SOURCE: An introduction to and "Terms," in The Analects of Confucius, George Allen & Unwin Ltd, 1938, pp. 13-26, 27-50.

[In the following excerpt, Waley comments on Confucius's life, his disciples, and the origins of the Analects. The critic also defines several key terms used in the Analects.]

I

Thought grows out of environment. Ideally speaking the translator of such a book as the Analects ought to furnish a complete analysis of early Chinese society, of the processes which were at work within it and of the outside forces to which it reacted. Unfortunately our knowledge of the period is far too incomplete for any such synthesis to be possible. The literary documents are scanty and of uncertain date; scientific archaeology in China has suffered constant setbacks and is still in its infancy. All that I have attempted in the following pages is to arrange such information as is accessible under a series of disconnected headings, in a convenient order, but without pretence of unity or logical sequence.

CONFUCIUS

The Confucius of whom I shall speak here is the Confucius of the Analects. One could construct half a dozen other Confuciuses by tapping the legend at different stages of its evolution. We should see the Master becoming no longer a moral teacher but a 'wise man' according to the popular conception of wisdom that existed in non-Confucian circles in China and in our own Middle Ages, an answerer of grotesque conundrums, a prophet, a magician even. We should see the disappointed itinerant tutor of the Analects turning into a successful statesman and diplomatist, employed not only in his own country but in neighbouring States as well.¹

But I shall act here on the principle recently advocated by that great scholar Ku Chieh-kang, the principle of 'one Confucius at a time.' Not that we can regard the Confucius of the Analects as wholly historical; still less, that we must dismiss as fiction all data about the Master that do not happen to occur in this book. But in the first place the biographical facts deducible from the Analects are those which are most relevant to an understanding of the book itself; and secondly, the picture of Confucius given in the Analects, besides being the earliest that we possess, differs from that of all other books in that it contains no elements that bear patently and obviously the stamp of folk-lore or hagiography. What then was Confucius? It appears from the Analects that he was a private person who trained the sons of gentlemen in the virtues proper to a member of the ruling classes. It is clear, however, that he was not content with this position and longed for a more public one, either in his own State or in some other, which would give him the opportunity to put into practice the Way which he regarded as that of the Former Kings, the Way of Goodness, long ago discarded by the rulers of the world in favour of a Way of violence and aggression. There is not the slightest indication that he ever obtained such a position. Twice, however, he speaks of himself as 'following after' the Great Officers of Court. Those who ranked next to the Great Officers (Ta Fu) were the Knights (shih,) and if Confucius ranked immediately after the Great Officers (as he seems to suggest) he must at the time have been Shih-shih, ² Leader of the Knights, which was not politically speaking a position of any importance. Discontented with the slow progress of his doctrines in the land of Lu, Confucius travelled from State to State,³ seeking for a ruler who would give the Way its chance. The only disciples actually mentioned as accompanying him are Jan Ch'iu, Tzu-lu, and his favourite disciple Yen Hui. The States and towns which they visited (Ch'i, Wei, Ch'ên, Ts'ai and K'uang) all lay within the modern provinces of Shantung and Honan. The strangers evidently met with a hostile reception, and had occasionally to endure severe privation. Several of the disciples were in the service of Chi K'ang-tzu, the dictator of Lu; and it may have been owing to their good offices that Confucius was at last encouraged to return to his native State.

Concerning his private life, we learn from the Analects that he had been brought up in humble circumstances.⁴ Of his marriae nothing is said; but two children are mentioned a daughter⁵ an son whom the Master outlived.⁶ An older brother is mentioned, but Confucius seems to have acted as head of the family, and this is explained by later tradition as due to the fact that the elder brother was a cripple.

