Lao-Tsze and Confucius compared--The appearance of Kilin, the fabulous
dragon, to the father of Confucius--Early life of the Philosopher--The
death and funeral of his mother--His views on funeral ceremonies--His
visit to the King of Lu and discourse on the nature of man--Confucius
advocates gymnasium exercises--His love of music--His summary of the whole
duty of woman--He describes the life of a widow--He gives a list of the
classes of men to be avoided in marriage--The seven legitimate reasons for
the divorce of a wife--The three exceptions rendering divorce illegal--The
missionary Gutzlaff's opinion of Confucius' view of woman's position--The
Philosopher meets a man about to commit suicide--He rescues him from
despair--He loses thirteen of his own followers.
Under the continued influence of Lao-Tsze, China would probably have
become in course of time crowded with monasteries, in which numerous
bonzes would have devoted their lives to sterile contemplation, which
would have profited their country not at all. Fortunately, however, the
old philosopher was succeeded by the more practical Confucius, who made
China what he meant it to be during his life-time, enforcing respect
for tradition with the strict observance of the worship of ancestors.
Devoted to agriculture, he did much to promote its scientific practice; an
inexorable lover of justice, he had no mercy on the abuses and peculations
of the mandarins. He knew how to turn to account every incident which
could redound to his fame, and about his name gathered many romantic
legends such as serve to fix on their hero the love and admiration of
the populace. In this he differed, as did all the other great leaders
of thought in the East, from Lao-Tsze, who owed his celebrity to the
culte of pure reason alone, a doctrine too abstract for the apprehension
of the general public, who ever delight in the marvellous. The earlier
philosopher appeared and disappeared with absolutely no _éclat_, and his
most ardent admirers never associated his birth or death with anything
supernatural. It was far otherwise with Buddha, Confucius, Mahomet, and
our Saviour, who one and all were credited with the power of working
miracles, though those of Christ alone have been authenticated.
It could only detract from the real glory of Confucius to dwell on the
many extraordinary phenomena which are said by his disciples to have
accompanied his entrance into the world. The great Chinese dragon called
_Kilin_, who never comes down to earth from his home in heaven except to
foretell marvellous events, failed not to appear in the garden of the
house of the future hero's father, where he vomited forth a stone of jade
bearing the following inscription:
"A child as pure as the crystalline wave will be born when the dynasty of
Tcheu is in its decline; he will be king, but without any kingdom."
[Illustration: FIG. 24.--THE HOUSE IN WHICH CONFUCIUS WAS BORN.
(_Univers Pittoresque._)]
[Sidenote: BIRTH OF CONFUCIUS]
According to the most trustworthy accounts Confucius was born in the
village of Ch'ieh in the present province of Shantung in B.C. 551. The
only child of his parents, he lost his father when he was but three years
old, and was brought up by his mother, who was left with very little
money. To quote the philosopher's own words, he could from the first "do
whatever his heart prompted, and his mind was set on learning from the age
of fifteen."
[Illustration: FIG. 25.--PORTRAIT OF CONFUCIUS.
(_Univers Pittoresque._)]
Before he was twenty he had attracted the general attention of his
neighbours through the skill with which he rendered fertile districts
which had long been considered barren. He was equally successful in the
breeding of flocks, and the land under his care supported thousands
of animals, so that the farmers who before could scarcely eke out a
miserable subsistence, now found themselves rich and well-to-do.
[Illustration: FIG. 26.--A FUNERAL PROCESSION IN CHINA.]
[Sidenote: QUOTATION FROM CONFUCIUS]
On the death of his mother he had her body transported to the grave
of his father, saying: "Those who were united in life should not be
separated after death." The two were therefore buried together with their
heads towards the north and their feet towards the south. The remains
were protected from wild beasts by being placed in strongly constructed
wooden coffins, made of planks four inches thick and smeared with oil and
varnish. To ensure their preservation as long as possible mounds of earth
forming regular little hills were piled up above them.
