beginning with the year B.C. 722, and thus extending over about 250 years. Confucius desired posterity to judge him by this work, which, though not equal to Sz-ma Ts’ien’s Book of History, published three centuries later, was in its human interest far ahead of the dry records of the then past. All Chinese history previous to this date is as vague and unsatisfactory as our own European history previous to the founding of Rome in B.C. 753. The Twelve Tables, which are the foundation of Roman jurisprudence and administrative civilisation, date from 20 years after Confucius’ death ; during the half century following the death of Confucius and the publication of the Twelve Tables, Herodotus went upon his travels and wrote his history. So far as my own humble researches go, I incline to compare Confucius in some respects with Herodotus, and to place exact Chinese history on a level in point of antiquity with that of Greece and Rome, and no more. Previous to the eighth century before Christ, we have skeleton annals, lists of kings, accounts of floods, and narratives of wars in the Chinese world, just as we have in the Babylonian or Egyptian world ; with this important difference that, whereas in China there are no antiquities to speak of which corroborate tradition, in Egypt and Mesopotamia we have innumerable remains in the
The Life, Labours and Doctrines of Confiicius. 1 1
shape of buildings, mummies, and documentary evidences. Confucius attached no credence to the very ancient traditions. He used, indeed, to speak of the Emperors Yao and Shun, who lived 2,000 years before his time ; and, as we shall see, there are antiquities of that date in his temple. Then came three hereditary dynasties which lasted 1,100 years: then the imperial dynasty of which his ducal master was a scion. But, though there is no reason to question the existence of these ancient dynasties, the whole of the information amounts to very little of a practical kind.
Confucius spent the few remaining years of his life in collecting the old songs and traditions, the best specimens of which he has transmitted to us ; in fixing the principles of music, and in establishing forms, ceremonies, and etiquette. His son died four years before him, and this son’s relict com-mitted the crime of marrying again. The grandson, then 17 years of age, was carefully educated by Confucius himself, and subsequently published a system of ethics called the ” Doctrine of the Mean,” or Moderate, which embodies his grandfather’s teachings. Confucius’ declining years had already been cheered by a promise from his grandson to this effect. This grandson seems to have been a man of strong, touchy, and obstinate character ; in fact, an unpolished counterpart of Confucius himself.
One day in his 73rd year Confucius felt exhausted, and had a presenti-ment that death was near. His last words were the expression of regret that no intelligent rulers existed who could appreciate and utilise his services. He died a week later, and was buried just outside the ducal capital, on the River Sz, the beauty of which river had for generations been sung in the Book of Odes or Songs transmitted by him to us.
The first regular and general history of China, written by Sz-ma Ts’ien 2,000 years ago, and which in the original forms the basis of my present sketch, gives a list of Confucius’ descendants down to the time when the book was completed. The great-grandson above mentioned who was not allowed to mourn for his mother died at the age of 47 ; his son died at 45 ; his son at 46 ; his son at 51 ; his son, a minister of state under the Wei kings, at 57; his son, the man “who hid the books in the wall when a tyrant attempted to destroy Chinese literature, at 57. There seems to be a slight break now, for we are told that the last named had as successor a nephew almost as tall as Confucius ; this nephew, and also his son, died at 57. The son of this last was the father of K’ung An-kwoh, the man who found and deciphered the concealed books in B.C. 150, or, as the old contemporary historian says, “under his present Majesty; and died young, leaving a son and a grandson.”
We must go to other histories for facts concerning later descendants : confusion is sometimes caused by the use of such a term as 28th descendant, without specifying whether it means inclusive or exclusive of Confucius and the subject. Several served Turkish and Tartar dynasties. The 45th went as ambassador to the Kitai Tartars or Cathayans. It was the 47th who first bore a temporal or ducal title. The present duke, the 76th in descent, has just officially written to thank the Emperor for restoring to him 2,200 acres of land in Kiang Su province, granted to the family 500 years ago by Kublai Khan. It is said that one of the southern branch
12 The Life, Labours and Doctrines of Confucius.
is about to start a daily newspaper at Hangchow, the Kinsai of Marco Polo.
The reader has now before him an outline of Confucius’ life. Whilst admitting that he was a very worthy man, one fails to discover any symptoms of extraordinary genius, or any reason for the unlimited admiration in which the Chinese hold hjm. In his Miscellaneous Conversations, a book com-piled by disciples, and in those later parts of the royal Record of Rites emanating from Confucius and his disciples, we get more precise ideas touching his character. He was a moderate eater, but very particular and nice. He was not a teetotaler, but he never got tipsy. When the mysterious forces of nature manifested themselves in the shape of storms or thunder, he considered it his duty to sit up with respect ; but he declined to enlarge upon his reasons for so doing. He always said a kind of grace before his frugal meals by offering an oblation. The oriental custom of pouring out a drop of liquor, or scattering a few grains of food before partaking of it, is still in popular vogue. Confucius’ own deportment was in consonance with his teachings. He used, giving them a negative turn, almost the exact words so familiar to all Christians : he said : ” What you do not wish / others to do to you, do not to them.” Self-control, modesty, forbearance, patience, kindness, orderliness, absence of effusiveness and passion, studious-ness, industry, mildness, dutifulness, neighbourliness, fidelity, uprightness, moderation, politeness, ceremoniousness ; these were the qualities which Confucius consistently practised and taught. He laid special stress upon the necessity of cultivating intelligence and alertness. He abominated extremes, and preached the doctrine of the happy mean in everything ; in short, the doctrine of the Peripatetics ; a sort of machine-like smoothness, with no jerks or surprises, either on the side of virtue or on that of vice. Gloomy asceticism and passionate militancy were alike foreign to his taste. He was neither a theologian nor a metaphysician. He simply saw and understood his countrymen, and went to history for the means of governing them. There was nothing of the fanatic in his composition. If I wished to picture to you in life-like modern form the sort of man Confucius was, I should select an old-fashioned Quaker, such as we used to see up to 30 years ago, with broad back, bulky form ; rubicund, solid features : ponderous gait ; and calm, gentle, peaceful, kind, but not unmanly demeanour. Yet this external or social resemblance is defective if we go below the surface : for Confucius took his liquor ; he despised women except as mothers ; that is, he granted them no such equality as do the Quakers, and he would have nothing to do with flirtations, dances, singing, sky-larking, or it may be presumed those harmless kissing amenities so popular with non-Quakers. Mencius, 200 years later, was the first to qualify him as ” holy.” But Confucius declined for himself the right to be called a saint, or even a good man. He said : ” I am never tired of learning myself, and never weary of teaching others.” He did not wish to appear censorious. Though tolerant of old religious or superstitious notions, he did not care to go into questions of future life, extraordinary things, spirits, devils, anarchy, revolution, and mystic doctrines. In the presence of the forces of nature he was, as we have seen, awed but silent ; he declined to
The Life, Labours and Doctrines of Confucius. 13
discuss what he did not understand: he said: “Heaven does not talk, and yet the four seasons come with regularity.” Some writers have gone so far as to say that pure Confucianism is no religion at all. Others describe the ancient notions, which Confucius confined himself to criticising and transmitting, as spirit-worship tending towards fetichism. What Confucius really did was to arrange ancient ideas in orderly form, and revivify them with notions of his own, just as the old Jewish teachings received, fresh inspiration in the form of Christianity. The ancient idea was that there existed a Supreme Power, and that the King or Emperor, as a sort of vicegeifent, was the only channel of communication with that power.
