by Will Durant
To these five Ching the Chinese add four Shu, or “Books” (of the Philosophers), to constitute the “Nine Classics.” First and most important of these is the Lun Yü, or Discourses and Dialogues, known to the English world, through a whim of Legge’s, as the “Analects”—i.e., the collected fragments—of Confucius. These pages are not from the Master’s hand, but record, with exemplary clarity and brevity, his opinions and pronouncements as remembered by his followers. They were compiled within a few decades of Confucius’ death, perhaps by the disciples of his disciples,94 and are the least unreliable guide that we have to his philosophy. The most interesting and instructive of all statements in the Chinese Classics appears in the fourth and fifth paragraphs* of the second Shu—a work known to the Chinese as Ta Hsüeh, or The Great Learning. The Confucian philosopher and editor, Chu Hsi, attributed these paragraphs to Confucius, and the remainder of the treatise to Tseng Ts’an, one of the younger disciples; Kea Kwei, a scholar of the first century A.D., attributed the work to K’ung Chi, grandson of Confucius; the sceptical scholars of today agree that the authorship is unknown.95 All students concur in ascribing to this grandson the third philosophical classic of China, the Chung Yung, or Doctrine of the Mean. The last of the Shu is the Book of Mencius, of which we shall speak presently. With this volume ends the classic literature, but not the classic period, of Chinese thought. There were, as we shall see, rebels and heretics of every kind to protest against that masterpiece of conservatism, the philosophy of Confucius.
3. The Agnosticism of Confucius
A fragment of logic—The philosopher and the urchins—A formula of wisdom
Let us try to do justice to this doctrine; it is the view of life that we shall take when we round out our first half-century, and for all that we know it may be wiser than the poetry of our youth. If we ourselves are heretics and young, this is the philosophy that we must marry to our own in order that our half-truths may beget some understanding.
We shall not find here a system of philosophy—i.e., a consistent structure of logic, metaphysics, ethics and politics dominated by one idea (like the palaces of Nebuchadrezzar, which bore on every brick the name of the ruler). Confucius taught the art of reasoning not through rules or syllogisms, but by the perpetual play of his keen mind upon the opinions of his pupils; when they went out from his school they knew nothing about logic, but they could think clearly and to the point. Clarity and honesty of thought and expression were the first lessons of the Master. “The whole end of speech is to be understood”96—a lesson not always remembered by philosophy. “When you know a thing, to hold that you know it; and when you do not, to admit the fact—this is knowledge.”97 Obscurity of thought and insincere inaccuracy of speech seemed to him national calamities. If a prince who was not in actual fact and power a prince should cease to be called a prince, if a father who was not a fatherly father should cease to be called a father, if an unfilial son should cease to be called a son—then men might be stirred to reform abuses too often covered up with words. Hence when Tsze-loo told Confucius, “The prince of Wei has been waiting for you, in order with you to administer the government; what will you consider the first thing to be done?” he answered, to the astonishment of prince and pupil, “What is necessary is to rectify names.”98
Since his dominating passion was the application of philosophy to conduct and government, Confucius avoided metaphysics, and tried to turn the minds of his followers from all recondite or celestial concerns. Though he made occasional mention of “Heaven” and prayer,99 and counseled his disciples to observe sedulously the traditional rites of ancestor worship and national sacrifice,100 he was so negative in his answers to theological questions that modern commentators agree in calling him an agnostic.101 When Tsze-kung asked him, “Do the dead have knowledge, or are they without knowledge?” Confucius refused to make any definite reply.102 When Ke Loo asked about “serving the spirits” (of the dead), the Master responded: “While you are not able to serve men, how can you serve their spirits?” Ke Loo asked: “I venture to ask about death?” and was answered: “While you do not know life, how can you know about death?”103 When Fan Ch’e inquired “what constituted wisdom?” Confucius said: “To give one’s self earnestly to the duties due to men, and, while respecting spiritual beings, to keep aloof from them, may be called wisdom.”104 His disciples tell us that “the subjects on which the Master did not talk were extraordinary things, feats of strength, disorder, and spiritual beings.”105 They were much disturbed by this philosophic modesty, and doubtless wished that the Master would solve for them the mysteries of heaven. The Book of Lieh-tze tells with glee the fable of the street-urchins who ridiculed the Master when he confessed his inability to answer their simple question—“Is the sun nearer to the earth at dawn, when it is larger, or at noon, when it is hotter? “106 The only metaphysics that Confucius would recognize was the search for unity in all phenomena, and the effort to find some stabilizing harmony between the laws of right conduct and the regularities of nature. “Tsze,” he said to one of his favorites, “you think, I suppose, that I am one who learns many things and keeps them in his memory?” Tsze-kung replied, “Yes, but perhaps it is not so?” “No,” was the answer; “I seek unity, all-pervading.”107 This, after all, is the essence of philosophy.