During the three years of mourning which succeeded his sad loss, when,
according to a custom still observed, he could do no public work,
Confucius devoted himself to the study of ancient usage in everything
connected with the death of a father or a mother.
[Illustration: FIG. 27.--CHINESE TOMBS.]
[Sidenote: A CHINESE TOMB]
"As man," he wrote, "is the most perfect being under heaven, that of which
he is made up is worthy of the very greatest respect; as he is by nature
the king of the earth, every other creature upon that earth is subject to
his laws and bound to do him homage; to be indifferent to what becomes of
his remains when the breath of life no longer animates those remains, is
to a certain extent to degrade him from his dignity, and to reduce him to
the level of the brutes. The honours you render to those you replace upon
the earth will be rendered to you in your turn by those who succeed you."
[Sidenote: BURIAL CUSTOMS IN CHINA]
During a long sojourn in the Philippine Islands, which have recently been
so very much before the public in consequence of the results of the war
between America and Spain, I was surprised to notice that the cemeteries
were as a rule situated in the most barren and uncultivated districts.
Once a year plates of rice were brought and placed upon the graves by the
relatives of those interred in them. When I arrived in China, however, I
found the same peculiarity the fashion there, and the last resting-places
of the dead who had once resided in Canton, Macao, and other large
Chinese towns were far away from the haunts of the living. The reason
was explained by the sentence quoted below from the books of the great
philosopher which is translated from Father Amiot's version.
It appears that some agents of Confucius had been sent by him to survey
certain districts in the kingdom of Lu, and on their return they reported
to him that wealthy inhabitants were in the habit of erecting sepulchres
on lands which might be made very fertile.
"That is a strange abuse," cried Confucius, "and one which I mean to
remedy. Burial-places should not resemble gardens of pleasure and
amusement, they should be the scene of sobs and tears; it was thus that
they were regarded by the ancients. To enjoy magnificent and sumptuous
repasts where everything is suggestive of luxury and joy, near the tombs
containing the bones of those to whom we owe our lives, is a kind of
insult to the dead. These tombs must no longer be surrounded by walls,
they must no longer be encircled by trees symmetrically planted. When
deprived of all these frivolous ornaments, the homage which all will
hasten to pay to those who have ceased to live will be sincere and pure.
If, then, we desire to perform funeral rites in the spirit of their first
founders we must remain true to the traditions of the sages of the remote
past."
[Illustration: FIG. 28.--A CHINESE CEMETERY.]
For the twenty-three centuries which have elapsed since this protest
was written, Chinese sepulchres have always been placed on high ground
of a dreary, desolate aspect, with nothing to mark them but a plain
unsculptured slab of stone.
Philosophers very seldom become real friends, and the more they are
thrown together the less cordial become their relations. The story goes
that Confucius as a young man went to pay his respects to Lao-Tsze,
but that the latter gave his visitor very haughtily to understand that
he considered him wanting in humility, by which he probably meant that
Confucius was too much occupied with the things of this world, and not
enough with those of heaven. The fact is, that the younger reformer was
interested in everything that was going on wherever he happened to be, and
was ready to talk to everybody. For all that, however, he studied the most
abstruse psychological problems, and I do not suppose that even Lao-Tsze
himself could have made a better answer than Confucius did to the King of
Lu when he asked the difficult question quoted below.
[Sidenote: THE KING OF LU]
It must be remembered that in the time of Confucius, China was divided
into little kingdoms, all of which the sage, who was fond of travelling,
visited in turn. When he arrived at Lu, the king, who was already an old
man, received him at once, and is reported to have thus addressed him:
"I have been expecting you with impatience, for I want you to explain
certain things to me about nature and man. Man, our sages tell us, is
distinguished from all other visible beings by the intellectual faculty
which renders him capable of reasoning, and all our wise men agree in
adding that man derives this valuable faculty direct from Heaven. Now is
it not true that we derive our whole nature from our parents, even as
other beings are reproduced by generation? I entreat you to enlighten me
on this point."
