THE SAGES OF CHINA
_Confucius--Describes Himself as Editor, not Author--"Model Teacher
of All Ages"--Mencius--More Eloquent than his Great Master--Lao-tse,
the Founder of Taoism_
I shall not introduce the reader to all who justly bear the august
title of sage; for China has had more and wiser sages than any other
ancient country. Some of them may be referred to in the sequel; but
this chapter I shall devote chiefly to the two who by universal
consent have no equals in the history of the Empire--Confucius and
Mencius. These great men owe much of their fame to the learned
Jesuits who first brought them on the stage, clad in the Roman toga,
and made them citizens of the world by giving them the euphonious
names by which they are popularly known. Stripped of their disguise
they appear respectively as K'ung Fu-tse and Meng-tse. Exchanging
the _ore rotunda_ of Rome for the sibillation of China, they
never could have been naturalised as they are now.
CONFUCIUS
Born in the year 549 B. C., Confucius was contemporaneous with
Isaiah and Socrates. Of a respectable but not opulent family he
had to struggle for his
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education--a fact which in after years he was so far from concealing
that he ascribed to it much of his success in life. To one who
asked him, "How comes it that you are able to do so many things,"
he replied, "I was born poor and had to learn." His schoolmasters
are unknown; and it might be asked of him, as it was of a greater
than Confucius, "How knoweth this man letters, having never learned?"
Of his self-education, which continued through life, he gives the
following concise account: "At fifteen I entered on a life of study;
at thirty I took my stand as a scholar; at forty my opinions were
fixed; at fifty I knew how to judge and select; at sixty I never
relapsed into a known fault; at seventy I could follow my inclinations
without going wrong." Note how each stage marks an advance towards
moral excellence. Mark also that this passage gives an outline
of self-discipline. It says nothing of his books or of his work
as a statesman and a reformer.
He is said to have had, first and last, three thousand disciples.
Those longest under instruction numbered twelve. They studied, not
with lectures and textbooks, as in modern schools, but by following
his footsteps and taking the impress of his character, much as
Peter and John followed the steps and studied the life of Christ.
Some of them followed Confucius when, bent on effecting a political
as well as an ethical reform, he travelled from court to court
among the petty principalities. They have placed it on record that
once, when exposed to great peril, he comforted them by saying,
"If Heaven has made me the depositary of these teachings, what
can my enemies do against
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me?" Nobly conscious of a more than human mission, so pure were
his teachings that, though he taught morals, not religion, he might
fairly, with Socrates, be allowed to claim a sort of inspiration.
The one God, of whom he knew little, he called Heaven, and he always
spoke of Heaven with the profoundest reverence. When neglected or
misunderstood he consoled himself by saying, "Heaven knows me."
During a serious illness a disciple inquired if he should pray for
him, meaning the making of offerings at some temple. Confucius
answered, "I have long prayed," or "I have long been in the habit
of praying."
In letters he described himself as an "editor, not an author,"
meaning that he had revised the works of the ancients, but had
published nothing of his own. Out of their poetry he culled three
hundred odes and declared that "purity of thought" might be stamped on
the whole collection. Into a confused mass of traditional ceremonies
be brought something like order, making the Chinese (if a trifle too
ceremonious) the politest people on earth. Out of their myths and
chronicles he extracted a trustworthy history, and by his treatment
of vice he made princes tremble, lest their heads should be exposed
on the gibbet of history. He gave much time to editing the music
of the ancients, but his work in that line has perished. This,
however, cannot be regarded as a very great loss, in view of the rude
condition in which Chinese music is still found. However deficient
his knowledge of the art, his passion for music was extraordinary.
After hearing a fine performance "he was unable for
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three months to enjoy his food." A fifth task was the editing of
the _Yih-King_,[*] the book of divination compiled by Wen-wang.
