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by James Legge
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Title: THE CHINESE CLASSICS (PROLEGOMENA) Unicode Version
Author: James Legge
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The Project Gutenberg Etext of THE CHINESE CLASSICS (PROLEGOMENA) by James Legge
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THE CHINESE CLASSICS (PROLEGOMENA) A note from the digitizer
This digitized version preserves the original page breaks. The text of
each page is followed by its notes. Note reference numbers in the text are
enclosed in brackets.
In a few places I have substituted the character forms available in the
Big 5 character set for rare or (what are now considered) nonstandard
forms used by Legge. Characters not included in the Big 5 character set in
any form are described by their constituent elements.
THE CHINESE CLASSICS
with a translation, critical and exegetical notes,
prolegomena, and copious indexes by James Legge IN FIVE VOLUMES CONFUCIAN ANALECTS PROLEGOMENA.
CHAPTER I. 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 五經. '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 四子之書. 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 西河合集, 大學證文, 卷
一. 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 孝成皇帝. 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 諸子略. 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 孝靈皇帝. 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 博士七十人前為壽. The 博士 were not only 'great scholars,' but had an
official rank. There was what we may call a college of them, consisting of
seventy members. 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 悉詣守尉雜燒之. 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 御史悉案問諸生, 諸生傳相告引. 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 凡書六略, 三十八種, 五百九十六家, 萬三千二百六九卷. 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 道家者流. CHAPTER II. SECTION I. 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 太子大傳夏侯勝. 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 科斗文子, -- 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.' 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. 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 張侯論. 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. -- 孟敬子, 魯大夫, 仲孫氏, 名捷.
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 榕村語錄,-- 榕村, 'the village of Yung,' is, I conceive, the writer's nom
de plume. 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 (續文獻通考),' Bk. cxcviii. p. 17, it is said, indeed, on the authority of
Wang Ch'ung (王充), a scholar of our first century, that when the Work
came out of the wall it was named a Chwan or Record (傳), 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:-- 武帝得論語于孔壁中, 皆名曰傳, 孔安國以古論教
晉人扶卿, 始曰論語. If it were so, it is strange the circumstance is not
mentioned in Ho Yen's preface. 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. 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 人間世. 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 包咸. 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 皇侃論語蔬. SECTION IV. 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, 拱 for 共; viii, 餕 for 饌; xix, 措 for 錯; xxiii. 1, 十世可知, without 也,
for 十世可知也. Book III. vii, in the clause 必也射乎, he makes a full stop at 也;
xxi. 1, 主 for 社. Book IV. x, 敵 for 適, and 慕 for 莫. Book V. xxi, he puts a full
stop at 子. Book VI. vii, he has not the characters 則吾. Book VII. iv, 晏 for 燕
; xxxiv, 子疾 simply, for 子疾病. Book IX. ix, 弁 for 冕. Book XI. xxv. 7, 僎 for 撰
, and 饋 for 歸. Book XIII. iii. 3, 于往 for 迂; xviii. 1, 弓 for 躬. Book XIV. xxxi,
謗 for 方; xxxiv. 1, 何是栖栖者與 for 何為是栖栖者與. Book XV. i. a, 粻 for 糧.
Book XVI. i. 13, 封 for 邦. Book XVII. i, 饋 for 歸; xxiv. 2, 絞 for 徼. Book
XVIII. iv, 饋 for 歸; viii. 1, 侏 for 朱.
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 四書拓餘說. Published in 1798. The author was a Tsao Yin-ku -- 曹寅谷.
CHAPTER III. 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 戴德 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 陜碑. 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 程子顥,字伯淳,河南,洛陽人. 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 嘉靖. 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. 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. 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 唐氏秦疏有曰,虞松校刻石經于魏表,引漢賈逵之言,曰,孔伋窮居于宋,懼先聖之學不
明,而帝王之道墜,故作大學以經之,中庸以緯之; see the 大學證文,一, 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 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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 中庸說二篇. '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. 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 中庸章句. 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. 魯穆(or 繆)公. 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 四書集證, in the place just quoted from. For the incident we are
indebted to K'ung Fu; see note 3, p. 36. 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 四書集證, as above. 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 氏姓譜,卷一百二,孔氏,孔伋. 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 四書集證, the full title
being 四書經註集證. The passage here translated from it will be found in the
place several times referred to in this section. 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-
1 This conversation is given in the Li Chi, II. Sect. II. Pt. ii, 1. ever, as a thinker and writer that we have to do, and his rank in that
capacity will appear from the examination of the Chung Yung in the section
iv below. His place in the temples of the Sage has been that of one of his
four assessors, since the year 1267. He ranks with Yen Hui, Tsang Shan,
and Mencius, and bears the title of 'The Philosopher Tsze-sze, Transmitter
of the Sage [1].'
