as soon as they had made good their possession of the empire, turned their attention to recover the ancient literature of the nation, the Classical Books engaging their first care, and how earnestly and effectively the scholars of the time responded to the wishes of their rulers. In addition to the facts specified in the preface to it, I may relate that the ordinance of the Ch'in dynasty against possessing the Classical Books (with the exception, as it will appear in its proper place, of the Yi-ching) was repealed by the second sovereign of the Han, the emperor Hsiao Hui [3], in the fourth year of his reign, B.C. 191, and that a large portion of the Shu-ching was recovered in the time of the third emperor, B.C. 179-157, while in the year B.C. 136 a special Board was constituted, consisting of literati, who were put in charge of the five Ching [4]. 4. The collections reported on by Liu Hsin suffered damage in the troubles which began A.D. 8, and continued till the rise of the second or eastern Han dynasty in the year 25. The founder of it (A.D. 25-57) zealously promoted the undertaking of his predecessors, and additional repositories were required for the Books which were collected. His successors, the emperors Hsiao- ming [5] (58-75), Hsiao-chang [6] (76-88), and Hsiao-hwo [7] (89- 105), took a part themselves in the studies and discussions of the literary tribunal, and
1 l. 2 ay. 3 f. 4 Z~, mgh. 5 v. 6 ©v. 7 M.
the emperor Hsiao-ling [1], between the years 172-178, had the text of the five Ching, as it had been fixed, cut in slabs of stone, and set up in the capital outside the gate of the Grand College. Some old accounts say that the characters were in three different forms, but they were only in one form; — see the 287th book of Chu I-tsun's great Work. 5. Since the Han, the successive dynasties have considered the literary monuments of the country to be an object of their special care. Many of them have issued editions of the Classics, embodying the commentaries of preceding generations. No dynasty has distinguished itself more in this line than the present Manchau possessors of the empire. In fine, the evidence is complete that the Classical Books of China have come down from at least a century before our Christian era, substantially the same as we have them at present. 6. But it still remains to inquire in what condition we may suppose the Books were, when the scholars of the Han dynasty commenced their labors upon them. They acknowledge that the tablets — we cannot here speak of manuscripts — were mutilated and in disorder. Was the injury which they had received of such an extent that all the care and study put forth on the small remains would be of little use? This question can be answered satisfactorily, only by an examination of the evidence which is adduced for the text of each particular Classic; but it can be made apparent that there is nothing, in the nature of the case, to interfere with our believing that the materials were sufficient to enable the scholars to execute the work intrusted to them. 7 The burning of the ancient Books by order of the founder of the Ch'in dynasty is always referred to as the greatest disaster which they sustained, and with this is coupled the slaughter of many of the Literati by the same monarch. The account which we have of these transactions in the Historical Records is the following [2]: 'In his 34th year [the 34th year, that is, after he had ascended the throne of Ch'in. It was only the 9th year after he had been acknowledged Sovereign of the empire, coinciding with B.C. 213], the emperor, returning from a visit to the south, which had extended
1 F. 2 I have thought it well to endeavour to translate the whole of the passages. Father de Mailla merely constructs from them a narrative of his own; see L'Histoire Generale de La China, tome ii. pp. 399-402. The q avoids the difficulties of the original by giving an abridgment of it.
as far as Yueh, gave a feast in his palace at Hsien-yang, when the Great Scholars, amounting to seventy men, appeared and wished him a long life [1]. One of the principal ministers, Chau Ch'ing- ch'an [2], came forward and said, "Formerly, the State of Ch'in was only 1000 li in extent, but Your Majesty, by your spirit-like efficacy and intelligent wisdom, has tranquillized and settled the whole empire, and driven away all barbarous tribes, so that, wherever the sun and moon shine, all rulers appear before you as guests acknowledging subjection. You have formed the states of the various princes into provinces and districts, where the people enjoy a happy tranquillity, suffering no more from the calamities of war and contention. This condition of things will be transmitted for 10,000 generations. From the highest antiquity there has been no one in awful virtue like Your Majesty." 'The emperor was pleased with this flattery, when Shun-yu Yueh [3], one of the Great Scholars, a native of Ch'i, advanced and said, "The sovereigns of Yin and Chau, for more than a thousand years, invested their sons and younger brothers, and meritorious ministers, with domains and rule, and could thus depend upon them for support and aid;— that I have heard. But now Your Majesty is in possession of all within the seas, and your sons and younger brothers are nothing but private individuals. The issue will be that some one will arise to play the part of T'ien Ch'ang [4], or of the six nobles of Tsin. Without the support of your own family, where will you find the aid which you may require? That a state of things not modelled from the lessons of antiquity can long continue;— that is what I have not heard. Ch'ing is now showing himself to be a flatterer, who increases the errors of Your Majesty, and not a loyal minister." 'The emperor requested the opinions of others on this representation, and the premier, Li Sze [5], said, "The five emperors were not one the double of the other, nor did the three dynasties accept one another's ways. Each had a peculiar system of government, not for the sake of the contrariety, but as being required by the changed times. Now, Your Majesty has laid the foundations of
1 hCQHe. The h were not only 'great scholars,' but had an official rank. There was what we may call a college of them, consisting of seventy members. 2 g, PC. 3 E_V. 4 '. — ' should probably be , as it is given in the T'ung Chien. See Analects XIV. xxii. T'ien Hang was the same as Ch'an Ch'ang of that chapter. 5
imperial sway, so that it will last for 10,000 generations. This is indeed beyond what a stupid scholar can understand. And, moreover, Yueh only talks of things belonging to the Three Dynasties, which are not fit to be models to you. At other times, when the princes were all striving together, they endeavoured to gather the wandering scholars about them; but now, the empire is in a stable condition, and laws and ordinances issue from one supreme authority. Let those of the people who abide in their homes give their strength to the toils of husbandry, while those who become scholars should study the various laws and prohibitions. Instead of doing this, however, the scholars do not learn what belongs to the present day, but study antiquity. They go on to condemn the present time, leading the masses of the people astray, and to disorder. '"At the risk of my life, I, the prime minister, say: Formerly, when the nation was disunited and disturbed, there was no one who could give unity to it. The princes therefore stood up together; constant references were made to antiquity to the injury of the present state; baseless statements were dressed up to confound what was real, and men made a boast of their own peculiar learning to condemn what their rulers appointed. And now, when Your Majesty has consolidated the empire, and, distinguishing black from white, has constituted it a stable unity, they still honour their peculiar learning, and combine together; they teach men what is contrary to your laws. When they hear that an ordinance has been issued, every one sets to discussing it with his learning. In the court, they are dissatisfied in heart; out of it, they keep talking in the streets. While they make a pretense of vaunting their Master, they consider it fine to have extraordinary views of their own. And so they lead on the people to be guilty of murmuring and evil speaking. If these things are not prohibited, Your Majesty's authority will decline, and parties will be formed. The best way is to prohibit them, I pray that all the Records in charge of the Historiographers be burned, excepting those of Ch'in; that, with the exception of those officers belonging to the Board of Great Scholars, all throughout the empire who presume to keep copies of the Shih-ching, or of the Shu-ching, or of the books of the Hundred Schools, be required to go with them to the officers in charge of the several districts, and burn them [1]; that all who may dare to speak
1 xuLN.
together about the Shih and the Shu be put to death, and their bodies exposed in the market-place; that those who make mention of the past, so as to blame the present, be put to death along with their relatives; that officers who shall know of the violation of those rules and not inform against the offenders, be held equally guilty with them; and that whoever shall not have burned their Books within thirty days after the issuing of the ordinance, be branded and sent to labor on the wall for four years. The only Books which should be spared are those on medicine, divination, and husbandry. Whoever wants to learn the laws may go to the magistrates and learn of them." 'The imperial decision was — "Approved."' The destruction of the scholars is related more briefly. In the year after the burning of the Books, the resentment of the emperor was excited by the remarks and the flight of two scholars who had been favourites with him, and he determined to institute a strict inquiry about all of their class in Hsien-yang, to find out whether they had been making ominous speeches about him, and disturbing the minds of the people. The investigation was committed to the Censors [1], and it being discovered that upwards of 460 scholars had violated the prohibitions, they were all buried alive in pits [2], for a warning to the empire, while degradation and banishment were employed more strictly than before against all who fell under suspicion. The emperor's eldest son, Fu-su, remonstrated with him, saying that such measures against those who repeated the words of Confucius and sought to imitate him, would alienate all the people from their infant dynasty, but his interference offended him father so much that he was sent off from court, to be with the general who was superintending the building of the great wall. 8. No attempts have been made by Chinese critics and historians to discredit the record of these events, though some have questioned the extent of the injury inflicted by them on the monuments of their ancient literature [3]. It is important to observe that the edict against the Books did not extend to the Yi- ching, which was
1 svx, i. 2 T, lH, ¤w. The meaning of this passage as a whole is sufficiently plain, but I am unable to make out the force of the phrase . 3 See the remarks of Chamg Chia-tsi (G), of the Sung dynasty, on the subject, in the mq, Bk. clxxiv. p. 5.
