He had done enough in the way of holding office and governing
states. Laotse had taught that of old time, before Tao was lost,
the Yellow Emperor sat on his throne and all the world was
governed without knowing it. Confucius worked out the doctrine
thus: True government is by example; given the true ruler, and
he will have the means of ruling at his disposal, and they will
be altogether different from physical force. 'Example' does not
covey it either: his thought was much deeper. There is a word
_li_--I get all this from Dr. Lionel Giles--which the egregious
have been egregiously translating 'the rules of propriety'; but
which Confucius used primarily for a state of harmony within the
soul, which should enable beneficent forces from the Infinite to
flow through into the outer world;--whereof a result would also
be, on the social plane, perfect courtesy and politeness, these
the most outward expression of it. On these too Confucius
insisted which is the very worst you can say about him.--Now, the
ruler stands between Gods and men; let his _li_ be perfect--let
the forces of heaven flow through him unimpeded,--and the people
are regenerated day by day: the government is by regeneration.
Here lies the secret of all his insistence on loyalty and
filial piety: the regeneration of society is dependent on the
maintenance of the natural relation between the Ruler who rules--
that is, lets the _li_ of heaven flow through him--and his
people. They are to maintain such an attitude towards him as
will enable them to receive the _li._ In the family, he is the
father; in the state, he is the king. In very truth, this is
the Doctrine of the Golden Age, and proof of the profound occult
wisdom of Confucius: even the (comparatively) little of it that
was ever made practical lifted China to the grand height she has
held. It is hinted at in the _Bhagavad-Gita:_--"whatsoever is
practised by the most excellent men"; again, it is the Aryan
doctrine of the Guruparampara Chain. The whole idea is so remote
from modern practice and theory that it must seem to the west
utopian, even absurd; but we have Asoka's reign in India, and
Confucius's Ministry in Lu, to prove its basic truth. During
that Ministry he had flashed the picture of such a ruler
on to the screen of time: and it was enough. China could
never forget.
But if, knowing it to have been enough,--knowing that the hour of
the Open Door had passed, and that he should never see success
again,--he had then and there retired into private life, content
to teach his disciples and leave the stubborn world to save or
damn itself:--enough it would not have been. He had flashed the
picture on to the screen of time, but it would have faded.
Twenty years of wandering, of indomitability, of disappointment
and of ignoring defeat and failure, lay before him: in which to
make his creation, not a momentary picture, but a carving in jade
and granite and adamant. It is not the ever-victorious and
successful that we take into the adyta of our hearts. It is the
poignancy of heroism still heroism in defeat,--
"unchanged, though fallen on evil years,"
--that wins admittance there. Someone sneered at Confucius, in his
latter years, as the man who was always trying to do the
impossible. He was; and the sneerer had no idea what high
tribute he was paying him. It is because he was that: the hero,
the flaming idealist: that his figure shines out so clear and
splendidly. His outer attempts--to make a Man of Marquis This
or Duke That, and a model state of Lu or Wei--these were
but carvings in rotten wood, foredoomed to quick failure.
All the material of the world was rotten wood: he might have
learned that lesson;--only there are lessons that Such a One
never learns. Well; we in turn may learn a lesson from him:
applicable now. The rotten wood crumbled under his hands time
and again: under his bodily hands;--but it made no difference to
him. He went on and on, still hoping to begin his life's work,
and never recognising failure; and by reason and virtue of that,
the hands of his spirit were carving, not in rotten wood, but in
precious jade and adamant spiritual, to endure forever. On those
inner planes he was building up his Raja-Yoga; which time saw to
it should materialize and redeem his race presently. Confucius
in the brief moment of his victory illuminated the world indeed;
but Confucius in the long years of his defeat has bowed the
hearts of twenty-five centuries of the Black-haired People. We
can see this now; I wonder did he see it then? I mean, had that
certain knowledge and clear vision in his conscious mind, that
was possessed in the divinity of his Soul--as it is in every
Soul. I imagine not; for in his last days he--the personality--
could give way and weep over the utter failure of his efforts.
One loves him the more for it: one thinks his grandeur only the
more grand. It is a very human and at last a very pathetic
figure--this Man that did save his people.
