The Chinese Classics (Prolegomena), James Legge [popular books of all time TXT] 📗

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

 

1 2 See the �j�M�q�����Q�G.

3 Ana. XIII. xxx.

4 Mencius III. Pt. I. iii. 10.

 

At the present day, education is widely diffused throughout China. In few other countries is the schoolmaster more abroad, and in all schools it is Confucius who is taught. The plan of competitive examinations, and the selection for civil offices only from those who have been successful candidates,— good so far as the competition is concerned, but injurious from the restricted range of subjects with which an acquaintance is required,— have obtained for more than twelve centuries. The classical works are the text books. It is from them almost exclusively that the themes proposed to determine the knowledge and ability of the students are chosen. The whole of the magistracy of China is thus versed in all that is recorded of the sage, and in the ancient literature which he preserved. His thoughts are familiar to every man in authority, and his character is more or less reproduced in him.

The official civilians of China, numerous as they are, are but a fraction of its students, and the students, or those who make literature a profession, are again but a fraction of those who attend school for a shorter or longer period. Yet so far as the studies have gone, they have been occupied with the Confucian writings. In the schoolrooms there is a tablet or inscription on the wall, sacred to the sage, and every pupil is required, on coming to school on the morning of the first and fifteenth of every month, to bow before it, the first thing, as an act of reverence [1]. Thus all in China who receive the slightest tincture of learning do so at the fountain of Confucius. They learn of him and do homage to him at once. I have repeatedly quoted the statement that during his life-time he had three thousand disciples. Hundreds of millions are his disciples now. It is hardly necessary to make any allowance in this statement for the followers of Taoism and Buddhism, for, as Sir John Davis has observed, ‘whatever the other opinions or faith of a Chinese may be, he takes good care to treat Confucius with respect [2].’ For two thousand years he has reigned supreme, the undisputed teacher of this most populous land.

3. This position and influence of Confucius are to be ascribed, I conceive, chiefly to two causes:— his being the preserver, namely of

l During the present dynasty, the tablet of �������g, the god of literature, has to a considerable extent displaced that of Confucius in schools. Yet the worship of him does not clash with that of the other. He is ‘the father’ of composition only.

2 The Chinese, vol. ii. p. 45.

 

the monuments of antiquity, and the exemplifier and expounder of

[Sidebar] The causes of his influence.

the maxims of the golden age of China; and the devotion to him of his immediate disciples and their early followers. The national and the personal are thus blended in him, each in its highest degree of excellence. He was a Chinese of the Chinese; he is also represented as, and all now believe him to have been, the beau ideal of humanity in its best and noblest estate.

4. It may be well to bring forward here Confucius’s own estimate of himself and of his doctrines. It will serve to illustrate the

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

statements just made. The following are some of his sayings:— ‘The sage and the man of perfect virtue;— how dare I rank myself with them? It may simply be said of me, that I strive to become such without satiety, and teach others without weariness.’ ‘In letters I am perhaps equal to other men; but the character of the superior man, carrying out in his conduct what he professes, is what I have not yet attained to.’ ‘The leaving virtue without proper cultivation; the not thoroughly discussing what is learned; not being able to move towards righteousness of which a knowledge is gained; and not being able to change what is not good;— these are the things which occasion me solicitude.’ ‘I am not one who was born in the possession of knowledge; I am one who is fond of antiquity and earnest in seeking it there.’ ‘A transmitter and not a maker, believing in and loving the ancients, I venture to compare myself with our old P’ang [1].’

Confucius cannot be thought to speak of himself in these declarations more highly than he ought to do. Rather we may recognise in them the expressions of a genuine humility. He was conscious that personally he came short in many things, but he toiled after the character, which he saw, or fancied that he saw, in the ancient sages whom he acknowledged; and the lessons of government and morals which he labored to diffuse were those which had already been inculcated and exhibited by them. Emphatically he was ‘a transmitter and not a maker.’ It is not to be understood that he was not fully satisfied of the truth of the principles which he had learned. He held them with the full approval and consent of his own understanding. He believed that if they were acted on, they would remedy the evils of his time.