exempted as being a work on divination, nor did it extend to the other classics which were in charge of the Board of Great Scholars. There ought to have been no difficulty in finding copies when the Han dynasty superseded that of the Ch'in, and probably there would have been none but for the sack of the capital in B.C. 206 by Hsiang Yu, the formidable opponent of the founder of the House of Han. Then, we are told, the fires blazed for three months among the palaces and public buildings, and must have proved as destructive to the copies of the Great Scholars as the edict of the tyrant had been to the copies among the people. It is to be noted also that the life of Shih Hwang Ti lasted only three years after the promulgation of his edict. He died in B.C. 210, and the reign of his second son who succeeded him lasted only other three years. A brief period of disorder and struggling for the supreme authority between different chiefs ensured; but the reign of the founder of the Han dynasty dates from B.C. 202. Thus, eleven years were all which intervened between the order for the burning of the Books and rise of that family, which signaled itself by the care which it bestowed for their recovery; and from the edict of the tyrant of Ch'in against private individuals having copies in their keeping, to its express abrogation by the emperor Hsiao Hui, there were only twenty-two years. We may believe, indeed, that vigorous efforts to carry the edict into effect would not be continued longer than the life of its author,— that is, not for more than about three years. The calamity inflicted upon the ancient Books of China by the House of Ch'in could not have approached to anything like a complete destruction of them. There would be no occasion for the scholars of the Han dynasty, in regard to the bulk of their ancient literature, to undertake more than the work of recension and editing. 9. The idea of forgery by them on a large scale is out of the question. The catalogues of Liang Hsin enumerated more than 13,000 volumes of a larger or smaller size, the productions of nearly 600 different writers, and arranged in thirty-eight subdivisions of subjects [1]. In the third catalogue, the first subdivision contained the orthodox writers [2], to the number of fifty-three, with 836 Works or portions of their Works. Between Mencius and
1 Z, TQK, EQa, UTdGE. 2 ay.
K'ung Chi, the grandson of Confucius, eight different authors have place. The second subdivision contained the Works of the Taoist school [1], amounting to 993 collections, from thirty-seven different authors. The sixth subdivision contained the Mohist writers [2], to the number of six, with their productions in 86 collections. I specify these two subdivisions, because they embrace the Works of schools or sects antagonistic to that of Confucius, and some of them still hold a place in Chinese literature, and contain many references to the five Classics, and to Confucius and his disciples. 10. The inquiry pursued in the above paragraphs conducts us to the conclusion that the materials from which the classics, as they have come down to us, were compiled and edited in the two centuries preceding our Christian era, were genuine remains, going back to a still more remote period. The injury which they sustained from the dynasty of Ch'in was, I believe, the same in character as that to which they were exposed during all the time of 'the Warring States.' It may have been more intense in degree, but the constant warfare which prevailed for some centuries among the different states which composed the kingdom was eminently unfavourable to the cultivation of literature. Mencius tells us how the princes had made away with many of the records of antiquity, from which their own usurpations and innovations might have been condemned [3]. Still the times were not unfruitful, either in scholars or statesmen, to whom the ways and monuments of antiquity were dear, and the space from the rise of the Ch'in dynasty to the death of Confucius was not very great. It only amounted to 258 years. Between these two periods Mencius stands as a connecting link. Born probably in the year B.C. 371, he reached, by the intervention of Kung Chi, back to the sage himself, and as his death happened B.C. 288, we are brought down to within nearly half a century of the Ch'in dynasty. From all these considerations we may proceed with confidence to consider each separate Work, believing that we have in these Classics and Books what the great sage of China and his disciples gave to their country more than 2000 years ago.
1 Day. 2 ay. 3 See Mencius, V. Pt. II. ii. 2.
CHAPTER II. OF THE CONFUCIAN ANALECTS.
SECTION I. FORMATION OF THE TEXT OF THE ANALECTS BY THE SCHOLARS OF THE HAN DYNASTY.
1. When the work of collecting and editing the remains of the Classical Books was undertaken by the scholars of Han, there appeared two different copies of the Analects, one from Lu, the native State of Confucius, and the other from Ch'i, the State adjoining. Between these there were considerable differences. The former consisted of twenty Books or Chapters, the same as those into which the Classic is now divided. The latter contained two Books in addition, and in the twenty Books, which they had in common, the chapters and sentences were somewhat more numerous than in the Lu exemplar. 2. The names of several individuals are given, who devoted themselves to the study of those two copies of the Classic. Among the patrons of the Lu copy are mentioned the names of Hsia-hau Shang, grand-tutor of the heir-apparent, who died at the age of 90, and in the reign of the emperor Hsuan (B.C. 73-49) [1]; Hsiao Wang-chih [2], a general-officer, who died in the reign of the emperor Yuan (B.C. 48-33); Wei Hsien, who was a premier of the empire from B.C. 70-66; and his son Hsuan-ch'ang [3]. As patrons of the Ch'i copy, we have Wang Ch'ing, who was a censor in the year B.C. 99 [4]; Yung Shang [5]; and Wang Chi [6], a statesman who died in the beginning of the reign of the emperor Yuan. 3. But a third copy of the Analects was discovered about B.C. 150. One of the sons of the emperor Ching was appointed king of Lu [7] in the year B.C. 154, and some time after, wishing to enlarge his palace, he proceeded to pull down the house of the K'ung family, known as that where Confucius himself had lived.
1 ljLJ. 2 eNx, . 3 , , l, . 4 . 5 e. 6 LN. 7 @ (or ).
While doing so, there were found in the wall copies of the Shu- ching, the Ch'un Ch'iu, the Hsiao-ching, and the Lun Yu or Analects, which had been deposited there, when the edict for the burning of the Books was issued. There were all written, however, in the most ancient form of the Chinese character [1], which had fallen into disuse, and the king returned them to the K'ung family, the head of which, K'ung An-kwo [2], gave himself to the study of them, and finally, in obedience to an imperial order, published a Work called "The Lun Yu, with Explanations of the Characters, and Exhibition of the Meaning [3].' 4. The recovery of this copy will be seen to be a most important circumstance in the history f the text of the Analects. It is referred to by Chinese writers, as 'The old Lun Yu.' In the historical narrative which we have of the affair, a circumstance is added which may appear to some minds to throw suspicion on the whole account. The king was finally arrested, we are told, in his purpose to destroy the house, by hearing the sounds of bells, musical stones, lutes, and citherns, as he was ascending the steps that led to the ancestral hall or temple. This incident was contrived, we may suppose, by the K'ung family, to preserve the house, or it may have been devised by the historian to glorify the sage, but we may not, on account of it, discredit the finding of the ancient copies of the Books. We have K'ung An-kwo's own account of their being committed to him, and of the ways which he took to decipher them. The work upon the Analects, mentioned above, has not indeed come down to us, but his labors on the Shu- ching still remain. 5. It has been already stated, that the Lun Yu of Ch'i contained two Books more than that of Lu. In this respect, the old Lun Yu agreed with the Lu exemplar. Those two books were wanting in it as well. The last book of the Lu Lun was divided in it, however, into two, the chapter beginning, 'Yao said,' forming a whole Book by itself, and the remaining two chapters formed another Book beginning 'Tsze-chang.' With this trifling difference, the old and the Lu copies appear to have agreed together. 6 Chang Yu, prince of An-ch'ang [4], who died B.C. 4, after having
1 l, — lit. 'tadpole characters.' They were, it is said, the original forms devised by Ts'ang-chieh, with large heads and fine tails, like the creature from which they were named. See the notes to the preface to the Shu-ching in 'The Thirteen Classics.' 2 w. 3 yV. See the preface to the Lun Yu in 'The Thirteen Ching.' It has been my principal authority in this section. 4 wJ, i.
sustained several of the highest offices of the empire, instituted a comparison between the exemplars of Lu and Ch'i, with a view to determine the true text. The result of his labors appeared in twenty-one Books, which are mentioned in Liu Hsin's catalogue. They were known as the Lun of prince Chang [1], and commanded general approbation. To Chang Yu is commonly ascribed the ejecting from the Classic the two additional books which the Ch'i exemplar contained, but Ma Twan-lin prefers to rest that circumstance on the authority of the old Lun, which we have seen was without them [2]. If we had the two Books, we might find sufficient reason from their contents to discredit them. That may have been sufficient for Chang Yu to condemn them as he did, but we can hardly supposed that he did not have before him the old Lun, which had come to light about a century before he published his work. 7. In the course of the second century, a new edition of the Analects, with a commentary, was published by one of the greatest scholars which China has ever produced, Chang Hsuan, known also as Chang K'ang-ch'ang [3]. He died in the reign of the emperor Hsien (A.D. 190-220) [4] at the age of 74, and the amount of his labors on the ancient classical literature is almost incredible. While he adopted the Lu Lun as the received text of his time, he compared it minutely with those of Ch'i and the old exemplar. In the last section f this chapter will be found a list of the readings in his commentary different from those which are now acknowledged in deference to the authority of Chu Hsi, of the Sung dynasty. They are not many, and their importance is but trifling. 8. On the whole, the above statements will satisfy the reader of the care with which the text of the Lun Yu was fixed during the dynasty of Han.