Confucius speaks of himself in one place (II, 4) as being over seventy. As to the exact dates of his birth and death the Analects tell us nothing. It can be inferred, however, from references to contemporary persons and events, that the time of his main activity was the end of the sixth and the first twenty years or so of the fifth century.⁷

After his apotheosis in the Han dynasty Confucius was credited with the omniscience and moral infallibility of the Divine Sage. This view of him appears, indeed, to have been current even during his lifetime; for we find him at pains to disclaim any such attributes.⁸ Nor would he allow himself to be regarded as Good,⁹ a disclaimer that is natural enough, seeing that he accords this title only to a few legendary heroes of the remote past. Even in the social virtues which formed the basis of his teaching he claimed no pre-eminence. There was not, he said, a hamlet of ten houses but could produce men as loyal and dependable as himself. He denied (though one disciple at least seems to have had the opposite impression) that he possessed any unusual stock of knowledge;¹⁰ still less would he admit that such knowledge as he possessed was innate or inspired.¹¹ What he regarded as exceptional in himself was his love of 'learning,' that is to say, of self-improvement, and his unflagging patience in insisting upon the moral principles that had (in his view) guided the godlike rulers of the remote past. His task, then, like that of the English trainer of chün-tzu (gentlemen's sons) in the great Public Schools, was not so much to impart knowledge as to inculcate moral principles, form character, hand down unaltered and intact a great tradition of the past.¹² He speaks of himself as a veritable P'êng Tsu (i.e. Nestor) in his devoted reliance upon 'antiquity'; and if we want further to define what he meant by this reliance on the past, we find it, I think, in Mencius's saying: Follow the rules of the Former Kings, and it is impossible that you should go wrong.¹³

What then was this antiquity, who were the great figures of the past whom Confucius regarded as the sole source of wisdom?

THE ANCIENTS

Were we to take them in the order of their importance to him, I think we should have to begin with the founders and expanders of the Chou dynasty; for in his eyes the cultures of the two preceding dynasties found their climax and fulfilment in that of the early Chou sovereigns.¹⁴ Above all, we should have to deal first with Tan, Duke of Chou, who had not only a particular importance in the Lu State, but also a peculiar significance for Confucius himself.¹⁵ But it is more convenient to take them in their 'chronological' order, that is to say, in the order in which the mythology of Confucius's day arranged them. We must begin then with the Shêng, the Divine Sages.¹⁶ These were mythological figures, historicized as rulers of human 'dynasties'; but still endowed with divine characteristics and powers. The Analects mention three of them, Yao, Shun and Yü the Great; but they occupy a very restricted place in the book.¹⁷ Yao and Shun are twice¹⁸ mentioned in the stock phrase (if a man were to do this), then 'even Yao and Shun could not criticize him'; meaning that such a man would himself be to all intents and purposes a shêng. Yao appears otherwise only in the eulogy of VIII, 19, where he is exalted as the equal of God.¹⁹ The eulogy of Shun which follows tells us that with only five servants to help him he kept order 'everywhere under Heaven.' Elsewhere²⁰ he is said to have ruled by wu-wei (non-activity), through the mere fact of sitting in a majestic attitude 'with his face turned to the South.' We have here the conception, familiar to us in Africa and elsewhere, of the divine king whose magic power regulates everything in the land. It is one which is common to all early Chinese thought, particularly in the various branches of Quietism that developed in the fourth century B.C. The shêng, however, only 'rules by non-activity' in the sense that his divine essence (ling) assures the fecundity of his people and the fertility of the soil. We find Shun assisted in his task by 'five servants,'²¹ who are clearly conceived of as performing the active functions of government.

Yao and Shun are not mentioned in the Book of Songs, and there is reason to suppose that their cult did not form part of the Chou tradition. The third Divine Sage, Yü the Great, generally²² associated in Chinese legend with a Deluge Myth akin to that of the Near East, figures in the Analects not as the subduer of the Flood but as patron of agriculture. He drains and ditches the land²³ and tills the fields,²⁴ his name being coupled with that of the harvest-god Hou Chi. Yü the Great is 'historicized' as founder of the Hsia dynasty, whose 'times' (i.e. calendar of agricultural operations) Confucius recommends, in answer to a question about the ideal State.²⁵

T'ang, the founder of the Shang-Yin dynasty which preceded the Chou, is only once mentioned. It was supposed in Confucius's day that the remnants of the Shang-Yin people had settled in Sung and that the Sung State perpetuated the traditions of the fallen dynasty. But Confucius himself doubted whether Yin culture could really be reconstructed by evidence supplied from Sung.²⁶