"It is not easy," replied Confucius, "to explain clearly to you a matter
of which so little is really known. To obey you, however, I will give
you in a few words a _résumé_ of all I know on the subject, and your own
penetration will find out the rest.
"A portion of the substance of the father and the mother placed in the
organ formed for its reception is the cause of our existence and the germ
of our being. This germ would, however, remain inert and dead without the
help of the two contrary principles of the Yang and the Yin.[3]--These two
universal agents of nature, which are in all things and everywhere, act
reciprocally on it, developing it, insensibly extending and continuing it,
and causing it to assume definite form.
[3] "In the order of living beings," says M. G. Pauthier, in the section
on China of _L'Univers Pittoresque_, "the Yang and the Yin are the male
and female principles; in the order of the elements they are the luminous
and the dark principles; in the order of natural substances the strong and
the weak principles."
"The germ has now become a living being, but this living being is not
yet promoted to the dignity of a man; it does not become one until it is
united with that intellectual substance which Heaven bestows on it to
enable it to understand, to compare, and to judge. So long as this being,
thus animated and endowed with intelligence, continues to combine the two
principles necessary to the development, extension, the growth and the
perfection of its form, it will enjoy life; it ceases to live as soon as
these two principles cease to combine. It does not attain to the fulness
of life except by degrees, and by means of expansion; in the same way
it is only finally destroyed by gradual decay. Its destruction is not,
however, destruction properly so called, it is a decomposition into its
original elements; the intellectual substance returns to the heaven whence
it came; the animal breath, or the _Khi_, becomes united with the aërial
fluid, whilst the earthly and liquid substances become once more earth and
water.
[Sidenote: THE NATURE OF MAN]
"Man, say our ancient sages, is a unique being, in whom are united the
attributes of all other beings. He is endowed with intelligence, with the
power of attaining perfection, with liberty, and with social qualities;
he is able to discriminate, to compare, to work for a definite aim, and
to take the necessary measures for the attainment of that aim. He may
become perfect or depraved according to the good or evil use he makes of
his liberty; he is acquainted alike with virtue and vice, and feels that
he has duties to perform towards Heaven, himself, and his fellow-men. If
he acquit himself of these various duties, he is virtuous and worthy of
recompense; he is culpable and merits punishment if he neglects them. This
is a very short _résumé_ of all I can tell you of the nature of man."
The King of Lu, it is said, was delighted with this reply, as how could
he fail to be? Some years later the monarch made his sage adviser
prime minister of his realm, and the philosopher remained in power for
three years, administering justice so rigorously that, says one of his
biographers, "if gold or jewels were dropped on the highway they would
remain untouched until the rightful owner appeared to claim them." The
story goes that under Confucius, Lu became so prosperous as to arouse
the jealousy of the neighbouring King of Tse, who, with a wonderful
insight into human nature, sent not an army, but a troop of beautiful
dancing-girls to the court of the rival monarch. The manœuvre was
successful; the King of Lu neglected the affairs of state to watch the
posturing of the sirens, and Confucius fell into disgrace. When he proudly
told his sovereign to choose between him and the dancers, the old king
promptly replied that he preferred the latter; so Confucius went forth
with his followers to seek his fortunes elsewhere.
[Sidenote: CONFUCIUS ON THE ARTS]
Many are the anecdotes told of the wanderings of the sage after this
tragic end to his work of reformation in his native state. In some
districts he was gladly welcomed; in others he was often in danger of
his life. At the court of Yen, where the king questioned him much as the
monarch of Lu had done, he held forth less on abstruse doctrine than on
education. "Young men," he is reported to have said, "should travel and
become acquainted with many lands, so as to be able to judge the customs
of different nations, and the peculiar characteristics of various races.