SECTION II. AT WHAT TIME, AND BY WHOM, THE ANALECTS WERE WRITTEN; THEIR PLAN; AND AUTHENTICITY.
1. At the commencement of the notes upon the first Book, under the heading, 'The Title of the Work,' I have given the received account of its authorship, which precedes the catalogue
1 iJ. 2 mq, Bk. clxxxiv. p. 3. 3 G, rd. 4 m.
of Liu Hsin. According to that, the Analects were compiled by the disciples if Confucius coming together after his death, and digesting the memorials of his discourses and conversations which they had severally preserved. But this cannot be true. We may believe, indeed, that many of the disciples put on record conversations which they had had with their master, and notes about his manners and incidents of his life, and that these have been incorporated with the Work which we have, but that Work must have taken its present form at a period somewhat later. In Book VIII, chapters iii iv, we have some notices of the last days of Tsang Shan, and are told that he was visited on his death-bed by the officer Mang Ching. Now Ching was the posthumous title of Chung-sun Chieh [1], and we find him alive (Li Chi, II. Pt. ii. 2) after the death of duke Tao of Lu [2], which took place B.C. 431, about fifty years after the death of Confucius. Again, Book XIX is all occupied with the sayings of the disciples. Confucius personally does not appear in it. Parts of it, as chapters iii, xii, and xviii, carry us down to a time when the disciples had schools and followers of their own, and were accustomed to sustain their teachings by referring to the lessons which they had learned from the sage. Thirdly, there is the second chapter of Book XI, the second paragraph of which is evidently a note by the compilers of the Work, enumerating ten of the principal disciples, and classifying them according to their distinguishing characteristics. We can hardly suppose it to have been written while any of the ten were alive. But there is among them the name of Tsze-hsia, who lived to the age of about a hundred. We find him, B.C. 407, three- quarters of a century after the death of Confucius, at the court of Wei, to the prince of which he is reported to have presented some of the Classical Books [3]. 2. We cannot therefore accept the above account of the origin of the Analects,— that they were compiled by the disciples of Confucius. Much more likely is the view that we owe the work to their disciples. In the note on I. ii. I, a peculiarity is pointed out in the use of the surnames of Yew Zo and Tsang Shan, which
1 See Chu Hsi's commentary, in loc. sql, j, ], W. 2 . 3 QgRlL; see the dN, Bk. i. p. 77.
has made some Chinese critics attribute the compilation to their followers. But this conclusion does not stand investigation. Others have assigned different portions to different schools. Thus, Book V is given to the disciples of Tsze-kung; Book XI, to those of Min Tsze-ch'ien; Book XIV, to Yuan Hsien; and Book XVI has been supposed to be interpolated from the Analects of Ch'i. Even if we were to acquiesce in these decisions, we should have accounted only for a small part of the Work. It is best to rest in the general conclusion, that it was compiled by the disciples of the disciples of the sage, making free use of the written memorials concerning him which they had received, and the oral statements which they had heard, from their several masters. And we shall not be far wrong, if we determine its date as about the end of the fourth, or the beginning of the fifth century before Christ. 3. In the critical work on the Four Books, called 'Record of Remarks in the village of Yung [1],' it is observed, 'The Analects, in my opinion, were made by the disciples, just like a record of remarks. There they were recorded, and afterwards came a first- rate hand, who gave them the beautiful literary finish which we now witness, so that there is not a character which does not have its own indispensable place [2].' We have seen that the first of these statements contains only a small amount of truth with regard to the materials of the Analects, nor can we receive the second. If one hand or one mind had digested the materials provided by many, the arrangement and the style of the work would have been different. We should not have had the same remark appearing in several Books, with little variation, and sometimes with none at all. Nor can we account on this supposition for such fragments as the last chapters of the ninth, tenth, and sixteenth Books, and many others. No definite plan has been kept in view throughout. A degree of unity appears to belong to some books more than others, and in general to the first ten more than to those which follow, but there is no progress of thought or illustration of subject from Book to Book. And even in those where the chapters have
1 y,— , 'the village of Yung,' is, I conceive, the writer's nom de plume. 2 yQOl, py@, Ob, @, zo, U rL@.
a common subject, they are thrown together at random more than on any plan. 4. We cannot tell when the Work was first called the Lun Yu [1]. The evidence in the preceding section is sufficient to prove that when the Han scholars were engaged in collecting the ancient Books, it came before them, not in broken tablets, but complete, and arranged in Books or Sections, as we now have it. The Old copy was found deposited in the wall of the house which Confucius had occupied, and must have been placed there not later than B.C. 211, distant from the date which I have assigned to the compilation, not much more than a century and a half. That copy, written in the most ancient characters, was, possibly, the autograph of the compilers. We have the Writings, or portions of the Writings, of several authors of the third and fourth centuries before Christ. Of these, in addition to 'The Great Learning,' 'The Doctrine of the Mean,' and 'The Works of Mencius,' I have looked over the Works of Hsun Ch'ing [2] of the orthodox school, of the philosophers Chwang and Lieh of the Taoist school [3], and of the heresiarch Mo [4]. In the Great Learning, Commentary, chapter iv, we have the words of Ana. XII. xiii. In the Doctrine of the Mean, ch. iii, we have Ana. VI. xxvii; and in ch. xxviii. 5, we have substantially Ana. III. ix. In Mencius, II. Pt. I. ii. 19, we have Ana. VII. xxxiii, and in vii. 2, Ana. IV. i; in III. Pt. I. iv. 11, Ana. VIII. xviii, xix; in IV. Pt. I. xiv. 1, Ana. XI. xvi. 2; in V. Pt. II. vii. 9, Ana. X. xiii. 4; and in VII. Pt. II. xxxvii. 1, 2, 8, Ana. V. xxi, XIII. xxi, and XVII. xiii. These quotations, however, are introduced by 'The Master said,' or 'Confucius said,' no mention being made of any book called 'The Lun Yu,' or Analects. In the Great Learning, Commentary, x. 15, we have the words of Ana. IV. iii, and in
1 In the continuation of the 'General Examination of Records and Scholars (mq),' Bk. cxcviii. p. 17, it is said, indeed, on the authority of Wang Ch'ung (R), a scholar of our first century, that when the Work came out of the wall it was named a Chwan or Record (), and that it was when K'ung An-kwo instructed a native of Tsin, named Fu-ch'ing, in it, that it first got the name of Lun Yu:— Zoy_, W, wHjH, l y. If it were so, it is strange the circumstance is not mentioned in Ho Yen's preface. 2 . 3 l, Cl. 4 l.
Mencius, III. Pt. II. vii. 3, those of Ana. XVII. i, but without any notice of quotation. In the writings of Hsun Ch'ing, Book I. page 2, we find something like the words of Ana. XV. xxx; and on p. 6, part of XIV. xxv. But in these instances there is no mark of quotation. In the writings of Chwang, I have noted only one passage where the words of the Analects are reproduced. Ana. XVIII. v is found, but with large additions, and no reference of quotation, in his treatise on 'Man in the World, associated with other Men [1].' In all those Works, as well as in those of Lieh and Mo, the references to Confucius and his disciples, and to many circumstances of his life, are numerous [2]. The quotations of sayings of his not found in the Analects are likewise many, especially in the Doctrine of the Mean, in Mencius, and in the Works of Chwang. Those in the latter are mostly burlesques, but those by the orthodox writers have more or less of classical authority. Some of them may be found in the Chia Yu [3], or 'Narratives of the School,' and in parts of the Li Chi, while others are only known to us by their occurrence in these Writings. Altogether, they do not supply the evidence, for which I am in quest, of the existence of the Analects as a distinct Work, bearing the name of the Lun Yu, prior to the Ch'in dynasty. They leave the presumption, however, in favour of those conclusions, which arises from the facts stated in the first section, undisturbed. They confirm it rather. They show that there was abundance of materials at hand to the scholars of Han, to compile a much larger Work with the same title, if they had felt it their duty to do the business of compilation, and not that of editing.
SECTION III. OF COMMENTARIES UPON THE ANALECTS.
