James Legge

“ To dwell in love, the wide house of the world, to stand in propriety, the correct seat of the world, and to walk in righteousness, the great path of the world; when he obtains his desire for office, to practise his principles for the good of the people, and when that desire is disappointed, to practise them alone; to be above the power of riches and honours to make dissipated, of poverty and mean condition to make swerve from the right, and of power and force to make bend—these characteristics constitute the great man. ”

“ Many years before he was born, an ancient hero and king had proclaimed in China: “The great God has conferred on the people a moral sense, compliance with which would show their nature invariably right. To cause them tranquilly to pursue the course which it indicates is the task of the sovereign.” Confucius knew the utterance well; and he carried out the principle of it, and insisted on its application in all the relations of society. He taught emphatically that a bad man was not fit to rule. ”

“ We sow all the kinds of grain, Which grow up straight and large, So that the wish of the distant descendant is satisfied.
It ears and the fruit lies soft in its sheath; It hardens and is of good quality; There is no wolf's-tail grass nor darnel. We remove the insects that eat the heart and the leaf, And those that eat the roots and the joints, So that they shall not hurt the young plants of our fields. May the spirit, the Father of Husbandry [1] , Lay hold of them, and put them in the blazing fire! ”

“ Tze-lu went back, and reported what the man had said to the master, who observed: “It is impossible to withdraw from the world, and associate with birds and beasts that have no affinity with us. With whom should I associate but with suffering men? The disorder that prevails is what requires my efforts. If right principles ruled through the kingdom, there would be no necessity for me to change its state.” We must recognize in those words a brave heart and a noble sympathy. Confucius would not abandon the cause of the people. ”

“ We learn from it that dynasty of Kâu succeeded to that of Shang (another name for which was Yin) , and the dynasty of Shang to that of Hsiâ, and that prior to Yü, the founder of the Hsiâ, there were the reigns of Shun and Yâo. As P. Gaubil has observed, 'If we had only the Shû King, we should have but confused ideas of the time comprised in the different parts of the book.' There is nothing in this to awaken our surprise. The chronology of a nation comes to be cultivated as a science only when a necessity is felt to arrange the events of its history in regular series on the course of time. ”

“ THE HSIÂO YÜAN. SOME OFFICER IN A TIME OF DISORDER AND MISGOVERNMENT URGES ON HIS BROTHERS THE DUTY OF MAINTAINING THEIR OWN VIRTUE, AND OF OBSERVING THE GREATEST CAUTION.
Small is the cooing dove, But it flies aloft to heaven. My heart is wounded with sorrow, And I think of our forefathers. When the dawn is breaking, and I cannot sleep, The thoughts in my breast are of our parents.
Men who are grave and wise, Though they drink, are mild and masters of themselves; But those who are benighted and ignorant Become devoted to drink, and more so daily. ”

“ The people would flock to him as their parent, and help him to do justice on the foes of truth and happiness. Pulse and grain would be abundant as water and fire, and the multitudes, well clothed, and well principled, would sit under the shade of their mulberry trees, and hail the ruler “king by the grace of Heaven.”
Opinions were much divided among his contemporaries on the subject of human nature. Some held that the nature of man is neither good nor bad; he may be made to do good and also to do evil. Others held that the nature of some men is good, and that of others bad ”

“ He does not promote a man simply because of his words, nor does he put good words aside because of the man.”
“A poor man who does not flatter, and a rich man who is not proud, are passable characters; but they are not equal to the poor who yet are cheerful, and the rich who yet love the rules of propriety.”
“Learning, undigested by thought, is labour lost; thought unassisted by learning, is perilous.” ”

“ Confucius would not say. There was no need, in his opinion, to trouble the mind about it. “While you cannot serve men,” he replied to the inquiry of Tze-lu, “how can you serve spirits?” And what becomes of a man's own self, when he has passed from the stage of life? The oracle of Confucius was equally dumb on this question. “While you do not know life,” he said to the same inquirer, “what can you know about death?” Doubts as to the continued existence of the departed were manifested by many leading men in China before the era of Confucius. ”

“ Under the Sung dynasty, indeed, there began the sceptical criticism, which, setting comparatively little store on external evidence, decides on the genuineness of documents principally from their style. The results of such criticism always vary according to the knowledge and the subjective character of the mind of its author. Many maintain that the commentary said to be that of An-kwo was not really from him, but was made by Mei Zeh, and palmed on the world under the name of the great Han scholar. ”

“ For the mouth to desire flavours, the eye colours, the ear sounds, and the four limbs ease and rest belong to man’s nature. An individual’s lot may restrict him from the gratification of them; and in such a case the superior man will not say, ‘My nature demands that pleasure, and I will get it.’ On the other hand, there are love between father and son, righteousness between ruler and minister, the rules of ceremony between host and guest, and knowledge seen in recognizing the able and virtuous, and in the sage’s fulfilling the heavenly course;—these are appointed (by Heaven) . ”

“ A reader, confronted everywhere by the word God, might be led to think more highly of the primitive religion of China than he ought to think. Should I leave the names Tî and Shang Tî untranslated? Or should I give for them, instead of God, the terms Ruler and Supreme Ruler? I could not see my way to adopt either of these courses.
The term Heaven (天, pronounced Thien) is used everywhere in the Chinese Classics for the Supreme Power, ruling and governing all the affairs of men with an omnipotent and omniscient righteousness and goodness ”

“ Thirdly, we must take into account the absence of strong and definite religious beliefs, properly so called, which has always been a characteristic of the Chinese people. We are little troubled, of course, with heresies, and are not shocked by the outbreaks of theological zeal; but where thought as well as action does not reach beyond the limits of earth and time, we do not find man in his best estate. We miss the graces and consolations of faith; we have human efforts and ambitions, but they are unimpregnated with divine impulses and heavenly aspirings. ”

“ This king Kî Was gifted by God with the power of judgment, So that the fame of his virtue silently grew. His virtue was highly intelligent,--Highly intelligent, and of rare discrimination; Able to lead, able to rule, To rule over this great country ”

“ Mencius is more than forty years old when he comes before us as a public character. He must have spent much time in study, investigating questions as to the fundamental principles of morals and society, and brooding over the condition of the country. The history, the poetry, the institutions and the great men of the past had received his attention. He intimates that he had been in communication with men who had been disciples of Confucius. That sage had become to him the chief of mortal men, the object of his untiring admiration ”

“ But Confucius had confidence in the preponderating goodness of human nature, and in the power of example in superiors. “Not more surely,” he said, “does the grass bend before the wind than the masses yield to the will of those above them.” Given the model ruler, and the model people would forthwith appear. And he himself could make the model ruler. He could tell the princes of the states what they ought to be; and he could point them to examples of perfect virtue in former times, - to the sage founders of their own dynasty; to the sage Tang, who had founded the previous dynasty of Shang ”