Due west from Lu, and on the road thence to Honanfu the Chow
capital, lay the Duchy of Wei; whither now he turned his steps.
He had no narrow patriotism: if his own Lu rejected him, he
might still save this foreign state, and through it, perhaps, All
the Chinas. He was at this time one of the most famous men
alive; and his first experience in Wei might have been thought
to augur well. On the frontier he was met by messengers from a
local Wei official, begging for their master an interview:--
"Every illustrious stranger has granted me one; let me not ask
it of you, Sir, in vain." Confucius complied; was conducted to
the yamen, and went in, leaving his disciples outside. To these
the magistrate came out, while the Master was still resting
within.--"Sirs," said he, "never grieve for your Teacher's fall
from office. His work is but now to begin. These many years the
empire has been in perilous case; but now Heaven has raised up
Confucius, its tocsin to call the people to awakenment."--A wise
man, that Wei official!
At the capital, Duke Ling received him with all honor, and at
once assigned him a pension equal to the salary he had been paid
as Minister of Crime in Lu. He even consulted him now and again;
but reserved to himself liberty to neglect the advice asked for.
However, the courtiers intrigued; and before the year was out,
Confucius had taken to his wanderings again: he would try the
state of Ch'in now, in the far south-east. "If any prince would
employ me," said he, "within a twelvemonth I should have done
something considerable; in three years the government would
be perfect."
He was to pass through the town of Kwang, in Sung; it had lately
been raided by a robber named Yang Hu, in face and figure
resembling himself. Someone who saw him in the street put it
abroad that Yang Hu was in the town, and followed him to the
house he had taken for the night. Before long a mob had gathered,
intent on vengeance. The situation was dangerous; the mob in no
mood to hear reason;--and as to that, Yang Hu also would have
said that he was not the man they took him for,--very likely
would have claimed to be the renowned Confucius. The disciples,
as well they might be, were alarmed: the prospect was, short
shrift for the whole party.--"Boys," said the Master, "do you
think Heaven entrusted the Cause of Truth to me, to let me be
harmed by the towns-men of Kwang? "--The besiegers looked for
protests, and then for a fight. What they did not look for was
to hear someone inside singing to a lute;--it was that great
musician Confucius. When he sang and played you stopped to
listen; and so did the Kwang mob now. They listened, and
wondered, and enjoyed their free concert; then made reasonable
inquiries, and apologies,--and went their ways in peace.
In those South-eastern states there was no prospect for him,
and after a while he returneci to Wei. He liked Duke Ling
personally, and the liking was mutual; time and again he went
back there, hoping against hope that something might be done,--or
seeing no other horizon so hopeful. Now Ling had a consort of
some irregular kind: Nantse, famed for her beauty and brilliance
and wickedness. Perhaps _ennuyee,_ and hoping for contact with a
mind equal to her own, she was much stirred by the news of
Confucius' return, and sent to him asking an interview. Such a
request was a characteristic flouting of the conventions on her
part; for him to grant it would be much more so on his. But he
did grant it; and they conversed, after the custom of the time,
with a screen between, neither seeing the other. Tse Lu was much
disturbed; considering it all a very dangerous innovation,
inconsistent in Confucius, and improper. So in the eyes of the
world it would have seemed. But Nantse held the Duke, and
Confucius might influence Nantse. He never let conventions stand
in his way, when there was a chance of doing good work by
breaking them.
One suspects that the lady wished to make her vices respectable
by giving them a seeming backing by incarnate virtue; and that
to this end she brought about the sequel. Duke Ling was to make
a Progress through the city; and requested Confucius to follow
his carriage in another. He did so; not knowing that Nantse had
seen to it that she was to be sitting at the Duke's side.
Her position and reputation even in those days needed some
regularizing; and she had chosen this means to do it. But to
the people, the spectacle was highly symbolic; and Confucius
heard their jeers as he passed:--Flaunting Vice in front,
Slighted Virtue in the rear.--"I have met none," said he, "who
loves virtue more than women." It was time for him to go; and
now he would try the south again. In reality, perhaps, it matter
little whither he went or where he stayed: there was no place
for him anywhere. All that was important was, that he should keep
up the effort.