1. It would be a vast and unprofitable labor to attempt to give a list of the Commentaries which have been published on this Work. My object is merely to point out how zealously the business of interpretation was undertaken, as soon as the text had been
1 H@. 2 In Mo's chapter against the Literati, he mentions some of the characteristics of Confucius in the very words of the Tenth Book of the Analects. 3 ay.
recovered by the scholars of the Han dynasty, and with what industry it has been persevered in down to the present time. 2. Mention has been made, in Section I. 6, of the Lun of prince Chang, published in the half century before our era. Pao Hsien [1], a distinguished scholar and officer, f the reign of Kwang-wu [2], the first emperor of the Eastern Han dynasty, A.D. 25-57, and another scholar of the surname Chau [3], less known but of the same time, published Works, containing arrangements of this in chapters and sentences, with explanatory notes. The critical work of K'ung An-kwo on the old Lun Yu has been referred to. That was lost in consequence of suspicions under which An- kwo fell towards the close of the reign of the emperor Wu, but in the time of the emperor Shun, A.D. 126-144, another scholar, Ma Yung [4], undertook the exposition of the characters in the old Lun, giving at the same time his views of the general meaning. The labors of Chang Hsuan in the second century have been mentioned. Not long after his death, there ensued a period of anarchy, when the empire was divided into three governments, well known from the celebrated historical romance, called 'The Three Kingdoms.' The strongest of them, the House of Wei, patronized literature, and three of its high officers and scholars, Ch'an Ch'un, Wang Su, and Chau Shang-lieh [5], in the first half, and probably the second quarter, of the third century, all gave to the world their notes on the Analects. Very shortly after, five of the great ministers of the Government of Wei, Sun Yung, Chang Ch'ung, Tsao Hsi, Hsun K'ai, and Ho Yen [6], united in the production of one great Work, entitled, 'A Collection of Explanations of the Lun Yu [7].' It embodied the labors of all the writers which have been mentioned, and, having been frequently reprinted by succeeding dynasties, it still remains. The preface of the five compilers, in the form of a memorial to the emperor, so called, of the House of Wei, is published with it, and has been of much assistance to me in writing these sections. Ho
1 ]w. 2 Z. 3 P. 4 , npu, , V. 5 qA, s; ', ; h, PC. 6 Sj, J, ]o; Sj, GR; M', x, wmFJ, ; , ; , tL, J, . 7 y. I possess a copy of this work, printed about the middle of our fourteenth century.
Yen was the leader among them, and the work is commonly quoted as if it were the production of him alone. 3. From Ho Yen downwards, there has hardly been a dynasty which has not contributed its laborers to the illustration of the Analects. In the Liang, which occupied the throne a good part of the sixth century, there appeared the 'Comments of Hwang K'an [1],' who to the seven authorities cited by Ho Yen added other thirteen, being scholars who had deserved well of the Classic during the intermediate time. Passing over other dynasties, we come to the Sung, A.D. 960-1279. An edition of the Classics was published by imperial authority, about the beginning of the eleventh century, with the title of 'The Correct Meaning.' The principal scholar engaged in the undertaking was Hsing P'ing [2]. The portion of it on the Analects [3] is commonly reprinted in 'The Thirteen Classics,' after Ho Yen's explanations. But the names of the Sung dynasty are all thrown into the shade by that of Chu Hsi, than whom China has not produced a greater scholar. He composed, or his disciples complied, in the twelfth century, three Works on the Analects:— the first called 'Collected Meanings [4];' the second, 'Collected Comments [5];' and the third, 'Queries [6].' Nothing could exceed the grace and clearness of his style, and the influence which he has exerted on the literature of China has been almost despotic. The scholars of the present dynasty, however, seem inclined to question the correctness of his views and interpretations of the Classics, and the chief place among them is due to Mao Ch'i- ling [7], known by the local name of Hsi-ho [8]. His writings, under the name of 'The Collected Works of Hsi-ho [9],' have been published in eighty volumes, containing between three and four hundred books or sections. He has nine treatises on the Four Books, or parts of them, and deserves to take rank with Chang Hsuan and Chu Hsi at the head of Chinese scholars, though he is a vehement opponent of the latter. Most of his writings are to be found also in the great Work called 'A Collection of Works on the Classics, under the Imperial dynasty of Ch'ing [10],' which contains 1400 sections, and is a noble contribution by the scholars of the present dynasty to the illustration of its ancient literature.
1 y. 2 . 3 yq. 4 yq. 5 y. 6 y. 7 _. 8 e. 9 e. 10 Mg.
SECTION IV. OF VARIOUS READINGS.
In 'The Collection of Supplementary Observations on the Four Books [1],' the second chapter contains a general view of commentaries on the Analects, and from it I extract the following list of various readings of the text found in the comments of Chang Hsuan, and referred to in the first section of this chapter.
Book II. i, for @; viii, for W; xix, for ; xxiii. 1, Q@i, without ], for Q@i]. Book III. vii, in the clause ]gG, he makes a full stop at ]; xxi. 1, D for . Book IV. x, for A, and } for . Book V. xxi, he puts a full stop at l. Book VI. vii, he has not the characters h^. Book VII. iv, for P; xxxiv, le simply, for lef. Book IX. ix, for . Book XI. xxv. 7, for , and X for k. Book XIII. iii. 3, _ for ; xviii. 1, } for '. Book XIV. xxxi, for ; xxxiv. 1, OP for OP. Book XV. i. a, ^ for ³. Book XVI. i. 13, for . Book XVII. i, X for k; xxiv. 2, for u. Book XVIII. iv, X for k; viii. 1, for .
These various readings are exceedingly few, and in themselves insignificant. The student who wishes to pursue this subject at length, is provided with the means in the Work of Ti Chiao-shau [2], expressly devoted to it. It forms sections 449- 473 of the Works of the Classics, mentioned at the close of the preceding section. A still more comprehensive work of the same kind is, 'The Examination of the Text of the Classics and of Commentaries on them,' published under the superintendence of Yuan Yuan, forming chapters 818 to 1054 of the same Collection. Chapters 1016 to 1030 are occupied with the Lun yu; see the reference to Yuan Yuan farther on, on p. 132.
1 l. Published in 1798. The author was a Tsao Yin-ku G. 2 C, .
CHAPTER III. OF THE GREAT LEARNING.
SECTION I. HISTORY OF THE TEXT, AND THE DIFFERENT ARRANGEMENTS OF IT WHICH HAVE BEEN PROPOSED.
1. It has already been mentioned that 'The Great Learning' frms one of the Books of the Li Chi, or 'Record of Rites,' the formation of the text of which will be treated of in its proper place. I will only say here, that the Records of Rites had suffered much more, after the death of Confucius, than the other ancient Classics which were supposed to have been collected and digested by him. They were in a more dilapidated condition at the time of the revivial of the ancient literature under the Han dynasty, and were then published in three collections, only one of which — the Record of Rites — retains its place among the five Ching. The Record of Rites consists, according to the ordinary arrangement, of forty-nine Chapters or Books. Liu Hsiang (see ch. I. sect. II. 2) took the lead in its formation, and was followed by the two famous scholars, Tai Teh [1], and his relative, Tai Shang [2]. The first of these reduced upwards of 200 chapters, collected by Hsiang, to eighty-nine, and Shang reduced these again to forty- six. The three other Books were added in the second century of our era, the Great Learning being one of them, by Ma Yung, mentioned in the last chapter, section III.2. Since his time, the Work has not received any further additions. 2. In his note appended to what he calls the chapter of 'Classical Text,' Chu Hsi says that the tablets of the 'old copies' of the rest of the Great Learning were considerably out of order. By those old copies, he intends the Work of Chang Hsuan, who published his commentary on the Classic, soon after it was completed by the additions of Ma Yung; and t is possible that the tablets were in confusion, and had not been arranged with sufficient care; but such a thing does not appear to have been suspected until the
1 w 2 t Shang was a second cousin of Teh.
twelfth century, nor can any evidence from ancient monuments be adduced in its support. I have related how the ancient Classics were cut on slabs of stone by imperial order, A.D. 175, the text being that which the various literati had determined, and which had been adopted by Chang Hsuan. The same work was performed about seventy years later, under the so-called dynasty of Wei, between the years 240 and 248, and the two sets of slabs were set up together. The only difference between them was, that whereas the Classics had been cut in the first instance only in one form, the characters in the slabs of Wei were in three different forms. Amd the changes of dynasties, the slabs both of Han and Wei had perished, or nearly so, before the rise of the T'ang dynasty, A.D. 624; but under one of its emperors, in the year 836, a copy of the Classics was again cut on stone, though only in one form of the character. These slabs we can trace down through the Sung dynasty, when they were known as the tablets of Shen [1]. They were in exact conformity with the text of the Classics adopted by Chang Hsuan in his commentaries; and they exist at the present day at the city of Hsi-an, Shen-hsi, still called by the same name. The Sung dynasty did not accomplish a similar work itself, nor did either of the two which followed it think it necessary to engrave in stone in this way the ancient Classics. About the middle of the sixteenth century, however, the literary world in China was startled by a reprt that the slabs of Wei which contained the Great Learning had been discovered. But this was nothing more than the result f an impudent attempt at an imposition, for which it is difficult to a foreigner to assign any adequate cause. The treatise, as printed from these slabs, has some trifling additions, and many alterations in the order of the text, but differing from the arrangements proposed by Chu Hsi, and by other scholars. There seems to be now no difference of opinion among Chinese critics that the whole affair was a forgery. The text of the Great Learning, as it appears in the Record of Rites with the commentary of Chang Hsuan, and was thrice engraved on stone, in three different dynasties, is, no doubt, that which was edited in the Han dynasty by Ma Yung. 3. I have said, that it is possible that the tablets containing the