SECTION III. In the testimony of K'ung Fu, which has been adduced to prove the
authorship of the Chung Yung, it is said that the Work consisted originally
of forty-nine p'ien. From this statement it is argued by some, that the
arrangement of it in thirty-three chapters, which originated with Chu Hsi,
is wrong [2]; but this does not affect the question of integrity, and the
character p'ien is so vague and indefinite, that we cannot affirm that
K'ung Fu meant to tell us by it that Tsze-sze himself divided his Treatise
into so many paragraphs or chapters.
It is on the entry in Liu Hsin's Catalogue, quoted section i,-- 'Two
p'ien of Observations on the Chung Yung,' that the integrity of the
present Work is called in question. Yen Sze-ku, of the Tang dynasty, has a
note on that entry to the effect:-- 'There is now the Chung Yung in the Li
Chi in one p'ien. But that is not the original Treatise here mentioned,
but only a branch from it [3]' Wang Wei, a writer of the Ming dynasty,
says:-- 'Anciently, the Chung Yung consisted of two p'ien, as appears
from the History of Literature of the Han dynasty, but in the Li Chi we
have only one p'ien, which Chu Hsi, when he made his "Chapters and
Sentences," divided into thirty-three chapters. The old Work in two
p'ien is not to be met with now [4].'
These views are based on a misinterpretation of the entry in the
1 述聖子思子. Catalogue. It does not speak of two p'ien of the Chung Yung, but of
two p'ien of Observations thereon. The Great Learning
carries on its front the evidence of being incomplete, but the student will
not easily believe that the Doctrine of the Mean is so. I see no reason for
calling its integrity in question, and no necessity therefore to recur to the
ingenious device employed in the edition of the five ching published
by the imperial authority of K'ang Hsi, to get over the difficulty which
Wang Wei supposes. It there appears in two p'ien, of which we have
the following account from the author of 'Supplemental Remarks upon the
Four Books:'-- 'The proper course now is to consider the first twenty
chapters in Chu Hsi's arrangement as making up the first p'ien, and
the remaining thirteen as forming the second. In this way we retain the
old form of the Treatise, and do not come into collision with the views of
Chu. For this suggestion we are indebted to Lu Wang-chai' (an author of
the Sung dynasty ) [1].
SECTION IV. 1. The Doctrine of the Mean is a work not easy to understand. 'It first,'
says the philosopher Chang, 'speaks of one principle; it next spreads this
out and embraces all things; finally, it returns and gathers them up under
the one principle. Unroll it and it fills the universe; roll it up, and it retires
and lies hid in secrecy [2].' There is this advantage, however, to the student
of it, that more than most other Chinese Treatises it has a beginning, a
middle, and an end. The first chapter stands to all that follows in the
character of a text, containing several propositions of which we have the
expansion or development. If that development were satisfactory, we
should be able to bring our own minds en rapport with that of the
author. Unfortunately it is not so. As a writer he belongs to the intuitional
school more than to the logical. This is well put in the 'Continuation of the
General Examination of Literary Monuments and Learned Men,'-- 'The
philosopher Tsang reached his conclusions by following in the train of
things, watch-
1 See the 四書拓餘說, art. 中庸. ing and examining; whereas Tsze-sze proceeds directly and reaches to
Heavenly virtue. His was a mysterious power of discernment, approaching
to that of Yen Hui [1].' We must take the Book and the author, however, as
we have them, and get to their meaning, if we can, by assiduous
examination and reflection.