 

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

 

There was nothing to prevent rulers like Yao and Shun and the great Yu from again arising, and a condition of happy tranquillity being realized throughout the kingdom under their sway.

If in anything he thought himself ‘superior and alone,’ having attributes which others could not claim, it was in his possessing a divine commission as the conservator of ancient truth and rules. He does not speak very definitely on this point. It is noted that ‘the appointments of Heaven was one of the subjects on which he rarely touched [1].’ His most remarkable utterance was that which I have already given in the sketch of his Life:— ‘When he was put in fear in K’wang, he said, “After the death of king Wan, was not the cause of truth lodged here in me? If Heaven had wished to let this cause of truth perish, then I, a future mortal, should not have got such a relation to that cause. While Heaven does not let the cause of truth perish, what can the people of K’wang do to me [2]?”’ Confucius, then, did feel that he was in the world for a special purpose. But it was not to announce any new truths, or to initiate any new economy. It was to prevent what had previously been known from being lost. He followed in the wake of Yao and Shun, of T’ang, and king Wan. Distant from the last by a long interval of time, he would have said that he was distant from him also by a great inferiority of character, but still he had learned the principles on which they all happily governed the country, and in their name he would lift up a standard against the prevailing lawlessness of his age.

5. The language employed with reference to Confucius by his disciples and their early followers presents a striking contrast with his own.

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

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

 

1 Ana. IX. i.

2 Ana. IX. iii.

3 Ana. IX. x.

 

only reaches to the shoulders. One may peep over it, and see whatever is valuable in the apartments. The wall of my master is several fathoms high. If one do not find the door and enter by it, he cannot see the rich ancestral temple with its beauties, nor all the officers in their rich array. But I may assume that they are few who find the door. The remark of the chief was only what might have been expected [1]’

Another time, the same individual having spoken revilingly of Confucius, Tsze-kung said, ‘It is of no use doing so. Chung-ni cannot be reviled. The talents and virtue of other men are hillocks and mounds which may be stepped over. Chung-ni is the sun or moon, which it is not possible to step over. Although a man may wish to cut himself off from the sage, what harm can he do to the sun and moon? He only shows that he does not know his own capacity [2].’

In conversation with a fellow-disciple, Tsze-kung took a still higher flight. Being charged by Tsze-ch’in with being too modest, for that Confucius was not really superior to him, he replied, ‘For one word a man is often deemed to be wise, and for one word he is often deemed to be foolish. We ought to be careful indeed in what we say. Our master cannot be attained to, just in the same way as the heavens cannot be gone up to by the steps of a stair. Were our master in the position of the prince of a State, or the chief of a Family, we should find verified the description which has been given of a sage’s rule:— He would plant the people, and forthwith they would be established; he would lead them on, and forthwith they would follow him; he would make them happy, and forthwith multitudes would resort to his dominions; he would stimulate them, and forthwith they would be harmonious. While he lived, he would be glorious. When he died, he would be bitterly lamented. How is it possible for him to be attained to [3]?’

From these representations of Tsze-kung, it was not a difficult step for Tsze-sze to take in exalting Confucius not only to the level of the ancient sages, but as ‘the equal of Heaven.’ And Mencius took up the theme. Being questioned by Kung-sun Ch’au, one of his disciples, about two acknowledged sages, Po-i and I Yin, whether they were to be placed in the same rank with Confucius, he replied, ‘No. Since there were living men until now, there never was another Confucius;’ and then he proceeded to fortify his

 

1 Ana. XIX. xxiii.

2 Ana. XIX. xxiv.

3 Ana. XIX. xxv.

 

opinion by the concurring testimony of Tsai Wo, Tsze-kung, and Yu Zo, who all had wisdom, he thought, sufficient to know their master. Tsai Wo’s