An official in Sung, one Hwan Tuy, held the roads against him,
accusing him of "a proud air and many desires; an insinuating
habit and a wild will." From this time on he was subject to
persecution. The "insinuating habit" reminds one of an old
parrot-cry one has heard: "She hypnotizes them." He turned
westward from this opposition, and visited one state, and then
another; in neither was there any disposition to use him. He
had found no more likely material than Duke Ling of Wei, who at
least was always glad to see and talk with him:--might not be
jade to carve, but was the wood least rotten at hand. But at
Wei, as usual, there was nothing but disappointment in store.
Pih Hsih, a rebel, was holding a town in Tsin, modern Shansi,
against the king of that state; and now sent messengers inviting
Confucius to visit him. Tse Lu protested: had he not always
preached obedience to the Powers that Were, and that the True
Gentleman did not associate with rebels?--"Am I a bitter gourd,"
said Confucius, "to be hung up out of the way of being eaten?"
He was always big enough to be inconsistent. He had come to see
that the Powers that Were were hopeless, and was for catching at
any straw. But something delayed his setting out; and when he
reached the Yellow River, news came of the execution of Tsin of
two men whom he admired. "How beautiful they were!" said he;
"how beautiful they were! This river is not more majestic! And
I was not there to save them!"
The truth seems to be that he would set out for any place where
the smallest opening presented itself; and while that opening
existed, would not be turned aside from his purpose; but if it
vanished, or if something better came in sight, he would turn and
follow that. Thus he did not go on into Tsin when he heard of
these executions; but one, when he was on the road to Wei and a
band of roughs waylaid him and made him promise never to go there
again, he simply gave the promise and went straight on.
At Wei now Duke Ling was really inclined to use him;--but as his
military adviser. It was the last straw; he left, and would not
return in Ling's lifetime. He was in Ch'in for awhile; and then
for three years at Ts'ae, a new state built of the rebellion of
certain subjects or vassals of the great sourthern kingdom of
Ts'u. On hearing of his arrival, the Duke of Ts'ae had the idea
to send for Tse Lu, who had a broad reputation of his own as a
brave and practical man, and to inquire of him what kind of man
the master really was. But Tse Lu, as we have seen, was rigid as
to rebels, and vouchsafed no answer.--"You might have told him,"
said Confucius, "that I am simply one who forgets his food in the
pursuit of wisdom, and his sorrows in the joys of attaining it,
and who does not perceive old age coming on."
Missionary writers have cast it at him, that were of old he had
preached against rebellion, now he was willing enough to "have
rebels for his patrons";--"adversity had not stiffened his back,
but had made him pliable." Which shows how blind such minds are
to real greatness. "They have nothing to draw with, and this
well is deep." He sought no "patrons," now or at another time;
but tools with which to work for the redemption of China; and he
was prepared to find them anywhere, and take what came to hand.
His keynote was _duty._ The world went on snubbing, ignoring,
insulting, traducing, and persecuting him; and he went on with
the performance of his duty;--rather, with the more difficult
task of searching for the duty he was to perform. This resorting
to rebels, like that conversing with Nantse, shows him clearly
not the formalist and slave of conventions he has been called,
but a man of highest moral courage. What he stood for was not
forms, conventions, reules, proprieties, or anything of the sort;
but the liens of least resistance in his high endeavor to lift
the world: lines of least resistance; middle lines; common
sense.--As ususal, there was nothing to be done with the Duke
of Ts'ae.
Wandering from state to state, he came on recluses in a field by
the river, and sent Tse Lu forward to ask one of them the way to
the ford. Said the hermit:--"You follow one who withdraws from
court to court; it would be better to withdraw from the world
altogether."--"What!" said Confucius when it was told him;
"shall I not associate with mankind? If I do not associate with
mankind, with whom shall I associate?"