2. 'Man has received his nature from Heaven. Conduct in
accordance with that nature constitutes what is right and true,-- is a
pursuing of the proper Path. The cultivation or regulation of that
path is what is called Instruction.' It is with these axioms that the
Treatise commences, and from such an introduction we might expect that
the writer would go on to unfold the various principles of duty, derived
from an analysis of man's moral constitution.
Confining himself, however, to the second axiom, he proceeds to say that
'the path may not for an instant be left, and that the superior man is
cautious and careful in reference to what he does not see, and fearful and
apprehensive in reference to what he does not hear. There is nothing more
visible than what is secret, and nothing more manifest than what is
minute, and therefore the superior man is watchful over his
aloneness.' This is not all very plain. Comparing it with the sixth
chapter of Commentary in the Great Learning, it seems to inculcate what is
there called 'making the thoughts sincere.' The passage contains an
admonition about equivalent to that of Solomon,-- 'Keep thy heart with all
diligence, for out of it are the issues of life.'
The next paragraph seems to speak of the nature and the
path under other names. 'While there are no movements of pleasure,
anger, sorrow, or joy, we have what may be called the state of
equilibrium. When those feelings have been moved, and they all act
in the due degree, we have what may be called the state of harmony.
This equilibrium is the great root of the world, and this harmony is its
universal path.' What is here called 'the state of equilibrium,' is the same
as the nature given by Heaven, considered absolutely in itself, without
deflection or inclination. This nature acted on from without, and
responding with the various emotions, so as always 'to hit [2]' the mark
with entire
1 See the 續文獻通考, Bk. cxcix, art. 子思,--曾子得之于隨事省察,而子思之學,則
直達天德,庶幾顏氏之妙悟. correctness, produces the state of harmony, and such harmonious
response is the path along which all human activities should proceed.
Finally. 'Let the states of equilibrium and harmony exist in perfection,
and a happy order will prevail throughout heaven and earth, and all things
will be nourished and flourish.' Here we pass into the sphere of mystery
and mysticism. The language, according to Chu Hsi, 'describes the
meritorious achievements and transforming influence of sage and spiritual
men in their highest extent.' From the path of duty, where we tread on
solid ground, the writer suddenly raises us aloft on wings of air, and will
carry us we know not where, and to we know not what.
3. The paragraphs thus presented, and which constitute Chu Hsi's first
chapter, contain the sum of the whole Work. This is acknowledged by all;--
by the critics who disown Chu Hsi's interpretations of it, as freely as by
him [1]. Revolving them in my own mind often and long, I collect from
them the following as the ideas of the author:-- Firstly, Man has received
from Heaven a moral nature by which he is constituted a law to himself;
secondly, Over this nature man requires to exercise a jealous watchfulness;
and thirdly, As he possesses it, absolutely and relatively, in perfection, or
attains to such possession of it, he becomes invested with the highest
dignity and power, and may say to himself-- 'I am a god; yea, I sit in the
seat of God.' I will not say here that there is impiety in the last of these
ideas; but do we not have in them the same combination which we found
in the Great Learning,-- a combination of the ordinary and the
extraordinary, the plain and the vague, which is very perplexing to the
mind, and renders the Book unfit for the purposes of mental and moral
discipline?
And here I may inquire whether we do right in calling the Treatise by
any of the names which foreigners have hitherto used for it? In the note
on the title, I have entered a little into this question. The Work is not at all
what a reader must expect to find in what he supposes to be a treatise on
'The Golden Medium,' 'The Invariable Mean,' or 'The Doctrine of the Mean.'
Those
l Compare Chu Hsi's language in his concluding note to the first chapter:--
楊氏所謂一篇之禮要, and Mao Hsi-ho's, in his 中庸說, 卷一, p. 11:-- 此中庸一書之
領要也. names are descriptive only of a portion of it. Where the phrase Chung
Yung occurs in the quotations from Confucius, in nearly every chapter
from the second to the eleventh, we do well to translate it by 'the course of
the Mean,' or some similar terms; but the conception of it in Tsze-sze's
mind was of a different kind, as the preceding analysis of the first chapter
sufficiently shows [1].