THE DISCIPLES

Later tradition credits Confucius with seventy-two²⁷ disciples; but the compilers are hard put to it to bring the number up to anything like so imposing a total. In the Analects some twent people figure, who might possibly be regarded as disciples, in so far as they are represeted as addressing questions to Confucius. But far fewer appear as definite 'frequenters of his gate.' The most important of them, in the history of Confucianism, is Master Tsêng, who is credited in the Analects with twelve sayings of his own. The Master Tsêng of Book VIII is, however, a very different person from the Master Tsêng of Book I, the latter resembling far more closely the Tsêng of later tradition, and of the Tsêng Tzu fragments.²⁸ Humanly the most distinctive of the disciples are Yen Hui and Tzu-lu, who are perfect examples of the contrasted types of character that psychologists call introvert and extravert. Both of them died before Confucius, and were thus unable to influence the subsequent development of the school. Tzu-lu played a considerable part in contemporary history and is mentioned in the chronicles from 498 down to the time of his death in 480. Two other disciples are well known to history, Jan Ch'iu appears as a lieutenant of the usurping Chi Family from 484 till 472; and Tzu-kung figures largely in inter-State diplomacy from 495 till 468.

The name of Master Yu, who figures so prominently in Book I, only to disappear almost completely in the remaining Books, happens by chance to occur in the Tso Chuan Chronicle under the year 487. But he was evidently not a person of high social status; for he served as a foot-soldier.

It is clear that after the Master's death, Tzu-hsia, like Master Tsêng, founded a school of his own; for his disciples are spoken of in Book XIX. To him, too, are attributed about a dozen sayings. Two other disciples, Tzu-chang and Tzu-yu, are also obviously regarded by the compilers of the Analects as being of special importance; for they, too, are credited with sayings of their own.

THE ANALECTS²⁹

There is not much doubt that Lun Yü (Analects, to use the English equivalent that Legge's translation has made so familiar) means 'Selected Sayings.' Lun, as a term connected with the editing of documents, occurs indeed in Analects, XIV, 9. The contents of the book itself make it clear that the compilation took place long after the Master's death. Several of the disciples already have schools of their own, and the death of Master Tsêng, which certainly happened well into the second half of the fifth century, is recorded in Book VIII. It is clear, too, that the different Books are of very different date and proceed from very different sources. I should hazard the guess that Books III-IX represent the oldest stratum. Books X and XX (first part) certainly have no intrinsic connexion with the rest. The former is a compilation of maxims from works on ritual; the latter consists of stray sentences from works of the Shu Ching type. Book XIX consists entirely of sayings by disciples. The contents of XVIII and of parts of XIV and XVII are not Confucian in their origin, but have filtered into the book from the outside world, and from a world hostile to Confucius. Book XVI is generally and rightly regarded as late. It contains nothing characteristic of the milieu that produced Books III-IX, and it would not be difficult to compile a much longer book of just the same character by stringing together precepts from works such as the Tso Chuan and Kuo Yü. Only in one passage of the Analects do we find any reference to ideas the development of which we should be inclined to place later than the ordinarily accepted³⁰ date of the book, namely the middle of the fourth century. I refer to the disquisition on 'correcting names' in XIII, 3. In Mencius (early third century B.C.) there is not a trace of the 'language crisis,'³¹ and we have no reason to suppose that the whole sequence of ideas embodied in this passage could possibly be earlier in date than the end of the fourth century. That the writer of the passage realized its incompatibility with the doctrines of Confucius—the insistence on punishments is wholly un-Confucian—is naïvely betrayed in the introductory paragraphs. Tzu-lu is made to express the greatest astonishment that Confucius should regard the reform of language as the first duty of a ruler and tells him impatiently that his remark is quite beside the point.