1 EO.
text were not arranged with sufficient care by him; and indeed, any one who studies the treatise attentively, will probably come to the conclusion that the part of it forming the first six chapters of commentary in the present Work is but a fragment. It would not be a difficult task to propose an arrangement of the text different from any which I have yet seen; but such an undertaking would not be interesting out of China. My object here is simply to mention the Chinese scholars wh have rendered themselves famous or notorious in their own country by what they hav done in this way. The first was Ch'ang Hao, a native of Lo-yang in Ho-nan Province, in the eleventh century [1]. His designation of Po-shun, but since his death he has been known chiefly by the style of Ming-tao [2], which we may render the Wise-in-doctrine. The eulogies heaped on him by Chu Hsi and others are extravagant, and he is placed immediately after Mencious in the list of great scholars. Doubtless he was a man of vast literary acquirements. The greatest change which he introduced into the Great Learning, was to read sin [3] for ch'in [4], at the commencement, making the second object proposed in the treatise to be the renovation of the people, instead of loving them. This alteration and his various transpositions of the text are found in Mao Hsi-ho's treatise on 'The Attested Text of the Great Learning [5].' Hardly less illustrious than Ch'ang Hao was his younger brother Ch'ang I, known by the style of Chang-shu [6], and since his death by that of I-chwan [7]. He followed Hao in the adoption of the reading 'to renovate,' instead of 'to love.' But he transposed the text differently, more akin to the arrangement afterwards made by Chu Hsi, suggesting also that there were some superfluous sentences in the old text which might conveniently be erased. The Work, as proposed to be read by him, will be found in the volume of Mao just referred to. We come to the name of Chu Hsi who entered into the labors of the brothers Ch'ang, the young of whom he styles his Master, in his introductory note to the Great Learning. His arrangement of the text is that now current in all the editions of the Four Books, and it had nearly displaced the ancient text
1 {lVMrBEMenMH. 2 D. 3 s. 4 . 5 j. 6 {l[MrMD. 7 t.
altogether. The sanction of Imperial approval was given to it during the Yuan and Ming dynasties. In the editions of the Five Ching published by them, only the names of the Doctrine of the Mean and the Great Learning were preserved. No text of these Books was given, and Hsi-ho tells us that in the reign of Chia- ching [1], the most flourishing period of the Ming dynasty (A.D. 1522-1566), when Wang Wan-ch'ang [2] published a copy of the Great Learning, taken from the T'ang edition of the Thirteen Ching, all the officers and scholars looked at one another in astonishment, and were inclined to supposed that the Work was a forgery. Besides adopting the reading of sin for ch'in from the Ch'ang, and modifying their arrangements of the text, Chu Hsi made other innovations. He first divided the whole into one chapter of Classical text, which he assigned to Confucius, and then chapters of Commentary, which he assigned to the disciple Tsang. Previous to him, the whole had been published, indeed, without any specification of chapters and paragraphs. He undertook, moreover, to supply one whole chapter, which he supposed, after his master Ch'ang, to be missing. Since the time of Chu Hsi, many scholars have exercised their wit on the Great Learning. The work of Mao Hsi-ho contains four arrangements of the text, proposed respectively by the scholars Wang Lu-chai [3], Chi P'ang-shan [4], Kao Ching-yi [5], and Ko Ch'i-chan [6]. The curious student may examine them here. Under the present dynasty, the tendency has been to depreciate the labors of Chu Hsi. The integrity of the text of Chang Hsuan is zealously maintained, and the simpler method of interpretation employed by him is advocated in preference to the more refined and ingenious schemes of the Sung scholars. I have referred several times in the notes to a Work published a few years ago, under the title of 'The Old Text of the sacred Ching, with Commentary and Discussions, by Lo Chung-fan of Nan-hai [7].' I knew the man many years ago. He was a fine scholar, and had taken the second degree, or that of Chu-zan. He applied to me in 1843 for Christian baptism, and, offended by my hesitancy, went and enrolled himself among the disciples of another missionary. He soon, however,
1 t. 2 . 3 . 4 ^s. 5 h. 6 ¤ 7 tgj,nùÿ.
withdrew into seclusion, and spent the last years of his life in literary studies. His family have published the Work on the Great Learning, and one or two others. He most vehemently impugns nearly every judgment of Chu Hsi; but in his own exhibitions of the meaning he blends many ideas of the Supreme Being and of the condition of human nature, which he had learned from the Christian Scriptures.
SECTION II. OF THE AUTHORSHIP, AND DISTINCTION OF THE TEXT INTO CLASSICAL TEXT AND COMMENTARY.
1. The authorship of the Great Learning is a very doubtful point, and one on which it does not appear possible to come to a decided conclusion. Chu Hsi, as I have stated in the last section, determined that so much of it was Ching, or Classic, being the very words of Confucius, and that all the rest was Chwan, or Commentary, being the views of Tsang Shan upon the sage's words, recorded by his disciples. Thus, he does not expressly attribute the composition of the Treatise to Tsang, as he is generally supposed to do. What he says, however, as it is destitute of external support, is contrary also to the internal evidence. The fourth chapter of commentary commences with 'The Master said.' Surely, if there were anything more, directly from Confucius, there would be an intimation of it in the same way. Or, if we may allow that short sayings of Confucius might be interwoven with the Work, as in the fifteenth paragraph of the tenth chapter, without referring them expressly to him, it is too much to ask us to receive the long chapter at the beginning as being from him. With regard to the Work having come from the disciples of Tsang Shan, recording their master's views, the paragraph in chapter sixth, commencing with 'The disciple Tsang said,' seems to be conclusive against such an hypothesis. So much we may be sure is Tsang's, and no more. Both of Chu Hsi's judgments must be set aside. We cannot admit either the distinction of the contents into Classical text and Commentary, or that the Work was the production of Tsang's disciples. 2. Who then was the author? An ancient tradition attributes it to K'ung Chi, the grandson of Confucius. In a notice published, at the time of their preparation, about the stone slabs of Wei, the
following statement by Chia K'wei, a noted scholar of the first century, is found:— 'When K'ung Chi was living, and in straits, in Sung, being afraid lest the lessons of the former sages should become obscure, and the principles of the ancient sovereigns and kings fall to the ground, he therefore made the Great Learning as the warp of them, and the Doctrine of the Mean as the woof [1].' This would seem, therefore, to have been the opinion of that early time, and I may say the only difficulty in admitting it is that no mention is made of it by Chang Hsuan. There certainly is that agreement between the two treatises, which makes their common authorship not at all unlikely. 3. Though we cannot positively assign the authorship of the Great Learning, there can be no hesitation in receiving it as a genuine monument of the Confucian school. There are not many words in it from the sage himself, but it is a faithful reflection of his teachings, written by some of his followers, not far removed from him by lapse of time. It must synchronize pretty nearly with the Analects, and may be safely referred to the fifth century before our era.
SECTION III. ITS SCOPE AND VALUE.
1. The worth of the Great Learning has been celebrated in most extravagant terms by Chinese writers, and there have been foreigners who have not yielded to them in their estimation of it. Pauthier, in the 'Argument Philosphique,' prefixed to his translation of the Work, says:— 'It is evident that the aim of the Chinese philosopher is to exhibit the duties of political government as those of the perfecting of self, and of the practice of virtue by all men. He felt that he had a higher mission than that with which the greater part of ancient and modern philosophers have contented themselves; and his immense love for the happiness of humanity, which dominated over all his other sentiments, has made of his
1 ,QgQ,f,,a,t ,DY,G@jHg,eHn; see the j,@, p. 5.
philosophy a system of social perfectionating, which, we venture to say, has never been equalled.' Very different is the judgment passed upon the treatise by a writer in the Chinese Repository: 'The Ta Hsio is a short politico- moral discourse. Ta Hsio, or "Superior Learning," is at the same time both the name and the subject of the discourse; it is the summum bonum of the Chinese. In opening this Book, compiled by a disciple of Confucius, and containing his doctrines, we might expect to find a work like Cicero's De Officiis; but we find a very different production, consisting of a few commonplace rules for the maintenance of a good government [1].' My readers will perhaps think, after reading the present section, that the truth lies between these two representations. 2. I believe that the Book should be styled T'ai Hsio [2], and not Ta Hsio, and that it was so named as setting forth the higher and more extensive principles of moral science, which come into use and manifestation in the conduct of government. When Chu Shi endeavours to make the title mean — 'The principles of Learning, which were taught in the higher schools of antiquity,' and tells us how at the age of fifteen, all the sons of the sovereign, with the legitimate sons of the nobles, and high officers, down to the more promising scions of the common people, all entered these seminaries, and were taught the difficult lessons here inculcated, we pity the ancient youth of China. Such 'strong meat' is not adapted for the nourishment of youthful minds. But the evidence adduced for the existence of such educational institutions in ancient times is unsatisfactory, and from the older interpretation of the title we advance more easily to contemplate the object and method of the Work. 3. The object is stated definitely enough in the opening paragraph: 'What the Great Learning teaches, is — to illustrate illustrious virtue; to love the people; and to rest in the highest excellence.' The political aim of the writer is here at once evident. He has before him on one side, the people, the masses of the empire, and over against them are those whose work and duty, delegated by Heaven, is to govern them, culminating, as a class, in 'the son of Heaven [3],' 'the One man [4],' the sovereign. From the fourth and
1 Chinese Repository, vol. iii. p. 98 2 , not j. See the note on the title of the Work below. 3 l, Cl. (classical) Text, par. 6, 2. 4 @H, Comm. ix. 3.