How thoroughly he believed in it is apparent from his saying, "Should
it please Heaven to grant me five or ten years to study this book,
I would not be in danger of falling into great errors." He meant
that he would then be able to shape his conduct by the calculation
of chances.
[Footnote *: This and the preceding are the Five Classics, which,
like the five books of Moses, lie at the root of a nation's religion
and learning.]
Great as were his labours in laying the foundation of literary
culture, the impression made by his personal intercourse and by
his collected sayings has been ten-fold more influential. They form
the substance of the Four Books which, from a similar numerical
coincidence, the Chinese are fond of comparing with our Four Gospels.
Confucius certainly gives the Golden Rule as the essence of his
teaching. True, he puts it in a negative form, "Do not unto others
what you would not have them do to you"; but he also says, "My
doctrine is comprehended in two words, _chung_ and _shu_."
The former denotes fidelity; the latter signifies putting oneself
in the place of another, but it falls short of that active charity
which has changed the face of the world.
It were easy to point out Confucius' limitations and mistakes; yet
on the whole his merits were such that his people can hardly be
blamed for the exaggerated honours which they show to his memory.
They style him the "model teacher of all ages," but they do not
invoke him as a tutelary deity, nor do they represent
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him by an image. Excessively honorific, their worship of Confucius
is not idolatry.
MENCIUS
A hundred years later Mencius was born, and received his doctrine
through the grandson of the Sage. More eloquent than his great
master, more bold in rebuking the vices of princes, he was less
original. One specimen of his teaching must suffice. One of the
princes asking him, "How do you know that I have it in me to become
a good ruler?" he replied, "I am told that, seeing the extreme
terror of an ox that was being led to the altar, you released it
and commanded a sheep to be offered in its stead. The ox was before
your eyes and you pitied it; the sheep was not before your eyes
and you had no pity on it. Now with such a heart if you would only
think of your people, so as to bring them before your eyes, you
might become the best of rulers."
Mencius lost his father in his infancy, but his mother showed rare
good sense in the bringing up of her only child. Living near a
butcher, she noticed that the boy mimicked the cries of the pigs.
She then removed to the gate of a cemetery; but, noticing that the
child changed his tune and mocked the wailing of mourners, she
struck her tent and took up her abode near a high school. There
she observed with joy that he learned the manners and acquired the
tastes of a student. Perceiving, however, that he was in danger
of becoming lazy and dilatory, she cut the warp of her web and
said, "My son, this is what you are doing with the web of life."
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The tomb of each of these sages is in the keeping of one of his
descendants, who enjoys the emoluments of a hereditary noble. Mencius
himself says of the master whom he never saw, "Since men were born
on earth there has been no man like Confucius."
LAO-TSE
I cannot close this chapter without a word or two on Lao-tse, the
founder of Taoism. He bore the family name of _Li_, "plum-tree,"
either from the fact that his cottage was in a garden or possibly
because, like the Academics, he placed his school in a grove of
plum-trees. The name by which he is now known signifies "old master,"
probably because he was older than Confucius. The latter is said
to have paid him a visit to inquire about rites and ceremonies;
but Lao-tse, with his love of solitude and abstract speculation,
seems not to have exerted much influence on the mind of the rising
philosopher. In allusion to him, Confucius said, "Away from men
there is no philosophy--no _tao_."
Less honoured by the official class, Lao-tse's influence with the
masses of China has been scarcely less than that of his younger
rival. Like the other two sages he, too, has to-day a representative,
who enjoys an official status as high priest of the Taoist sect.
Chang Tien-shi dwells in a stately palace on the summit of the
Tiger and Dragon Mountain, in Kiangsi, as the head of one of the
three religions. But, alas! the sublime teachings of the founder
of Taoism have degenerated into a contemptible mixture of jugglery
and witchcraft.
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Not till five centuries later did Buddhism enter China and complete
the triad of religions--a triad strangely inharmonious; indeed one
can scarcely conceive of three creeds more radically antagonistic.
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