I am so penetrated by this truth," he added, "that I will not fail to
put it in practice whenever I get the opportunity. I would recommend the
exercises of the gymnasium to all adolescents, and the study of what
are called the liberal arts: Music, civil and religious ceremonial,
arithmetic, fencing, and the art (_sic_) of managing skilfully a carriage
of any kind drawn by horses or oxen." To his son, who asked him if he
ought to devote himself to poetry, he replied: "You will never know how to
speak or write well unless you make verses."
One day he met a party of hunters, and, to the great surprise of his own
followers, he asked to be allowed to join them, explaining that the first
inhabitants of the earth lived by the chase alone, and adding that the
reason he wished to be a hunter was to impress upon those about him once
more how great a respect he had for the traditions of olden times.
He learnt music when very young, and found in it a rest and recreation
after his arduous and varied avocations. He became, it is said, so
wonderfully skilful in the art of music, that when he had once heard the
work of a composer, he could draw a faithful portrait of him, bringing
out alike his physical and moral characteristics, which was indeed going
to the very root of the matter. As for me, I do not think it is by any
means necessary to be able to perform on an instrument in order to form a
very good idea of the character of such composers as Rossini, Berlioz, and
Wagner, after hearing _Il Barbiere di Siviglia_, _Les Troyens_, or _Die
Meistersinger_; but as for giving portraits of their personal appearance,
that would truly be difficult!
Confucius, who took to himself a wife at the age of nineteen, was in
favour of early marriages, and placed the limit of age for a woman at
twenty, and for a man at thirty. He founded his arguments on the fact that
in China a boy is considered to have become a man directly he enters his
twentieth year, and that as soon as a girl is fifteen the management of
the house is entrusted to her during the winter, whilst in the spring,
when ploughing begins, she is sent to look after the mulberry trees. At
the respective ages of twenty and fifteen, a boy and girl may become
the head of a family, "if," discreetly adds the sage, "the parents give
permission."
[Sidenote: MEANING OF THE PHŒNIX]
I take a real pleasure in recalling the kindly sayings of this old-world
sage, who, it must be remembered, lived 600 years before the birth of our
Lord, a fact which ought to silence those who are accustomed to speak
flippantly of the barbarism of past centuries. Moreover, the laws and
customs advocated by Confucius had really been in force, in what was
then called the "Middle State," for no less than 2500 years before the
Christian era, but they had fallen into abeyance. The great philosopher
was not so much an innovator as a restorer, for so lofty was the morality
of the ancient laws that the Chinese people never dreamt of modifying
them. Hence the extraordinary immobility of the manners and customs of the
Orient, which contrasts so forcibly with the constant eagerness in the
West for meaningless novelties. To give an account of the doctrines of
Confucius is really to revive the traditions of the remote past, for which
the Celestials have so deep a reverence. To give but one case in point:
noticing that all mandarins have a phœnix with outspread wings embroidered
on their robes, I inquired what it meant, and learnt to my astonishment
that in the year 500 B.C. an Emperor had ordered this design to be worn
by his chief officers on their breasts. The fabulous phœnix, the herald
of good fortune so often seen in China, had appeared to this Emperor on
his ascent to the throne; a sure symbol in the eyes of the Chinese of a
prosperous reign, and the conservative Mandarins have kept up the custom
of wearing a representation of the bird with outstretched wings ever since.
For the benefit of those who do not rightly reverence antiquity, I will
quote a speech on the subject of marriage, addressed by Confucius to the
King of Lu before the great philosopher was exiled from the kingdom he had
ruled over so wisely.
"Marriage," said the sage, "is the right state for man, because it is
only through marriage that he can fulfil his destiny upon earth; there
is therefore nothing more honourable, nothing more worthy of his serious
consideration than his power of fulfilling exactly all duties. Amongst
these are some shared in common by both sexes, others which are to be
performed by each sex in particular. The man is the head, it is for him
to command; the woman is subject to him, it is for her to obey. It is
the function of both together to imitate those operations of the heaven
and the earth which combine in the production, the support, and the
preservation of all things. Reciprocal tenderness, mutual confidence,
truthfulness and respect, should form the foundation of their conduct;
instruction and direction on the part of the husband, docility and
complaisance on the part of the woman, in everything which does not
interfere with the requirements of justice, propriety, and honour.