In which answer lies a great key to Confucianism; turn it once
or twice, and you get to the import of his real teaching. He
never would follow the individual soul into its secrecies; he
was concerned with man only as a fragment of humanity. He was
concerned with man _as_ humanity. All that the West calls
(personal) religion he disliked intensely. Any desire or scheme
to save your own soul; any right-doing for the sake of a reward,
either here or hereafter, he would have bluntly called wrong-
doing, anti-social and selfish. (I am quoting in substance from
Dr. Lionel Giles.) He tempted no one with hopes of heaven;
frightened none with threats of hell. It seemed to him that he
could make a higher and nobler appeal,--could strike much more
forcibly at the root of evil (which is selfishness), by saying
nothing about rewards and punishments at all. The one inducement
to virtue that he offered was this: By doing right, you lead the
world into right-doing. He was justified in saying that Man is
divine; because this divine appeal of his was effective; not
like the West's favorite appeal to fear, selfish desire, and the
brutal side of our nature. "Do right to escape a whipping, or a
hanging, or hell-fire," says Christendom; and the nations
reared on that doctrine have risen and fallen, risen and fallen;
a mad riot of people struggling into life, and toppling back into
death in a season; so that future ages and the far reaches of
history will hardly remember their names, too lightly graven upon
time. But China, nourished on this divine appeal, however far
she may have fallen short of it, has stood, and stood, and stood.
In the last resort, it is the only inducement worth anything;
the only lever that lifts.--There is that _li,_--that inevitable
rightness and harmony that begins in the innermost _when there is
the balance_ and duty is being done, and flows outward healing
and preserving and making wholesome all the phases of being;--let
that harmony of heaven play through you, and you are bringing
mankind to virtue; you are pouting cleansing currents into the
world. How little of the tortuosity of metaphysics is here;--but
what grand efficacity of super-ethics! You remember what _Light
on the Path_ says about the man who is a link between the noise
of the market-place and the silence of the snow-capped Himalayas;
and what it says about the danger of seeking to sow good karma
for oneself,--how the man that does so will only be sowing the
giant weed of selfhood. In those two passages you find the
essence of Confucianism and the wisdom and genius of Confucius.
It is as simple as A B C; and yet behind it lie all the truths
of metaphysics and philosophy. He seized upon the pearl
of Theosophic thought, the cream of all metaphysics, where
metaphysics passes into action,--and threw his strength into
insisting on that: Pursue virtue because it is virtue, and that
you may (as you will,--it is the only way you can) bring the
world to virtue; or negatively, in the words of _Light on the
Path:_ "Abstain (from vice) because it is right to abstain--not
that yourself shall be kept clean." And now to travel back
into the thought behind, that you may see if Confucius was a
materialist; whether or not he believed in the Soul;--and that
if he was not a great original thinker, at least he commanded the
ends of all great, true and original thinking. Man, he says, is
naturally good. That is, collectively. _Man_ is divine and
immortal; only _men_ are mortal and erring. Were there a true
brotherhood of mankind established, a proper relation of the
parts to the whole and to each other,--you would have no
difficulty with what is evil in yourself. The lower nature with
its temptations would not appear; the world-old battle with the
flesh would be won. But separate yourself in yourself,--consider
yourself as a selfhood, not as a unit in society;--and you find,
there where you have put yourself, evil to contend with a-plenty.
Virtue inheres in the Brotherhood of Man; vice in the separate
personal and individual units. Virtue is in That which is no
man's possession, but common to all: namely, the Soul--though he
does not enlarge upon it as that; perhaps never mentions it as
the Soul at all;--vice is in that which each has for himself
alone: the personality. Hence his hatred of religiosity, of
personal soul-saving. You were to guard against evil in the
simplest way: by living wholly in humanity, finding all you
motives and sources of action there. If you were, in the highest
sense, simply a factor in human society, you were a good man. If
you lived in yourself alone,--having all evil to meet there, you
were likely to succumb to it; and you were on the wrong road
anyway. Come out, then; think not of your soul to be saved, nor
of what may befall you after death. You, as you, are of no
account; all that matters is humanity as a whole, of which you
are but a tiny part.--Now, if you like, say that Confucius did
not teach Theosophy, because, _so far as we know,_ he said
nothing about Karma or Reincarnation. I am inclined to think him
one of the two or three supreme historical Teachers of Theosophy;
and to say that his message, so infinitely simple, is one of the
most wonderful presentations of it ever given.