4. I may return to this point of the proper title for the Work again, but
in the meantime we must proceed with the analysis of it.-- The ten
chapters from the second to the eleventh constitute the second part, and in
them Tsze-sze quotes the words of Confucius, 'for the purpose,' according
to Chu Hsi, 'of illustrating the meaning of the first chapter.' Yet, as I have
just intimated, they do not to my mind do this. Confucius bewails the rarity
of the practice of the Mean, and graphically sets forth the difficulty of it.
'The empire, with its component States and families, may be ruled;
dignities and emoluments may be declined; naked weapons may be
trampled under foot; but the course of the Mean can not be attained to [2].'
'The knowing go beyond it, and the stupid do not come up to it [3].' Yet
some have attained to it. Shun did so, humble and ever learning from
people far inferior to himself [4]; and Yen Hui did so, holding fast whatever
good he got hold of, and never letting it go [5]. Tsze-lu thought the Mean
could be taken by sto
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or addition to the etext, or [3] any Defect.
by James Legge
THE GREAT LEARNING
THE DOCTRINE OF THE MEAN
OF THE CHINESE CLASSICS GENERALLY.
SECTION I.
BOOKS INCLUDED UNDER THE NAME OF THE CHINESE CLASSICS.
2 四書.
3 易經.
4 書經.
5 詩經.
6 禮記.
7 春秋.
2 論語.
3 大學.
4 曾參.
5 中庸.
6 孔伋.
7 樂記.
8 周禮.
9 儀禮.
10 春秋三傳
11 左丘明.
12 公羊高.
13 穀梁赤.
14 爾雅.
15 孝經.
2 前漢書, 本志, 第十卷, 藝文志.
3 仲尼.
4 篇籍, slips and tablets of bamboo, which supplied in those days the place
of paper.
5 世界孝武皇帝.
2 謁者陳農.
3 光祿大夫劉向.
4 步兵校慰任宏.
5 太史令尹咸.
6 侍醫李桂國.
7 侍中奉車都慰歆.
8 輯略.
9 六藝略.
10 凡易, 十三家, 二百九十四篇. How much of the whole work was contained in
each 篇, it is impossible to determine. P. Regis says: 'Pien, quemadmodum
Gallice dicimus "des pieces d'©loquence, de po©sie."'
11 詩, 六家, 四百一十六卷. 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.
2 儒家者流.
3 孝惠皇帝.
4 武帝建元五年, 初置五經博士.
5 顯宗孝明皇帝.
6 肅宗孝章皇帝.
7 孝和皇帝.
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 G©n©rale de La China, tome ii. pp. 399-402. The 通鑑網目
avoids the difficulties of the original by giving an abridgment of it.
2 僕射, 周青臣.
3 淳于越.
4 田常. -- 常 should probably be 恆, 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 丞相李斯
2 自除犯禁者, 四百六餘人, 皆阬之咸陽. The meaning of this passage as a whole
is sufficiently plain, but I am unable to make out the force of the phrase 自
除.
3 See the remarks of Chamg Chia-tsi (夾際鄭氏), of the Sung dynasty, on the
subject, in the 文獻通考, Bk. clxxiv. p. 5.
2 儒家者流.
2 墨家者流.
3 See Mencius, V. Pt. II. ii. 2.
OF THE CONFUCIAN ANALECTS.
FORMATION OF THE TEXT OF THE ANALECTS BY THE SCHOLARS OF THE HAN
DYNASTY.
2 前將軍, 蕭望之.
3 丞相, 韋賢, 及子, 玄成.
4 王卿.
5 庸生.
6 中尉王吉.
7 魯王共 (or 恭).
2 孔安國.
3 論語訓解. See the preface to the Lun Yu in 'The Thirteen Ching.' It has
been my principal authority in this section.
4 安昌侯, 張禹.
AT WHAT TIME, AND BY WHOM, THE ANALECTS WERE WRITTEN; THEIR PLAN;
AND AUTHENTICITY.
2 文獻通考, Bk. clxxxiv. p. 3.
3 鄭玄, 字康成.
4 孝獻皇帝.
2 悼公.
3 晉魏斯受經於卜子夏; see the 厤代統紀表, Bk. i. p. 77.