[Illustration: FIG. 29.--A YOUNG CHINESE MARRIED LADY.]
[Sidenote: CHINESE WIDOWS]
"As society is now constituted, the woman owes all that she is to her
husband. If death takes him from her, it does not make her her own
mistress. As a daughter, she was under the authority of her father and
mother, or failing them of the brothers older than herself; as a wife she
was ruled by her husband as long as he lived; as a widow she is under the
surveillance of her son, or if she has several sons, of the eldest of
them, and this son, whilst ministering to her with all possible affection
and respect, will shield her from all the dangers to which the weakness
of her sex might expose her. Custom does not permit second marriage to
a widow, but prescribes on the contrary that she should seclude herself
within the precincts of her own house, and never leave it again all the
rest of her life. She is forbidden to attend to any business, no matter
what, outside her home. As a result she ought not to understand any such
business; she will not even meddle in domestic matters unless compelled to
do so by necessity, that is to say, whilst her children are still young.
During the day she should avoid showing herself, by refraining from going
from room to room, unless obliged to do so. And during the night the room
in which she sleeps should always be lit up. Only by leading a retired
life such as this will she win amongst her descendants the glory of having
fulfilled the duties of a virtuous woman."
It would indeed be difficult for a widow to live up to such an ideal as
this, and that the Chinese themselves realize the fact, is proved by their
raising monuments to the memory of those who succeed.
"I have already said," adds Confucius, "that between fifteen and twenty
is the age at which a girl should change her state by marriage. As on
this change of state depends the happiness or misery in which she will
pass the rest of her days, nothing should be neglected to procure for
her a proper establishment, and the most advantageous one permitted by
circumstances. Special care should be taken not to allow her to enter a
family which has taken part in any conspiracy against the State, or in
any open revolt, or into one whose affairs are in disorder, or which is
agitated by internal dissensions. She should not have a husband chosen
for her who has been publicly dishonoured by any crime bringing him under
the notice of the law; to a man suffering from any chronic complaint, any
mental eccentricity, any bodily deformity, such as would make it difficult
to get on with him, or render him repulsive or disagreeable, or to a man
who is the eldest of a family but has neither father nor mother. With
the exception of these five classes of men, a husband may be chosen for
her from any rank of society, with whom it will depend on herself alone
whether she passes her life happily or not. She has but to fulfil exactly
all the duties of her new state to enjoy the portion of bliss destined for
her."
It is the parents who decide who their children shall marry, and a young
Chinaman does not know his _fiancée_ until the day of his wedding. This
explains why Confucius thought it necessary to go into all these details
on the subject of suitable husbands.
[Sidenote: REASONS FOR DIVORCE]
"A husband," he adds, "has the right to put away his wife, but he must not
use this right in an arbitrary manner; he must have some legitimate cause
for enforcing it. The legitimate causes of repudiation reduce themselves
to seven: The first when a woman cannot live in harmony with her father-
or mother-in-law; the second, if she is unable to perpetuate the race
because of her recognized sterility; the third, if she be justly suspected
of having violated conjugal fidelity, or if she gives any proof of
unchastity; the fourth, if she bring trouble into her home by calumnious
or indiscreet reports; the fifth, if she have; any infirmity such as every
man would naturally shrink from; the sixth, if it is difficult to correct
her of the use of intemperate language; the seventh, if unknown to her
husband she steals anything secretly in the house, no matter from what
motive.
"Although any one of these reasons is sufficient to authorize a husband
to put away his wife, there are three circumstances which forbid him to
use his right: the first, when his wife has neither father nor mother, and
would have nowhere to go to; the second, when she is in mourning for her
father- or mother-in-law, for three years after the death of either of
them; the third, when her husband, having been poor when he married her,
has subsequently become rich."