His master passion was for morality. The chaos of his time seemed to him a moral chaos, caused perhaps by the weakening of the ancient faith and the spread of Sophist scepticism as to right and wrong; it was to be cured not by a return to the old beliefs, but by an earnest search for more complete knowledge, and a moral regeneration based upon a soundly regulated family life. The Confucian program is expressed pithily and profoundly in the famous paragraphs of The Great Learning:
The ancients who wished to illustrate the highest virtue throughout the empire first ordered well their own states. Wishing to order well their states, they first regulated their families. Wishing to regulate their families, they first cultivated their own selves. Wishing to cultivate their own selves, they first rectified their hearts. Wishing to rectify their hearts, they first sought to be sincere in their thoughts. Wishing to be sincere in their thoughts, they first extended to the utmost their knowledge. Such extension of knowledge lay in the investigation of things.
Things being investigated, knowledge became complete. Their knowledge being complete, their thoughts were sincere. Their thoughts being sincere, their hearts were then rectified. Their hearts being rectified, their own selves were cultivated. Their own selves being cultivated, their families were regulated. Their families being regulated, their states were rightly governed. Their states being rightly governed, the whole empire was made tranquil and happy.108
This is the keynote and substance of the Confucian philosophy; one might forget all other words of the Master and his disciples, and yet carry away with these “the essence of the matter,” and a complete guide to life. The world is at war, says Confucius, because its constituent states are improperly governed; these are improperly governed because no amount of legislation can take the place of the natural social order provided by the family; the family is in disorder, and fails to provide this natural social order, because men forget that they cannot regulate their families if they do not regulate themselves; they fail to regulate themselves because they have not rectified their hearts—i.e., they have not cleansed their own souls of disorderly desires; their hearts are not rectified because their thinking is insincere, doing scant justice to reality and concealing rather than revealing their own natures; their thinking is insincere because they let their wishes discolor the facts and determine their conclusions, instead of seeking to extend their knowledge to the utmost by impartially investigating the nature of things. Let men seek impartial knowledge, and their thinking will become sincere; let their thoughts be sincere and their hearts will be cleansed of disorderly desires; let their hearts be so cleansed, and their own selves will be regulated; let their own selves be regulated, and their families will a
utomatically be regulated—not by virtuous sermonizing or passionate punishments, but by the silent power of example itself; let the family be so regulated with knowledge, sincerity and example, and it will give forth such spontaneous social order that successful government will once more be a feasible thing; let the state maintain internal justice and tranquillity, and all the world will be peaceful and happy.—It is a counsel of perfection, and forgets that man is a beast of prey; but like Christianity it offers us a goal to strike at, and a ladder to climb. It is one of the golden texts of philosophy.