We may, of course, be wrong in thinking that the whole complex of ideas connected with 'reforming language in order to adjust penalties' dates from as late as the end of the fourth century. There may be special reasons why we find no echo of such ideas in Mencius. Or again, the compilation of the Analects may be much later than we suppose; but this alternative involves linguistic difficulties. It may, on the other hand, be a better solution to regard this passage as an interpolation on the part of Hsün Tzu or his school, for whom the absence of any reference in the sayings of Confucius to what they themselves taught as a fundamental doctrine must certainly have been inconvenient.

It is curious that only one pre-Han text shows definite evidence of familiarity with the Analects. The Fang Chi (part of the Li Chi; supposed to be an extract from the Tzu Ssu Tzu) quotes Analects, II, 11, and names the Lun Yü as its source. The Fang Chi also quotes books of the Shu Ching which were unknown in Han times, not being found either in the official collection or among the books rediscovered but uninterpreted. It is therefore certainly a pre-Han work. There are, apart from this, many cases in which pre-Han authors, such as Hsün Tzu, Lü Pu-wei, Han Fei Tzu, use maxims or anecdotes that are also used in the Analects. But there is nothing to show that the writer is quoting the book as we know it now. Mencius, it is clear, used a quite different collection of sayings, which contained, indeed, a certain number of those which occur in the Analects, often differently worded and allotted to quite different contexts; but he quotes at least three times as many sayings that do not occur in the Analects at all.

It would be rash, however, to conclude that the Analects were not known or did not exist in the days of Mencius and Hsün Tzu. We possess only a very small fragment of early Confucian literature. Could we read all the works that are listed in the Han Shu bibliography, we should very likely discover that some particular school of Confucianism based its teaching on the Analects, just as Mencius based his on another collection of sayings. The Doctrine of the Mean and the Great Learning, works of very uncertain date but certainly pre-Han, both use sayings from the Analects, which may well be actual quotations.

The history of the text from c. 150 B.C.³² till the time (second century A.D.) when at the hands of Chêng Hsüan the book received something like its present form I must leave to others to write. The task is one which involves great difficulties. The data are supplied not by scientific bibliographers but by careless repeaters of legend and anecdote. Some of the relevant texts (e.g. Lun Hêng, P'ien 81) are hopelessly corrupt; the real dates of supposedly early Han works which show knowledge of the Analects are impossible to ascertain. At every turn, in such studies, we are forced to rely, without any means of checking their statements, upon writers who clearly took no pains to control their facts.

This much, however, is certain: during the period 100 B.C. to A.D. 100 two versions were currently used, the Lu version (upon which our modern version is chiefly based) and the Ch'i version,³³ which had two extra chapters. Much later (second century A.D.?)³⁴ a third version came into general use. This was the Ku Wên (ancient script) text collated by Chêng Hsüan when he made his famous edition, of which fragments have been recovered from Tun-huang. We know³⁵ some twenty-seven instances in which the Ku version differed from the Lu, and in all but two of these instances the version we use to-day follows Ku not Lu. I state these facts merely that the reader may know roughly what is meant when in the course of this book I mention Ku and Lu readings. The real origin of the Ku version³⁶ remains very uncertain and a discussion of the question bound up as it is with the history of the other Ku Wên texts, would lead us too far afield.

A last question remains to be answered. How far can we regard any of the sayings in the Analects as actual words of Confucius? In searching for such authentic sayings we must use certain precautions. Obviously, we shall not find them Book X,³⁷ nor in Book XX.³⁸ Book XVI-XVII clearly do not emanate from a source at all near to the earlies Confucianism. Book XVIII is, indeed, full of anti-Confucian stories, of just the same sort that we find in Taoist works, naïvely accepted by the compilers; Book XIV has a considerable element of the same description (34, 41, 42). The story of the meeting with Yang Huo (XVII, 1) is of just the same kind. We shall have to remember that in ancient Chinese literature sayings are often attributed to a variety of people; (indifferently, for example, to Master Tsêng and Confucius, or to Confucius and Yen Tzu) and bear in mind that such sayings were probably more or less proverbial. We certainly must not forget that Confucius describes himself as a transmitter, not an originator, and that the presence of rhyme or archaic formulae, or of proverbial shape in the sayings often definitely stamps them as inherited from the past. Bearing all these facts in mind I think we are justified in supposing that the book does not contain many authentic sayings, and may possibly contain none at all. As I have already pointed out, I use the term 'Confucius' throughout this book in a conventional sense, simply meaning the particular early Confucians whose ideas are embodied in the sayings.