2 論語想是門弟子, 如語錄一般, 記在那裡, 後來有一高手, 鍊成文理這樣少, 下字無一不
渾.
2 荀卿.
3 莊子, 列子.
4 墨子.
OF COMMENTARIES UPON THE ANALECTS.
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 家語.
2 光武.
3 周氏.
4 至順帝時, 南郡太守, 馬融, 亦為之訓說.
5 司農, 陳群; 太常, 王肅; 博士, 周生列.
6 光祿大夫, 關內侯, 孫邕; 光祿大夫, 鄭沖; 散騎常侍, 中領軍, 安鄉亭侯, 曹羲; 侍中, 荀
顗; 尚書, 駙馬都尉, 關內侯, 何晏.
7 論語集解. I possess a copy of this work, printed about the middle of our
fourteenth century.
2 邢昺.
3 論語正義.
4 論語集義.
5 論語集註.
6 論語或問.
7 毛奇齡.
8 西河.
9 西河全集.
10 皇清經解.
OF VARIOUS READINGS.
2 翟教授, 四書考異.
OF THE GREAT LEARNING.
SECTION I.
HISTORY OF THE TEXT, AND THE DIFFERENT ARRANGEMENTS OF IT WHICH HAVE
BEEN PROPOSED.
2 戴聖 Shang was a second cousin of Teh.
2 明道.
3 新.
4 親.
5 大學證.
6 程子頤,字正叔,明道之弟.
7 伊川.
2 王文成.
3 王魯齊.
4 李彭山.
5 高景逸.
6 葛屺瞻
7 聖經古本,南海羅仲藩註辨.
OF THE AUTHORSHIP, AND DISTINCTION OF THE TEXT INTO CLASSICAL TEXT AND
COMMENTARY.
ITS SCOPE AND VALUE.
2 太學, not 大學. See the note on the title of the Work below.
3 天子, Cl. (classical) Text, par. 6, 2.
4 一人, Comm. ix. 3.
2 Cl. Text, pars. 4. 5.
2 See Comm. x. 1.
2 Comm. vii. 1.
3 Comm. Ch. vi.
2 Comm. vi. 2.
3 Suppl. to Comm. Ch. v.
THE DOCTRINE OF THE MEAN.
SECTION I.
ITS PLACE IN THE LI CHI, AND ITS PUBLICATION SEPARATELY.
2 隋書,卷三十二,志第二十七,經籍,一, p. 12.
3 禮記中庸專,二卷,宋散騎常侍戴顒撰;中庸講疏,一卷,梁武帝撰;私記制旨中庸;五卷.
4 周濂溪.
ITS AUTHOR; AND SOME ACCOUNT OF HIM.
2 子思作中庸; see the 史記,四十七,孔子世家.
3 This K'ung Fu (孔鮒) 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 孔叢子. I have not seen them, but the statement given above is
found in the 四書拓餘說;-- art. 中庸. -- 孔叢子云,子思撰中庸之書,四十九篇.
2. 聖廟祀典圖考.
3. 或以六十二似八十二之誤. Eighty-two and sixty-two may more easily be
confounded, as written in Chinese, than with the Roman figures.
4 See the 四書集證, on the preface to the Chung Yung, -- 年百餘歲卒.
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.'
2 Li Chi, II. Sect. I. ii. 7.
3 See the 四書集證, as above.
2 See the Li Chi, II. Sect. II. iii. 15. 庶氏之母死 must be understood as I have
done above, and not with Chang Hsuan, -- 'Your mother was born a Miss
Shu.'
3 子上 -- this was the designation of Tsze-sze's son.
4 白,-- this was Tsze-shang's name.
5 See the Li Chi, II. Sect. I. i. 4.
2 The author of the 四書拓餘說 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.
ITS INTEGRITY.
2 See the 四書拓餘說, art. 中庸.
3 顏師古曰,今禮記有中庸一篇,奕非本禮經,蓋此之流.
4 王氏緯曰,中庸古有二篇,見漢藝文志,而在禮記中者,一篇而已,朱子為章句,因其一篇者,
分為三十三章,而古所謂而篇者不可見矣.
ITS SCOPE AND VALUE.
2 See the Introductory note of Chu Hsi.
2 中節.