4. The Way of the Higher Man
Another portrait of the sage—Elements of character—The Golden Rule
Wisdom, therefore, begins at home, and the foundation of society is a disciplined individual in a disciplined family. Confucius agreed with Goethe that self-development is the root of social development; and when Tsze-loo asked him, “What constitutes the Higher Man?” he replied, “The cultivation of himself with reverential care.”109 Here and there, throughout the dialogues, we find him putting together, piece by piece, his picture of the ideal man—a union of philosopher and saint producing the sage. The Superman of Confucius is composed of three virtues severally selected as supreme by Socrates, Nietzsche and Christ: intelligence, courage, and good will. “The Higher Man is anxious lest he should not get truth; he is not anxious lest poverty should come upon him. . . . He is catholic, not partisan. . . . He requires that in what he says there should be nothing inaccurate.”110 But he is no mere intellect, not merely a scholar or a lover of knowledge; he has character as well as intelligence. “Where the solid qualities are in excess of accomplishments, we have rusticity; where the accomplishments are in excess of the solid qualities, we have the manners of a clerk. When the accomplishments and solid qualities are equally blended, we then have the man of complete virtue.”111 Intelligence is intellect with its feet on the earth.
The foundation of character is sincerity. “Is it not just an entire sincerity which marks the Higher Man?”112 “He acts before he speaks, and afterwards speaks according to his actions.”113 “In archery we have something like the way of the Higher Man. When the archer misses the center of the target, he turns round and seeks for the cause of his failure in himself.”114 “What the Higher Man seeks is in himself; what the lower man seeks is in others. . . . The Higher Man is distressed by his want of ability, not . . . by men’s not knowing him”; and yet “he dislikes the thought of his name not being mentioned after his death.”115 He “is modest in his speech, but exceeds in his actions. . . . He seldom speaks; when he does he is sure to hit the point. . . . That wherein the Higher Man cannot be equaled is simply this: his work, which other men cannot see.”116 He is moderate in word and deed; in everything “the Higher Man conforms with the path of the mean.”117 For “there is no end of things by which man is affected; and when his likings and dislikings are not subject to regulation, he is changed into the nature of things as they come before him.”118* “The Higher Man moves so as to make his movements in all generations a universal path; he behaves so as to make his conduct in all generations a universal law; he speaks so as to make his words in all generations a universal norm.’120† He accepts completely the Golden Rule, which is here laid down explicitly four centuries before Hillel and five centuries before Christ: “Chung-kung asked about perfect virtue. The Master said, . . . ‘Not to do unto others as you would not wish done unto yourself.’122 The principle is stated again and again, always negatively, and once in a single word. “Tsze-kung asked, ‘Is there one word which may serve as a rule of practice for all one’s life?’ The Master said, ‘Is not reciprocity such a word?’”123 Nevertheless he did not wish, like Lao-tze, to return good for evil; and when one of his pupils asked him, “What do you say concerning the principle that injury should be recompensed with kindness?” he replied, more sharply than was his custom: “With what, then, will you recompense kindness? Recompense injury with justice, and recompense kindness with kindness.”124
The very basis of the Higher Man’s character is an overflowing sympathy towards all men. He is not angered by the excellences of other men; when he sees men of worth he thinks of equaling them; when he sees men of low worth he turns inward and examines himself;124a for there are few faults that we do not share with our neighbors. He pays no attention to slander or violent speech.124b He is courteous and affable to all, but he does not gush forth indiscriminate praise.125 He treats his inferiors without contempt, and his superiors without seeking to court their favor.126 He is grave in deportment, since men will not take seriously one who is not serious with them; he is slow in words and earnest in conduct; he is not quick with his tongue, or given to clever repartee; he is earnest because he has work to do—and this is the secret of his unaffected dignity.127 He is courteous even to his familiars, but maintains his reserve towards all, even his son.128 Confucius sums up the qualities of his “Higher Man”—so similar to the Megalopsychos, or “Great-Minded Man,” of Aristotle—in these words:
The Higher Man has nine things which are subjects with him of thoughtful consideration. In regard to the use of his eyes he is anxious to see clearly. . . . In regard to his countenance he is anxious that it should be benign. In regard to his demeanor he is anxious that it should be respectful. In regard to his speech he is anxious that it should be sincere. In regard to his doing of business he is anxious that it should be reverently careful. In regard to what he doubts about, he is anxious to question others. When he is angry he thinks of the difficulties his anger may involve him in. When he sees gain to be got he thinks of righteousness.129
5. Confucian Politics
Popular sovereignty—Government by example—The decentralization of wealth—Music and manners—Socialism and revolution
None but such men, in the judgment of Confucius, could restore the family and redeem the state. Society rests upon the obedience of the children to their parents, and of the wife to her husband; when these go, chaos comes.130 Only one thing is higher than this law of obedience, and that is the moral law. “In serving his parents (a son) may remonstrate with them, but gently; when he sees that they do not incline to follow (his advice), he shows an increased degree of reverence, but does not abandon (his purpose). . . . When the command is wrong, a son should resist his father, and a minister should resist his August Master.”131 Here was one root of Mencius’ doctrine of the divine right of revolution.