Supposing, however, someone should succeed in proving that some particular saying was really uttered by the Master, it would still remain to be proved that the context in which the remark occurred in the Analects was really the original one; and the context of a remark profoundly affects its meaning. In later literature, particularly the Li Chi (Book of Rites) and Shih Chi (Historical Records), we find a good many of Confucius's more cryptic remarks given contexts, put into settings of an explanatory description, and it has been suggested that in such cases we have the original form and intention of the sayings, which in the Analects have for some reason become divorced from their proper surroundings. That this should be so is against all the canons of textual history. Always, in similar cases, we find that the contexts have been invented as glosses upon the original logia. In the oldest strata of the Synoptic Gospels isolated sayings occur which in the more recent strata are furnished, often very arbitrarily, with an explanatory setting. It is a process that we can see at work over and over again in Buddhist hagiography. I have therefore seldom called attention to these manipulations of the text by the later Confucian schools, and have been content to leave the isolated logia as I found them.

II TERMS

JÊN

This word in the earliest Chinese means freemen, men of the tribe, as opposed to min, 'subjects,' 'the common people.' The same word, written with a slight modification, means 'good' in the most general sense of the word, that is to say, 'possessing the qualities of one's tribe.' For no more sweeping form of praise can be given by the men of a tribe than to say that someone is a 'true member' of that tribe. The same is true of modern nations; an Englishman can give no higher praise than to say that another is a true Englishman. In the Book of Songs the phrase 'handsome and good' (jên) occurs more than once as a description of a perfectly satisfactory lover. Jên, 'members of the tribe' show a forbearance towards one another that they do not show to aliens, and just as the Latin gens, 'clan,' gave rise to our own word 'gentle,' so jên in Chinese came to mean 'kind,' 'gentle,' 'humane.' Finally, when the old distinction between jên and min, freemen and subjects, was forgotten and jên became a general word for 'human being,' the adjective jê n came to be understood in the sense 'human' as opposed to 'animal,' and to be applied to conduct worthy of a man, as distinct from the behaviour of mere beasts.

Of this last sense (human, not brutal) there is not a trace in the Analects. Of the sense 'kind,' 'tender-hearted' there are only two examples,³⁹ out of some sixty instances in which the word occurs. Confucius's use of the term, a use peculiar to this one book, stands in close relation to the primitive meaning. Jên, in the Analects, means 'good' in an extremely wide and general sense. 'In its direction'⁴⁰ lie unselfishness and an ability to measure other people's feelings by one's own. The good man is 'in private life, courteous; in public life, diligent; in relationships, loyal.'⁴¹ Goodness (on the part of a ruler) is complete submission to ritual.⁴² The Good do not grieve⁴³ and will necessarily be brave.⁴⁴ At the same time, it cannot be said that jên in the Analects simply means 'good' in a wide and general sense. It is, on the contrary, the name of a quality so rare and peculiar that one 'cannot but be chary in speaking of it.'⁴⁵ It is a sublime moral attitude, a transcendental perfection attained to by legendary heroes such as Po I, but not by any living or historic person. This, however, is far from being understood by the disciples, who suggest as examples of goodness not only Tzu-wên (seventh century B.C.), Ch'ên Wêntzu (sixth century), Kuan Tzu (seventh century), but even contemporaries and associates such as Tzu-lu, Jan Ch'iu, Kung-hsi Hua, Jan Yung. All such claims the Master abruptly dismisses. Indeed so unwilling is he to accord the title jên that he will not even allow it to a hypothetical person who 'compassed the salvation of the whole State.'⁴⁶ Such a one would be a Divine Sage (shêng), a demi-god; whereas jên is the display of human qualities at their highest. It appears indeed that jên is a mystic entity not merely analogous to but in certain sayings practically identical with the Tao of the Quietists. Like Tao, it is contrasted with 'knowledge.' Knowledge is active and frets itself away; Goodness is passive and therefore eternal as the hills.⁴⁷ Confucius can point the way to Goodness, can tell 'the workman how to sharpen his tools,'⁴⁸ can speak even of things 'that are near to Goodness.' But it is only once, in a chapter bearing every sign of lateness,⁴⁹ that anything approaching a definition of Goodness is given.