It is this entire purity from all taint of personal religion;
this distaste for prayer and unrelish for soul-salvation; this
sweet clean impersonality of God and man, that makes the
missionary writers find him so cold and lifeless. But when you
look at him, it is a marvelously warm-hearted magnetic man you
see: Such a One as wins hearts to endless devotion. Many of the
disciples were men who commanded very much the respect of
the world. The king of Ts'u proposed to give Confucius an
independent duchy: to make a sovereign prince of him, with
territories absolutely his own. But one of his ministers
dissuaded him thus: "Has your majesty," said he, "any diplomatist
in your service like Tse Kung? Or anyone so fitted to be prime
minister as Yen Huy? Or a general to compare with Tse Lu? . . .
If K'ung Ch'iu were to acquire territory, with such men as these
to serve him, it would not be to the prosperity of Ts'u."--And
yet those three brilliant men were content--no, proud--to follow
him on his hopeless wanderings, sharing all his long sorrow;
they were utterly devoted to him. Indeed, we read of none of his
disciples turning against him;--which also speaks mighty well for
the stuff that was to be found in Chinese humanity in those days.
Tse Kung was told that some prince or minister had said that he,
Tse Kung, was a greater man than Confucius. He answered: "The
wall of my house rises only to the height of a man's shoulders;
anyone can look in and see whatever excellence is within. But
the Master's wall is many fathoms in height; so that who fails to
find the gateway cannot see the beauties of the temple within nor
the rich apparel of the officiating priests. It may be that only
a few will find the gate. Need we be surprised, then, at His
Excellency's remark?" Yen Huy said:--"The Master knows how to
draw us after him by regular steps. He broadens our outlook
with polite learning, and restrains our impulses by teaching
us self-control."
Only once, I think, is he recorded to have spoken of prayer. He
was very ill, and Tse Lu proposed to pray for his recovery. Said
Confucius: "What precedent is there for that?"--There was great
stuff in that Tse Lu: a bold warriorlike nature; not very
pliable; not too easy to teach, I imagine, but wonderfully
paying for any lesson taught and learned. He figures often as
the one who clings to the letter, and misses vision of the spirit
of the teaching; so now the Master plays him a little with this
as to precedent,--which weighed always more strongly with Tse Lu
than with Confucius.--"In the _Eulogies,"_ said Tse Lu, (it is a
lost work), "it is written: 'We pray to you, O Spirits of
Heaven and Earth."--"Ah!" said Confucius, "my prayers began long,
long ago." But he never did pray, in the Western sense. His
_life_ was one great intercession and petition for his people.
As to his love of ritual: remember that there are ceremonies and
ceremonies, some with deep power and meaning. Those that
Confucius upheld came down to him from Adept Teachers of old;
and he had an eye to them only as outward signs of a spiritual
grace, and means to it. "Ceremonies indeed!" said he once; "do
you think they are a mere matter of silken robes and jade
omaments? Music forsooth! Can music be a mere thing of drums
and bells?"--Or of harps, lutes, dulcimers, sackbuts, psalteries,
and all kinds of instruments, he might have added; all of which,
together with all rites, postures, pacings, and offerings, were
nothing to him unless channels through which the divine _li_
might be induced to flow. Yet on his wanderings, by the
roadside, in lonely places, he would go through ceremonies with
his disciples. Why?--Why is an army drilled? If you go to the
root of the matter, it is to make _one_ the consciousness of the
individual soldiers. So Confucius, as I take it, in his
ceremonies sought to unify the consciousness of his disciples,
that the _li_ might have passage through them. I say boldly it
was a proof of that deep occult knowledge of his,--which he never
talked about.
They asked him once if any single ideogram conveyed the whole law
of life.--"Yes," he said; and gave them one compounded of two
others, which means 'As heart':--the missionaries prefer to
render it 'reciprocity.' His teaching--out of his own mouth we
convict him--was the Doctrine of the Heart. He was for the glow
in the heart always; not as against, but as the one true cause
of, external right action. But the Heart doctrine cannot be
defined in a set of rules and formulae; so he was always urging
middle lines, common sense. That is the explanation of his
famous answer when they asked him whether injuries should be
repaid with kindness. What he said amounts to this: "For
goodness sake, use common sense! I have given you 'as heart' for
your rule."--We know Katherine Tingley's teaching: not one of us
but has been helped and saved by it a thousand times. I can only
say that, in the light of that, the more you study Confucius, the
greater he seems; the more extraordinary the parallelisms you
see between her method and his. Perhaps it is because his method
has been so minutely recorded. We do not find here merely
ethical precepts, or expositions of philosophic thought: what we
see is a Teacher guiding and adjusting the lives of his disciples.