fifth paragraphs, we see that if the lessons of the treatise be learned and carried into practice, the result will be that 'illustrious virtue will be illustrated throughout the nation,' which will be brought, through all its length and breadth, to a condition of happy tranquillity. This object is certainly both grand and good; annd if a reasonable and likely method to secure it were proposed in the Work, language would hardly supply terms adequate to express its value. 4. But the above account of the object of the Great Learning leads us to the conclusion that the student of it should be a sovereign. What interest can an ordinary man have in it? It is high up in the clouds, far beyond his reach. This is a serious objection to it, and quite unfits it for a place in schools, such as Chu Hsi contends it once had. Intelligent Chinese, whose minds were somewhat quickened by Christianity, have spoken to me of this defect, and complained of the difficulty they felt in making the book a practical directory for their conduct. 'It is so vague and vast,' was the observation of one man. The writer, however, has made some provision for the general application of his instructions. He tells us that, from the sovereign down to the mass of the people, all must consider the cultivation of the person to be the root, that is, the first thing to be attended to [1]. _as in his method, moreover, he reaches from the cultivation of the person to the tranquillization of the kingdom, through the intermediate steps of the regulation of the family, and the government of the State [2], there is room for setting forth principles that parents and rulers generally may find adapted for their guidance. 5. The method which is laid down for the attainment of the great object proposed, consists of seven steps:— the investigation of things; the completion of knowledge; the sincerity of the thoughts; the rectifying of the heart; the cultivation of the person; the regulation of the family; and the government of the state. These form the steps of a climax, the end of which is the kingdom tranquillized. Pauthier calls the paragraphs where they occur instances of the sorites, or abridged syllogism. But they elong to rhetoric, and not to logic. 6. In offering some observations on these steps, and the writer's treatment of them, it will be well to separate them into those preceding the cultivation of the person, and those following it; and to
1 Cl. Text, par. 6. 2 Cl. Text, pars. 4. 5.
deal with the latter first. — Let us suppose that the cultivation of the person is fully attained, every discordant mental element having been subdued and removed. It is assumed that the regulation of the family will necessarily flow from this. Two short paragraphs are all that are given to the illustration of the point, and they are vague generalities on the subject of men's being led astray by their feelings and affections. The family being regulated, there will result from it the government of the State. First, the virtues taught in the family have their correspondencies in the wider sphere. Filial piety will appear as loyalty. Fraternal submission will be seen in respect and obedience to elders and superiors. Kindness is capable of universal application. Second, 'From the loving example of one family, a whole State becomes loving, and from its courtesies the whole State become courteous [1].' Seven paragraphs suffice to illustrate these statements, and short as they are, the writer goes back to the topic of self-cultivation, returning from the family to the individual. The State being governed, the whole empire will become peaceful and happy. There is even less of connexion, however, in the treatment of this theme, between the premiss and the conclusion, than in the two previous chapters. Nothing is said about the relation between the whole kingdom, and its component States, or any one of them. It is said at once, 'What is meant by "The making the whole kingdom peaceful and happy depends on the government of the State," is this:— When the sovereign behaves to his aged, as the aged should be behaved to, the people become filial; when the sovereign behaves to his elders, as elders should be behaved to, the people learn brotherly submission; when the sovereign treats compassionately the young and helpless, the people do the same [2].' This is nothing but a repetition of the preceding chapter, instead of that chapter's being made a step from which to go on to the splendid consummation of the good government of the whole kingdom. The words which I have quoted are followed by a very striking enunciation of the golden rule in its negative form, and under the name of the measuring square, and all the lessons of the chapter are connected more or less closely with that. The application of this principle by a ruler, whose heart is in the first place in loving sympathy with the people, will guide him in all the exactions which
1 See Comm. ix. 3. 2 See Comm. x. 1.
he lays upon them, and in his selection of ministers, in such a way that he will secure the affections of his subjects, and his throne will be established, for 'by gaining the people, the kingdom is gained, and, by losing the people, the kingdom is lost [1].' There are in this part of the treatise many valuable sentiments, and counsels for all in authority over others. The objection to it is, that, as the last step of the climax, it does not rise upon all the others with the accumulated force of their conclusions, but introduces us to new principles of action, and a new line of argument. Cut off the commencement of the first paragraph which connects it with the preceding chapters, and it would form a brief but admirable treatise by itself on the art of government. This brief review of the writer's treatment of the concluding steps of his method will satisfy the reader that the execution is not equal to the design; and, moreover, underneath all the reasoning, and more especially apparent in the eighth and ninth chapters of commentary (according to the ordinary arrangement of the work), there lies the assumption that example is all but omnipotent. We find this principle pervading all the Confucian philosophy. And doubtless it is a truth, most important in education and government, that the influence of example is very great. I believe, and will insist upon it hereafter in these prolegomena, that we have come to overlook this element in our conduct of administration. It will be well if the study of the Chinese Classics should call attention to it. Yet in them the subject is pushed to an extreme, and represented in an extravagant manner. Proceeding from the view of human nature that it is entirely good, and led astray only by influences from without, the sage of China and his followers attribute to personal example and to instruction a power which we do not find that they actually possess. 7. The steps which precede the cultivation of the person are more briefly dealt with than those which we have just considered. 'The cultivation of the person results from the rectifying of the heart or mind [2].' True, but in the Great Learning very inadequately set forth. 'The rectifying of the mind is realized when the thoughts are made sincere [3].' And the thoughts are sincere, when no self- deception is allowed, and we move without effort to what is right and wrong, 'as we love what is beautiful, and as we dislike a bad
1 Comm. x. 5. 2 Comm. vii. 1. 3 Comm. Ch. vi.
smell [1].' How are we to attain this state? Here the Chinese moralist fails us. According to Chu Hsi's arrangement of the Treatise, there is only one sentence from which we can frame a reply to the above question. 'Therefore,' it is said, 'the superior man must be watchful over himself when he is alone [2].' Following. Chu's sixth chapter of commentary, and forming, we may say, part of it, we have in the old arrangement of the Great Learning all the passages which he has distributed so as to form the previous five chapters. But even from the examination of them, we do not obtain the information which we desire on this momentous inquiry. 8. Indeed, the more I study the Work, the more satisfied I become, that from the conclusion of what is now called the chapter of classical text to the sixth chapter of commentary, we have only a few fragments, which it is of no use trying to arrange, so as fairly to exhibit the plan of the author. According to his method, the chapter on the connexion between making the thoughts sincere and so rectifying the mental nature, should be preceded by one on the completion of knowledge as the means of making the thoughts sincere, and that again by one on the completion of knowledge by the investigation of things, or whatever else the phrase ko wu may mean. I am less concerned for the loss and injury which this part of the Work has suffered, because the subject of the connexion between intelligence and virtue is very fully exhibited in the Doctrine of the Mean, and will come under our notice in the review of that Treatise. The manner in which Chu Hsi has endeavoured to supply the blank about the perfecting of knowledge by the investigation of things is too extravagant. 'The Learning for Adults,' he says, 'at the outset of its lessons, instructs the learner, in regard to all things in the world, to proceed from what knowledge he has of their principles, and pursue his investigation of them, till he reaches the extreme point. After exerting himself for a long time, he will suddenly find himself possessed of a wide and far-reaching penetration. Then, the qualities of all things, whether external or internal, the subtle or the coarse, will be apprehended, and the mind, in its entire substance and its relations to things, will be perfectly intelligent. This is called the investigation of things. This is called the perfection of knowledge [3].' And knowledge must be thus perfected before we can achieve the sincerity of our thoughts, and the rectifying of our hearts!