There was not much of the revolutionist in Confucius; perhaps he suspected that the inheritors of a revolution are made of the same flesh as the men whom it deposed. But he wrote bravely enough in the Book of Odes: “Before the sovereigns of the Shang (Dynasty) had lost (the hearts of) the people, they were the mates of God. Take warning from the house of Shang. The great decree is not easily preserved.”132 The people are the actual and proper source of political sovereignty, for any government that does not retain their confidence sooner or later falls.
Tsze-kung asked about government. The Master said, “(The requisites of government) are three: that there should be sufficiency of food, sufficiency of military equipment, and the confidence of the people in their ruler.” Tsze-kung said, “If it cannot be helped, and one of these must be dispensed with, which of the three should be foregone first?” “The military equipment,” said the Master. Tsze-kung asked again, “If it cannot be helped, and one of the remaining two must be dispensed with, which of them should be foregone?” The Master answered, “Part with the food. From of old, death has been the lot of all men; but if the people have no faith (in their rulers) there is no standing (for the state).”133
The first principle of government, in the view of Confucius, is as the first principle of character—sincerity. Therefore the prime instrument of government is good example: the ruler must be an eminence of model behavior, from which, by prestige imitation, right conduct will pour down upon his people.
Ke K’ang asked Confucius about government, saying, “What do you say to killing the unprincipled f
or the good of the principled?” Confucius replied, “Sir, in carrying on your government, why should you use killing at all? Let your (evinced) desires be for what is good, and the people will be good. The relation between superiors and inferiors is like that between the wind and the grass. The grass must bend when the wind blows across it. . . . He who exercises government by means of his virtue may be compared to the north polar star, which keeps its place, and all the stars turn toward it. . . . Ke K’ang asked how to cause the people to reverence (their ruler), to be faithful to him, and to urge themselves to virtue. The Master said, “Let him preside over them with gravity—then they will reverence him. Let him be filial and kind to all—then they will be faithful to him. Let him advance the good and teach the incompetent—then they will eagerly seek to be virtuous.”134
As good example is the first instrument of government, good appointments are the second. “Employ the upright and put aside the crooked: in this way the crooked can be made to be upright.”135 “The administration of government,” says the Doctrine of the Mean, “lies in (getting proper) men. Such men are to be got by means of (the ruler’s) own character.”136 What would not a ministry of Higher Men do, even in one generation, to cleanse the state and guide the people to a loftier level of civilization?137 First of all, they would avoid foreign relations as much as possible, and seek to make their state so independent of outside supplies that it would never be tempted to war for them. They would reduce the luxury of courts, and seek a wide distribution of wealth, for “the centralization of wealth is the way to scatter the people, and letting it be scattered among them is the way to collect the people.”138 They would decrease punishments, and increase public instruction; for “there being instruction, there will be no distinction of classes.”139 The higher subjects would be forbidden to the mediocre, but music would be taught to all. “When one has mastered music completely, and regulates his heart and mind accordingly, the natural, correct, gentle and sincere heart is easily developed, and joy attends its development. . . . The best way to improve manners and customs is to . . . pay attention to the composition of the music played in the country.* . . . Manners and music should not for a moment be neglected by any one. . . . Benevolence is akin to music, and righteousness to good manners.”140