When he had been three years at Ts'ae, the King of Ts'u invited
him to his court. Ts'u, you will remember, lay southward towards
the Yangtse, and was, most of the time, one of the six Great
Powers.* Here at last was something hopeful; and Confucius set
out. But Ts'ae and Ch'in, though they had neglected him, had not
done so through ignorance of his value; and were not disposed to
see his wisdom added to the strength of Ts'u. They sent out a
force to waylay him; which surrounded him in the wilderness and
held him besieged but unmolested for seven days. Food ran out,
and the Confucianists were so enfeebled at last that they could
hardly stand. We do not hear that terms were offereed, as that
they should turn back or go elsewhere: the intention seems
to have been to make an end of Confucius and Confucianism
altogether,--without bloodshed. Even Tse Lu was shaken.--"Is it
for the Princely Man," said he, "to suffer the pinch of
privation?"--"Privation may come his way," Confucius answered;
"but only the vulgar grow reckless and demoralized under it." So
saying he took his lute and sang to them, and hearing him they
forgot to fear. Meanwhile one of the party had won through the
lines, and brought word to Ts'u of the Master's plight; whereat
the king sent a force to his relief, and came out from the
capital to receive him in state. The king's intentions were
good; but we have seen how his ministers intrigued and diverted
them. In the autumn of that year he died, having become somewhat
estranged from the Master. His successor was one from whom no
good could be expected, and Confucius returned to Wei.
-------
* _Ancient China Simplified:_ by Prof. E. Harper Parker; from
which book the account of the political condition and divisions
of the empire given in these lectures is drawn.
------
Duke Ling was dead, and his grandson, Chuh, was on the throne.
There had been a complication of family crimes plottings: Chuh
had driven out his father, who in turn had attempted the life of
his own mother, Nantse. Chuh wished to employ Confucius, but not
to forgo his evil courses: it was a situation that could not be
sanctioned. For six years the Master lived in retirement in Wei,
watching events, and always sanguine that his chance would come.
He was not sixty-nine years old; but hoped to begin his life's
work presently.
Then suddenly he was in demand,--in two quarters. There was a
sort of civil war in Wei, and the chief of one of the factions
came to him for advice as to the best means of attacking the
other. Confucius was disgusted. Meanwhile Lu had been at war
with Ts'i; and Yen Yu, a Confucianist, put in command of the Lu
troops, had been winning all the victories in sight. Marquis
Ting now slept with his fathers, and Marquis Gae reigned in his
stead; also there was a new Chief of Clan Chi to run things:--
Gae to reign, Chi to rule. They asked Yen Yu where he had
learned his so victorious generalship; and he answered, "from
Confucius."--If a mere disciple could do so much, they thought,
surely the Master himself could do much more: as, perhaps, lead
the Lu armies to universal victory. So they sent him a cordial
invitation, with no words as to the warlike views that prompted
it. High in hope, Confucius set out; these fourteen years his
native country had been pulling at his heart-strings, and
latterly, more insistently than ever. But on his arrival he
saw how the land lay. Chi consulted him about putting down
brigandage: Chi being, as you might say, the arch-brigand of
Lu.--"If you, Sir, were not avaricious," said Confucius, "though
you offered men rewards for stealing, they would cleave to their
honesty." There was nothing to be done with such men as these;
he went into retirement, having much literary work to finish.
That was in 483.
In 482 his son Li died; and a year later Yen Huy, dearest of his
disciples. We have seen how he gave way to grief. There is that
strange mystery of the dual nature; even in Such a One. There
is the human Personality that the Great Soul must work through.