In view of this repeated refusal to accept any but remote⁵⁰ mythological figures as examples of jên, to accept⁵¹ or give a definition of Goodness, there is surely nothing surprising in the statement of Book IX (opening sentence) that 'the Master rarely discoursed upon Goodness.'⁵²

It seems to me that 'good' is the only possible translation of the term jên as it occurs in the Analects. No other word is sufficiently general to cover the whole range of meaning; indeed terms such as 'humane,' 'altruistic,' 'benevolent' are in almost every instance inappropriate, often ludicrously so. But there is another word, shan, which though it wholly lacks the mystical and transcendental implications of jên, cannot conveniently be translated by any other word but 'good.' For that reason I shall henceforward translate jên, by Good (Goodness, etc.) with a capital; and shan by good, with a small g.

TAO

Unlike, jên, tao has not in the Analects a technical or peculiar meaning, but is used there in just the same sense as in early Chinese works in general. Tao means literally a road, a path, a way. Hence, the way in which anything is done, the way in which, for example, a kingdom is ruled; a method, a principle, a doctrine. It usually has a good meaning. Thus 'when tao (the Way) prevails under Heaven' means when a good method of government prevails in the world; or rather 'when the good method prevails,' for Confucius 'believed in the ancients,' that is to say, he believed that the one infallible method of rule had been practised by certain rulers of old, and that statecraft consisted in rediscovering this method. But there seem to have been other 'Ways'; for Confucius⁵³ speaks of 'this Way' and 'my Way.' Moreover, in one passage⁵⁴ he is asked about shan-jên chih Tao, 'the Way of the good people,' and replies (according to my interpretation) disapprovingly that 'those who do not tread in the tracks (of the ancients)' cannot hope to 'enter into the sanctum.' 'Good people' is a term often applied in Chinese to those who share one's views. Thus Quietists called other Quietists 'good people.' The 'good people' here intended evidently sought guidance from some source other than the example of the ancients, and they may well have been Quietists.

But we are also told that Confucius did not discourse about the Will of Heaven⁵⁵ or about 'prodigies' and 'disorders' (of Nature).⁵⁶ We have only to read other early books to see that the world at large attached extreme importance to the Will of Heaven as manifested by portents such as rainbows, comets, eclipses; and to monstrosities such as two-headed calves and the like. It may be that the doctrine of those who sought guidance from such signs rather than from the records of the Former Kings came to be known as the 'Way of the good people.' In general, however, the word Tao in the Analects means one thing only, the Way of the ancients as it could be reconstructed from the stories told about the founders of the Chou dynasty and the demi-gods who had preceded them.

The aspect of Confucius's Way upon which Western writers have chiefly insisted is his attitude towards the supernatural. It has been rightly emphasized that he was concerned above all with the duties of man to man and that he 'did not talk about spirits.'⁵⁷ From a false interpretation of two passages (VI, 20 and XI, 11) the quite wrong inference has, however, been drawn that his attitude towards the spirit-world was, if not sceptical, at least agnostic. In the first passage a disciple asks about wisdom. The wisdom here meant is, of course, that of the ruler or member of the ruling classes, and the point at issue is one frequently debated in early Chinese literature: which should come first, the claims of the people or those of the spirit-world? In concrete terms, should the security of the whole State, which depends ultimately on the goodwill of the Spirits of grain, soil, rivers and hills, be first assured by lavish offerings and sacrifices, even if such a course involves such heavy taxation as to impose great hard-ship on the common people? Or should the claims of the people to what it is 'right and proper' (i) for them to have be satisfied before public expenditure is lavished upon the protecting spirits? The reply of Confucius is that the claims of the people should come first; but that the spirits must be accorded an attention sufficient to 'keep them at a distance,' that is to say, prevent them from manifesting their ill-will by attacking human beings; for just as we regard sickness as due to the onslaught of microbes, the Chinese regarded it as due to demoniacal 'possession.'