[Illustration: FIG. 30.--A MARRIAGE PROCESSION.]
Truly there is much wisdom in the counsels of Confucius on the vexed
subject of marriage, but it is impossible to help feeling that the very
low view he took of the position of women detracts greatly from the merit
of the discourse quoted above. We are, in fact, inclined to endorse the
opinion of the missionary Gutzlaff, who, speaking of the revered sage,
remarks: "By not giving a proper rank in society to females, by denying to
them the privileges which are their due as sisters, mothers, wives, and
daughters ... he has marred the harmony of social life, and put a barrier
against the improvement of society. The regeneration of China will, in
fact, never take place, unless the females be raised from the degraded
state which Confucius assigned to them."
[Sidenote: SUICIDE]
On yet another exciting topic, that of suicide, it will perhaps be
salutary to relate one anecdote illustrating the view the reformer took
of the matter, now that so many despairing souls have lost the aids and
consolations of religious faith in struggling with the difficulties of
their life on earth; when followers of the stoical and heroic Zeno are
becoming rarer and rarer, and so many young men and women resort to the
fumes of charcoal, or to the waters of the nearest river, to put an end to
the woes they have not the courage to face. We must premise, however, that
there is really far more excuse for an Asiatic to take his own life than
for a European, there being nothing unreasonable about it according to the
doctrine of Buddha, whose disciples believe firmly in the transmigration
of souls. They do not, it is true, profess to know whether, if they commit
suicide they will become animals, but they are firmly convinced that they
will continue to live, whereas the atheist has faith in nothingness alone.
[Illustration: FIG. 31.--A DESPERATE MAN.]
In one of his many journeys Confucius and his disciples met a man who was
trying to strangle himself with a rope. When asked what his motives were
for wishing to commit suicide, he replied that he had been a bad son,
a bad father, and a bad citizen. The remorse he felt for the terrible
character his self-examination revealed him to be from all these three
points of view, had made his life odious to him, and he had come out to a
lonely place to put an end to it.
Greatly shocked, Confucius reproved him, addressing him in the following
terms: "However great the crimes you have committed, the worst of all of
them is yielding to despair. All the others may be allowed, but that is
irremediable. You have, no doubt, gone astray from the very first steps
you took upon earth. You should have begun by being a man of ordinary
worth before attempting to distinguish yourself You cannot attain to being
an eminent person until you have strictly fulfilled the duty imposed by
nature on every human creature. You ought to have begun by being a good
son; to love and serve those to whom you owed your being was the most
essential of your obligations; you neglected to do so, and from that
negligence have resulted all your misfortunes.
[Illustration: FIG. 32.--THE TOMB OF CONFUCIUS.
(_Univers Pittoresque._)]
[Sidenote: SPEECH OF CONFUCIUS]
"Do not, however, suppose that all is lost; take courage again, and try
to become convinced of a truth which all past centuries have proved to be
incontestable. This is the truth I refer to; treasure it up in your mind,
and never lose hold of it: _As long as a man has life, there is no reason
to despair of him;_ he may pass suddenly from the greatest trouble to
the greatest joy, from the greatest misfortune to the greatest felicity.
Take courage once more, return home, and strive to turn to account every
instant, as if you began to-day for the first time to realize the value of
life."
Then turning to the younger of his disciples, Confucius said to them:
"What you have heard from the lips of this man is an excellent lesson for
you--reflect seriously upon it, every one of you."
After this remonstrance it is said that thirteen of the followers of
the sage left him to return home and perform their filial duties. The
Celestials, in fact, all agree in saying that filial piety was alike the
groundwork of the Confucian philosophy and the foundation of Chinese
society. In spite of much that is strange to European ideas, might we not
well follow many of the precepts of the enlightened pre-Christian teacher?