He had performed his function; he had fulfilled his duty; all
that he owed to the coming ages he had paid in full. But the
evidence goes to show that he was still looking forward for a
chance to begin, and that every disappointmtnt hurt the outward
man of him: that it was telling on him: that it was a sad, a
disappointed, even a heart-broken old man that wept over Yen
Huy.--In 481, we read, a servant of the Chief of Clan Chi caught
a strange one-horned aninial, with a white ribbon tied to its
horn. None had seen the like of it; and Confucius, being the
most learned of men, was called in to make pronouncement. He
recognised it at once from his mother's description: it was the
_k'e-lin,_ the unicorn; that was the ribbon Chingtsai had decked
it with in the cave on Mount Ne the night of his birth. He burst
into tears. "For whom have you come?" he cried; "for whom have
you come?" And then: "The course of my doctrine is run, and
wisdom is still neglected, and success is still worshiped. My
principles make no progress: how will it be in the after ages?"
--Ah, could he have know!--I mean, that old weary mind and body;
the Soul which was Confucius knew.
Yen Huy, Tse Lu, and Tse Kung: those were the three whom he had
loved and trusted most. Yen Huy was dead; Tse Lu, with Tse Kao,
another disciple, he had left behind in Wei holding office under
the duke. Now news came that a revolution had broken out there.
"Tse Kao will return," said he; "but Tse Lu will die." So it
fell. Tse Kao, finding the duke's cause hopeless, made his
escape; but Tse Lu fought the forlorn hope to the end, and died
like a hero. Only Tse Kung, of the three, was left to him. Who
one morning, when he went to the Master's house, found him
walking to and fro before the door crooning over this verse:
"The great mountain must crumble,
The strong beam must break.
The wise man must wither like a flower."
Heavy-hearted, Tse Kung followed him in.--"What makes you so
late?" said Confucius; and then: "According to the rites of
Hia, the dead lay in state at the top of the eastern steps, as if
he were the host. Under the Shangs, it was between the two
pillars he lay, as if he were both host and guest. The rite of
the Chows is for him to lie at the top of the western steps,
as if he were the guest. I am a man of Shang,"--it will be
remembered that he was descended from that royal house; "and
last night I dreamed that I was sitting between the pillars, with
offerings set out before me. No intelligent monarch arises; no
prince will make me his teacher. My time has come to die."--That
day he took to his bed; his passing was a week later.
On the banks of the Sze his disciples buried him; and for three
years mourned at his grave. But Tse Kung built himself a cabin
at the graveside, and remained there three years longer. "All my
life," said he, "I have had heaven above my head, but I do not
know its height. I have had earth beneath my feet, but I have
not known its magnitude. I served Confucius: I was like a
thirsty man going with his pitcher to the river. I drank my
fill, but I never knew the depth of the water."
And Tse Kung was right; and what he felt then, one feels now.
You read Boswell, and have your Johnson in the hollow of
your hand: body, soul, and spirit: higher triad and lower
quaternary. Of Confucius we have a picture in some respects even
more detailed than Boswell's of Johnson; but when we have said
everything, we still feel that nothing has been said. Boswell
lets you in through his master's church-door; shows you nave and
aisle, vault and vestry; climbs with you to the belfry; stands
with you at the altar and in the pulpit; till you have seen
everything there is to see. But with Confucius as with every
Adept the case is quite different. "The Master's wall is
fathomless," said Tse Kung; but he and the other disciples
took care that China at least should find the gate of entry;
and it is still possible for us to go in, and "see the beauty
of the temple, the richness of the robes of the officiating
priests." You go through everything; see him under all sorts of
circumstances; and ask at last: "Is this all?"--No, says your
guide; "see here!" and flings one last door open. And that,
like the door in Lord Dunsaney's play, opens on to the vastness
of the stars. What is it that baffles us and remains undefined
and undefinable? Just this: TAO: the Infinite Nature. You can
survey the earth, and measure it with chains; but not Space, in
which a billion leagues is nowise different from an inch or two,
--it bears the same proportion to the whole.