The same question concerning the priority in budget-making of human and ghostly claims is discussed in the second passage. Tzu-lu asks about 'the service of spirits,' meaning, as has generally been recognized, the outlay of public expenditure on sacrifice and other ceremonies of placation. The Master's reply is, 'How can there be any proper service of spirits until living men have been properly served?' Tzu-lu then 'asked about the dead.' A much debated question was whether the dead are conscious; and it was suggested that if they are not, it must clearly be useless to sacrifice at any rate to that portion of the spirit-world which consists of the spirits of the dead, as opposed to those of hills, streams, the soil, etc. Confucius does not wish to commit himself to any statement about, for example, the consciousness or unconsciousness of the dead, and adroitly turns the question by replying, 'Until a man knows about the living,⁵⁸ how can he know the dead?' All that is meant by the reply (which is a rhetorical one and must not be analysed too logically) is that for the chün-tzu questions about the existence led by the dead are of secondary importance as compared to those connected with the handling of living men.

There is not, as Western writers have often supposed, any allusion to an abstract metaphysical problem concerning the ultimate nature of Life. Nor are the two passages discussed above in any way isolated or exceptional. They are, on the contrary, characteristic of the general diversion of interest from the dead to the living, from the spirit-world to that of everyday life, which marks the break-up of the old Chou culture, founded upon divination and sacrifice.⁵⁹

TÊ⁶⁰

This word corresponds closely to the Latin virtus. It means, just as virtus often does, the specific quality or 'virtue' latent in anything. It never (except by some accident of context) has in early Chinese the meaning of virtue as opposed to vice, but rather the meaning of 'virtue' in such expressions as 'in virtue of or 'the virtue of this drug.' In individuals it is a force or power closely akin to what we call character and frequently contrasted with li, 'physical force.' To translate it by 'virtue,' as has often been done, can only end by misleading the reader, who even if forewarned will be certain to interpret the word in its ordinary sense (virtue as opposed to vice) and not in the much rarer sense corresponding to the Latin virtus. For this reason I have generally rendered tê by the term 'moral force,' particularly where it is contrasted with li, 'physical force.' We cannot, however, speak of a horse's tê as its 'moral force.' Here 'character' is the only possible equivalent; and in the case of human beings the term 'prestige' often comes close to what is meant by tê.

SHIH

This word is often translated 'scholar'; but this is only a derived, metaphorical sense and the whole force of many passages in the Analects is lost if we do not understand that the term is a military one and means 'knight.' A shih was a person entitled to go to battle in a war-chariot, in contrast with the common soldiers who followed on foot. Confucius, by a metaphor similar to those embodied in the phraseology of the Salvation Army, calls the stout-hearted defenders of his Way 'Knights'; and hence in later Chinese the term came to be applied to upholders of Confucianism and finally to scholars and literary people in general. The burden of most of the references to shih in the Analects is that the Knight of the Way needs just the same qualities of endurance and resolution as the Soldier Knight. A saying such as 'A knight whose thoughts are set on home is not worthy of the name of knight'⁶¹ refers in the first instance to real knights, and is only applied by metaphor to the spiritual warriors of Confucius's 'army.' If like Legge we translate 'the scholar who cherishes his love of comfort … ,' we lose the whole point. As we shall see later, Confucius was himself a knight in the literal sense, and it is probable, as we have seen, that in his later years he was senior knight, 'leader of the knights,' responsible for their discipline.…