1 Comm. vi. 1. 2 Comm. vi. 2. 3 Suppl. to Comm. Ch. v.
Verily this would be learning not for adults only, but even Methuselahs would not be able to compass it. Yet for centuries this has been accepted as the orthodox exposition of the Classic. Lo Chung-fan does not express himself too strongly when he says that such language is altogether incoherent. The author would only be 'imposing on himself and others.' 9. The orthodox doctrine of China concerning the connexion between intelligence and virtue is most seriously erroneous, but I will not lay to the charge of the author of the Great Learning the wild representations of the commentator of our twelfth century, nor need I make here any remarks on what the doctrine really is. After the exhibition which I have given, my readers will probably conclude that the Work before us is far from developing, as Pauthier asserts, 'a system of social perfectionating which has never been equalled.' 10. The Treatise has undoubtedly great merits, but they are not to be sought in the severity of its logical processes, or the large-minded prosecution of any course of thought. We shall find them in the announcement of certain seminal principles, which, if recognised in government and the regulation of conduct, would conduce greatly to the happiness and virtue of mankind. I will conclude these observations by specifying four such principles. First. The writer conceives nobly of the object of government, that it is to make its subjects happy and good. This may not be a sufficient account of that object, but it is much to have it so clearly laid down to 'all kings and governors,' that they are to love the people, ruling not for their own gratification but for the good of those over whom they are exalted by Heaven. Very important also is the statement that rulers have no divine right but what springs from the discharge of their duty. 'The decree does not always rest on them. Goodness obtains it, and the want of goodness loses it [1].' Second. The insisting on personal excellence in all who have authority in the family, the state, and the kingdom, is a great moral and social principle. The influence of such personal excellence may be overstated, but by the requirement of its cultivation the writer deserved well of his country. Third. Still more important than the requirement of such excellence, is the principle that it must be rooted in the state of
1 Comm. x. 11.
the heart, and be the natural outgrowth of internal sincerity. 'As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he.' This is the teaching alike of Solomon and the author of the Great Learning. Fourth. I mention last the striking exhibition which we have of the golden rule, though only in its negative form:— 'What a man dislikes in his superiors, let him not display in the treatment of his inferiors; what he dislikes in inferiors, let him not display in his service of his superiors; what he dislikes in those who are before him, let him not therewith precede those who are behind him; what he dislikes in those who are behind him, let him not therewith follow those who are before him; what he dislikes to receive on the right, let him not bestow on the left; what he dislikes to receive on the left, let him not bestow on the right. This is what is called the principle with which, as with a measuring square, to regulate one's conduct [1].' The Work which contains those principles cannot be thought meanly of. They are 'commonplace,' as the writer in the Chinese Repository calls them, but they are at the same time eternal verities.
l Comm. x. a.
CHAPTER IV.
THE DOCTRINE OF THE MEAN.
SECTION I. ITS PLACE IN THE LI CHI, AND ITS PUBLICATION SEPARATELY.
1. The Doctrine of the Mean was one of the treatises which came to light in connexion with the labors of Liu Hsiang, and its place as the thirty-first Book in the Li Chi was finally determined by Ma Yung and Chang Hsuan. In the translation of the Li Chi in 'The Sacred Books of the East' it is the twenty-eighth Treatise. 2. But while it was thus made to form a part of the great collection of Treatises on Ceremonies, it maintained a separate footing of its own. In Liu Hsin's Catalogue of the Classical Works, we find 'Two p'ien of Observations on the Chung Yung [l].' In the Records of the dynasty of Sui (A.D. 589-618), in the chapter on the History of Literature [2], there are mentioned three Works on the Chung Yung;— the first called 'The Record of the Chung Yung,' in two chuan, attributed to Tai Yung, a scholar who flourished about the middle of the fifth century; the second, 'A Paraphrase and Commentary on the Chung Yung,' attributed to the emperor Wu (A.D. 502-549) of the Liang dynasty, in one chuan ; and the third, 'A Private Record, Determining the Meaning of the Chung Yung,' in five chuan, the author, or supposed author, of which is not mentioned [3]. It thus appears, that the Chung Yung had been published and commented on separately, long before the time of the Sung dynasty. The scholars of that, however, devoted special attention to it, the way being led by the famous Chau Lien-ch'i [4]. He was followed by the two brothers Ch'ang, but neither of them published upon it. At last came Chu Hsi, who produced his Work called
1 eGg. 2 ,TQG,GQC,gy,@, p. 12. 3 §OeM,G,M';e,@,Z;pOe; . 4 P.
'The Chung Yung, in Chapters and Sentences [1],' which was made the text book of the Classic at the literary examinations, by the fourth emperor of the Yuan dynasty (A.D. 1312-1320), and from that time the name merely of the Treatise was retained in editions of the Li Chi. Neither text nor ancient commentary was given. Under the present dynasty it is not so. In the superb edition of 'The Three Li Ching,' edited by numerous committees of scholars towards the middle of the Ch'ien-lung reign, the Chung Yung is published in two parts, the ancient commentaries from 'The Thirteen Ching' being given side by side with those of Chu Hsi.
SECTION II.
ITS AUTHOR; AND SOME ACCOUNT OF HIM.
1. The composition of the Chung Yung is attributed to K'ung Chi, the grandson of Confucius [2]. Chinese inquirers and critics are agreed on this point, and apparently on sufficient grounds. There is indeed no internal evidence in the Work to lead us to such a conclusion. Among the many quotations of Confucius's words and references to him, we might have expected to find some indication that the sage was the grandfather of the author, but nothing of the kind is given. The external evidence, however, or that from the testimony of authorities, is very strong. In Sze-ma Ch'ien's Historical Records, published about B.C. 100, it is expressly said that 'Tsze-sze made the Chung Yung.' And we have a still stronger proof, a century earlier, from Tsze-sze's own descendant, K'ung Fu, whose words are, 'Tsze-sze compiled the Chung Yung in forty-nine p'ien [3].' We may, therefore, accept the received account without hesitation. 2. As Chi, spoken of chiefly by his designation of Tsze-sze, thus occupies a distinguished place in the classical literature of China, it
1 ey. 2 l@e; see the vO, QC,l@a. 3 This K'ung Fu ({) was that descendant of Confucius, who hid several books in the wall of his house, on the issuing of the imperial edict for their burning. He was a writer himself, and his Works are referred to under the title of Ol. I have not seen them, but the statement given above is found in the l; art. e. Ol,le, QEg.
may not be out of place to bring together here a few notices of him gathered from reliable sources. He was the son of Li, whose death took place B.C. 483, four years before that of the sage, his father. I have not found it recorded in what year he was born. Sze-ma Ch'ien says he died at the age of 62. But this is evidently wrong, for we learn from Mencius that he was high in favour with the duke Mu of Lu [1], whose accession to that principality dates in B.C. 409, seventy years after the death of Confucius. In the 'Plates and Notices of the Worthies, sacrificed to in the Sage's Temples [2],' it is supposed that the sixty-two in the Historical Records should be eighty-two [3]. It is maintained by others that Tsze-sze's life was protracted beyond 100 years [4]. This variety of opinions simply shows that the point cannot be positively determined. To me it seems that the conjecture in the Sacrificial Canon must be pretty near the truth [5]. During the years of his boyhood, then, Tsze-sze must have been with his grandfather, and received his instructions. It is related, that one day, when he was alone with the sage, and heard him sighing, he went up to him, and, bowing twice, inquired the reason of his grief. 'Is it,' said he, 'because you think that your descendants, through not cultivating themselves, will be unworthy of you? Or is it that, in your admiration of the ways of Yao and Shun, you are vexed that you fall short of them?' 'Child,' replied Confucius, 'how is it that you know my thoughts?' 'I have often,' said Tsze-sze, 'heard from you the lesson, that when the father has gathered and prepared the firewood, if the son cannot carry the bundle, he is to be pronounced degenerate and unworthy. The remark comes frequently into my thoughts, and fills me with great apprehensions.' The sage was delighted. He
1. p(or [). 2. tq. 3. HQGKQG~. Eighty-two and sixty-two may more easily be confounded, as written in Chinese, than with the Roman figures. 4 See the , on the preface to the Chung Yung, ~l. 5 Li himself was born in Confucius's twenty-first year, and if Tsze-sze had been born in Li's twenty-first year, he must have been 103 at the time of duke Mu's accession. But the tradition is, that Tsze-sze was a pupil of Tsang Shan who was born B.C. 504. We must place his birth therefore considerably later, and suppose him to have been quite young when his father died. I was talking once about the question with a Chinese friend, who observed: 'Li was fifty when he died, and his wife married again into a family of Wei. We can hardly think, therefore, that she was anything like that age. Li could not have married so soon as his father did. Perhaps he was about forty when Chi was born.'
smiled and said, 'Now, indeed, shall I be without anxiety! My undertakings will not come to naught. They will be carried on and flourish [1].' After the death of Confucius, Chi became a pupil, it is said, of the philosopher Tsang. But he received his instructions with discrimination, and in one instance which is recorded in the Li Chi, the pupil suddenly took the place of the master. We there read: 'Tsang said to Tsze-sze, "Chi, when I was engaged in mourning for my parents, neither congee nor water entered my mouth for seven days." Tsze-sze answered, "In ordering their rules of propriety, it was the design of the ancient kings that those who would go beyond them should stoop and keep by them, and that those who could hardly reach them should stand on tiptoe to do so. Thus it is that the superior man, in mourning for his parents, when he has been three days without water or congee, takes a staff to enable himself to rise [2]."' While he thus condemned the severe discipline of Tsang, Tsze-sze appears, in various incidents which are related of him, to have been himself more than sufficiently ascetic. As he was living in great poverty, a friend supplied him with grain, which he readily received. Another friend was emboldened by this to send him a bottle of spirits, but he declined to receive it.' You receive your corn from other people,' urged the donor, 'and why should you decline my gift, which is of less value? You can assign no ground in reason for it, and if you wish to show your independence, you should do so completely.' 'I am so poor,' was the reply, 'as to be in want, and being afraid lest I should die and the sacrifices not be offered to my ancestors, I accept the grain as an alms. But the spirits and the dried flesh which you offer to me are the appliances of a feast. For a poor man to be feasting is certainly unreasonable. This is the ground of my refusing your gift. I have no thought of asserting my independence [3].' To the same effect is the account of Tsze-sze, which we have from Liu Hsiang. That scholar relates:— 'When Chi was living in Wei, he wore a tattered coat, without any lining, and in thirty days had only nine meals. T'ien Tsze-fang having heard of his
1 See the , in the place just quoted from. For the incident we are indebted to K'ung Fu; see note 3, p. 36. 2 Li Chi, II. Sect. I. ii. 7. 3 See the , as above.