There was his infinite trust;--and his unbroken silence as to the
Things he trusted in. Time and the world went proving to him
year by year that his theories were all impracticable, all wrong;
that he was a failure; that there was not anything for him to
do, and never would be a chance for him to do it;--and all their
arguments, all the sheer dreadful tyranny of fact, had no weight
with him at all: he went on and on. What was his sword of
strength? Where were the Allies in whom he trusted? How dared
he pit K'ung Ch'iu of Lu against time and the world and me?--The
Unseen was with him, and the Silence; and he (perhaps) lifted no
veil from the Unseen, and kept silent as to the silence;--and yet
maintained his Movement, and held his disciples together, and
saved his people,--as if he himself had been the Unseen made
visible, and the Silence given a voice to speak.
And with it all there was the human man who suffered. I think
you will love him the more for this, from the _Analects:_
"The Minister said to Tse Lu, Tseng Hsi, Jan Yu, and Kung-hsi Hua
as they sat beside him: 'I may be a day older than you are, but
forget that. You are wont to say, "We are unknown." Well; had
ye a name in the world, what would ye do?'"
"Tse Lu answered lightly: 'Give me charge of a land of a
thousand chariots, crushed between great neighbors, overrun by
soldiery and oppressed by famine; in three years' time I should
have put courage and high purpose into the people.'"
"The Master smiled,--'What wouldst thou do, Ch'iu?' he said."
"Jan Yu answered: 'Had I charge of sixty or seventy square
miles, or from fifty to sixty, in three years' time I would give
the people plenty. As for courtesy, music and the like, they
could wait for these for the rise of a Princely Man.'"
"'And what wouldst thou do, Chih?' said the Master."
"Kung-hsi Hua answered: 'I would speak of the things I fain
would learn, not of what I can do. At service in the Ancestral
Temple, or at the Grand Audience, clad in black robe and cap, I
fain would fill a small part.'"
"'And thou, Tien?' said the Master."
"Tseng Hsi stopped playing, pushed away his still sounding lute,
rose up, and made answer: 'My choice would be unlike those of
the other three.'"
"'What harm in that?' said the Master. 'Each but speaks his mind.'"
"Tseng Hsi said: 'In the last days of Spring, and clad for the
season, with five or six grown men and six or seven lads, I would
bathe in the waters of Yi, all fanned by the breeze in the Rain
God's Glade, and wander home with song.'"
"The Master sighed.--'I hold with Tien,' said he."
Very, very human, I say; very Chinese. But here is that which
was not human but divine: he never turned from his path to
satisfy these so human and Chinese longings; the breeze in the
Rain God's Glade never blew for him. It is just as well to
remember, when you read of the ceremonies, the body bent under
the load of the scepter, the carefully chosen (as it may seem)
and habitually worn expression of face on passing or approaching
the throne, the "elbows spread like wings":--all the formal round
of proprieties;--that it was the last days of Spring, and the
waters of Yi, and the breeze in the Rain God's Glade, that were
calling to his Chinese heart.
Yes; he was very human; listen to this:--Yuan Jang awaited the
Master squatting on the ground. "The Master said:--'Unruly when
young, unmentioned as man, undying when old,--this spells
_Good-for-nothing';_ and hit him on the leg with his staff."
Which brings one naturally to his sense of humor.
Once he was passing through a by-street when a man of the
district shouted:--"Great is Confucius the Philosopher! Yet for
all his wide learning he has nothing which can bring him fame!"
The Master turned to his disciples and said:--"What shall I take
up? Shall I take up charioteering?--or archery?--I must certainly
take up charioteering!"
His disciples once were expecting him at the city of Ch'ing; and
Tse Kung asked a man who was coming from the east gate if he had
seen him there.--"Well," said the man, "there is a man there with
a forehead like Yao, a neck like Kao Yao, his shoulders on a
level with those of Tse-ch'an, but wanting below the waist three
inches of the height of Yu;--and altogether having the forsaken
appearance of a stray dog." Tse Kung recognised the description
and hurried off to meet the Master, to whom he reported it
_verbatim._ Confucius was hugely delighted. "A stray dog!" said
he; "fine! fine!" Unluckily, no contemporary photographs of Yao
and Yu and the others have come down; so the description is not
as enlightening now as it may have been then.
"Tse Kung," we read, "would compare one man with another." The
Master said:--"What talents Tse has! Now I have no time for
such things!"