distress, sent a messenger to him with a coat of fox-fur, and being afraid that he might not receive it, he added the message,— "When I borrow from a man, I forget it; when I give a thing, I part with it freely as if I threw it away." Tsze-sze declined the gift thus offered, and when Tsze-fang said, "I have, and you have not; why will you not take it?" he replied, "You give away as rashly as if you were casting your things into a ditch. Poor as I am, I cannot think of my body as a ditch, and do not presume to accept your gift [1]." 'Tsze-sze's mother married again, after Li's death, into a family of Wei. But this circumstance, which is not at all creditable in Chinese estimation, did not alienate his affections from her. He was in Lu when he heard of her death, and proceeded to weep in the temple of his family. A disciple came to him and said, 'Your mother married again into the family of the Shu, and do you weep for her in the temple of the K'ung?' 'I am wrong,' said Tsze-sze, 'I am wrong;' and with these words he went to weep elsewhere [2]. In his own married relation he does not seem to have been happy, and for some cause, which has not been transmitted to us, he divorced his wife, following in this, it has been wrongly said, the example of Confucius. On her death, her son, Tsze-shang [3], did not undertake any mourning for her. Tsze-sze's disciples were surprised and questioned him. 'Did your predecessor, a superior man,' they asked, 'mourn for his mother who had been divorced?' 'Yes,' was the reply. 'Then why do you not cause Pai [4] to mourn for his mother?' Tsze-sze answered, 'My progenitor, a superior man, failed in nothing to pursue the proper path. His observances increased or decreased as the case required. But I cannot attain to this. While she was my wife, she was Pai's mother; when she ceased to be my wife, she ceased to be Pai's mother.' The custom of the K'ung family not to mourn for a mother who had been divorced, took its rise from Tsze-sze [5]. These few notices of K'ung Chi in his more private relations bring him before us as a man of strong feeling and strong will, independent, and with a tendency to asceticism in his habits.
1 See the , as above. 2 See the Li Chi, II. Sect. II. iii. 15. f must be understood as I have done above, and not with Chang Hsuan, 'Your mother was born a Miss Shu.' 3 lW this was the designation of Tsze-sze's son. 4 , this was Tsze-shang's name. 5 See the Li Chi, II. Sect. I. i. 4.
As a public character, we find him at the ducal courts of Wei, Sung; Lu, and Pi, and at each of them held in high esteem by the rulers. To Wei he was carried probably by the fact of his mother having married into that State. We are told that the prince of Wei received him with great distinction and lodged him honourably. On one occasion he said to him, 'An officer of the State of Lu, you have not despised this small and narrow Wei, but have bent your steps hither to comfort and preserve it; vouchsafe to confer your benefits upon me.' Tsze-sze replied. 'If I should wish to requite your princely favour with money and silks, your treasuries are already full of them, and I am poor. If I should wish to requite it with good words, I am afraid that what I should say would not suit your ideas, so that I should speak in vain and not be listened to. The only way in which I can requite it, is by recommending to your notice men of worth.' The duke said. 'Men of worth are exactly what I desire.' 'Nay,' said Chi. 'you are not able to appreciate them.' 'Nevertheless,' was the reply, 'I should like to hear whom you consider deserving that name.' Tsze-sze replied, 'Do you wish to select your officers for the name they may have or for their reality?' 'For their reality, certainly,' said the duke. His guest then said, 'In the eastern borders of your State, there is one Li Yin, who is a man of real worth.' 'What were his grandfather and father?' asked the duke. 'They were husbandmen,' was the reply, on which the duke broke into a loud laugh, saying, ' I do not like husbandry. The son of a husbandman cannot be fit for me to employ. I do not put into office all the cadets of those families even in which office is hereditary.' Tsze-sze observed, 'I mention Li Yin because of his abilities; what has the fact of his forefathers being husbandmen to do with the case? And moreover, the duke of Chau was a great sage, and K'ang-shu was a great worthy. Yet if you examine their beginnings, you will find that from the business of husbandry they came forth to found their States. I did certainly have my doubts that in the selection of your officers you did not have regard to their real character and capacity.' With this the conversation ended. The duke was silent [1]. Tsze-sze was naturally led to Sung, as the K'ung family originally sprang from that principality. One account, quoted in 'The
1 See the m,@G,,.
Four Books, Text and Commentary, with Proofs and Illustrations [1],' says that he went thither in his sixteenth year, and having foiled an officer of the State, named Yo So, in a conversation on the Shu Ching, his opponent was so irritated at the disgrace put on him by a youth, that he listened to the advice of evil counsellors, and made an attack on him to put him to death. The duke of Sung, hearing the tumult, hurried to the rescue, and when Chi found himself in safety, he said, 'When king Wan was imprisoned in Yu-li, he made the Yi of Chau. My grandfather made the Ch'un Ch'iu after he had been in danger in Ch'an and Ts'ai. Shall I not make something when rescued from such a risk in Sung?' Upon this he made the Chung Yung in forty-nine p'ien. According to this account, the Chung Yung was the work of Tsze-sze's early manhood, and the tradition has obtained a wonderful prevalence. The notice in 'The Sacrificial Canon' says, on the contrary, that it was the work of his old age, when he had finally settled in Lu, which is much more likely [2]. Of Tsze-sze in Pi, which could hardly be said to be out of Lu, we have only one short notice,— in Mencius, V. Pt. II. iii. 3, where the duke Hui of Pi is introduced as saying, 'I treat Tsze-sze as my master.' We have fuller accounts of him in Lu, where he spent all the latter years of his life, instructing his disciples to the number of several hundred [3], and held in great reverence by the duke Mu. The duke indeed wanted to raise him to the highest office, but he declined this, and would only occupy the position of a 'guide, philosopher, and friend.' Of the attention which he demanded, however, instances will he found in Mencius, II. Pt. II. xi. 3; V. Pt. II. vi. 4, and vii. 4. In his intercourse with the duke he spoke the truth to him fearlessly. In the 'Cyclopaedia of Surnames [4],' I find the following conversations, but I cannot tell from what source they are extracted into that Work.— 'One day, the duke said to Tsze-sze, "The officer Hsien told me that you do good without
1 This is the Work so often referred to as the , the full title being g. The passage here translated from it will be found in the place several times referred to in this section. 2 The author of the l adopts the view that the Work was composed in Sung. Some have advocated this from ch. xxviii. 5, compared with Ana. III. ix, 'it being proper,' they say, 'that Tsze- sze, writing in Sung, should not depreciate it as Confucius had done out of it!' 3 See in the 'Sacrificial Canon,' on Tsze-sze. 4 This is the Work referred to in note 1, p. 40.
wishing for any praise from men;— is it so?" Tsze-sze replied, "No, that is not my feeling. When I cultivate what is good, I wish men to know it, for when they know it and praise me, I feel encouraged to be more zealous in the cultivation. This is what I desire, and am not able to obtain. If I cultivate what is good, and men do not know it, it is likely that in their ignorance they will speak evil of me. So by my good-doing I only come to be evil spoken of. This is what I do not desire, but am not able to avoid. In the case of a man, who gets up at cock-crowing to practise what is good and continues sedulous in the endeavour till midnight, and says at the same time that he does not wish men to know it, lest they should praise him, I must say of such a man, that, if he be not deceitful, he is stupid."' Another day, the duke asked Tsze-sze, saying, 'Can my state be made to flourish?' 'It may,' was the reply. 'And how?' Tsze-sze said, 'O prince, if you and your ministers will only strive to realize the government of the duke of Chau and of Po-ch'in; practising their transforming principles, sending forth wide the favours of your ducal house, and not letting advantages flow in private channels; if you will thus conciliate the affections of the people, and at the same time cultivate friendly relations with neighboring states, your state will soon begin to flourish.' On one occasion, the duke asked whether it had been the custom of old for ministers to go into mourning for a prince whose service and state they had left. Tsze-sze replied to him, 'Of old, princes advanced their ministers to office according to propriety, and dismissed them in the same way, and hence there was that rule. But now-a-days, princes bring their ministers forward as if they were going to take them on their knees, and send them away as if they would cast them into an abyss. If they do not treat them as their greatest enemies, it is well.— How can you expect the ancient practice to be observed in such circumstances [1]?' These instances may suffice to illustrate the character of Tsze-sze, as it was displayed in his intercourse with the princes of his time. We see the same independence which he affected in private life, and a dignity not unbecoming the grandson of Confucius. But we miss the reach of thought and capacity for administration which belonged to the Sage. It is with him, how- |
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