Notes

1. The legend of Confucius's worldly success, transferred to the West, has continued its growth on European soil. Meyer's Konversationslexicon (1896) goes so far as to say that he was 'received with the highest honours at every Court' in China.
2. The original function of the shih-shih was to 'keep the Knights in order'; Cf. Mencius I, 2, VI, 2. In practice he acted under the orders of the Minister of Justice and functioned as a sort of police-magistrate. In the second stage of its development the Confucian legend represents the Master as achieving the position of Minister of Justice, an idea which may well have grown out of his having in fact been Leader of the Knights.
3. This mobility was typical of Chinese society. Not only moralists, but warriors, craftsmen and even peasants moved from State to State, if they thought that by doing so they could improve their chances of success.
4. IX, 6. But the saying from which we learn this was a disputed one, and an alternative version of it is given immediately afterwards, 'But Lao says the Master said …' etc. This alternative version refers to lack of official employment, but not to poverty.
5. V, 1.
6. XI, 7.
7. I will not here enter into the difficult question of how the dates (551-479 B.C.) later accepted as official were first arrived at. Cf. Maspero, La Chine Antique, p. 455, and below, p. 78.
8. VII, 33.
9. Ibid.
10. XV, 2.
11. VII, 19.
12. VII, 1.
13. Mencius, IV, 1. I.
14. III, 14.
15. VII, 5.
16. See The Way and Its Power, p. 91. Mencius and later writers use the term shêng in a much wider sense, applying it even to a comparatively recent person such as Liu-hsia Hui.
17. I except Book XX, which has not necessarily anything to do with the beliefs of Confucius. Yü is legendary; but the Hsia dynasty is probably not wholly mythological.
18. VI, 28; XIV, 45.
19. T'ien; literally, 'Heaven'.
20. XV, 4.
21. VIII, 20. One of them was presumably Kao Yao, mentioned in XII, 22.
22. But not in the Songs, where he generally appears as a Creator connected indeed with irrigation, only once as a flood-subduer.
23. VIII, 21.
24. XIV, 6.
25. XV, 10.
26. III, 9. Systematic excavation at An-yang, the site of one of the Yin capitals, has put us in possession of far more information about Yin culture than Confucius was able to obtain.
27. Seventy-two is a sacred number, connected with the quintuple division of the year of 360 days. Cf. XI, 25.
28. Collected by Yüan Yüan, Huang Ch 'ing Ching Chieh, 803-806.
29. This section might well be omitted by readers without special knowledge of Chinese literature.
30. I mean accepted by scholars as the date of the material contained in the book. The date of its compilation may well be later.
31. See The Way and Its Power, p. 59. Mencius, VI, 2. VI, is unintelligible, and has in any case never been interpreted as relevant.
32. It is quoted by name in the Han Shih Wai Chuan, which presumably dates from the middle of the second century.
33. Now lost, save for a few fragments.
34. Legge's suggestion that Chang Yü (died 5 B.C.) used the Ku version is not borne out by the texts.
35. Through the Shih Wên and the fragments from Tun-huang. The Hsin-lun of Huan T'an (c. A.D. 1) says that Ku had four hundred characters different from Lu.

36. Alleged to have been found, (1) during the Emperor Ching's reign (156-141 B.C.); (2) at the beginning of the Han Emperor Wu's reign (140 B.C.); (3) at the end of his reign (87 B.C.); by (1) Prince Kung of Lu (in Lu from 154-127 B.C.; (2) the Emperor Wu himself; (1) during the demolition of Confucius's house; (2) before the demolition, which was at once suspended; (1) according to some accounts without supernatural mani-festations; (2) according to others, to the accompaniment of supernatural music.

    The accounts also differ considerably as to what books were found and as to who hid them there.

37. Which is simply a collection of traditional ritual maxims.
38. Which, apart from the few sayings appended at the end, is a collection of sentences from texts of the Shu Ching type.
39. XII, 22 and XVII, 21.
40. VI, 28.
41. XIII, 19.
42. XII, 1.
43. IX, 28.
44. XIV, 5.
45. XII, 3.
46. VI, 28.
47. VI, 21.
48. XV, 9.
49. XVII.
50. Po I, Shu Ch'i, Pi Kan, Wei Tzu and Chi Tzu is the complete list. All of them belonged, according to legend, to the end of the Yin dynasty. The last three occur in Book XVIII, which emanated from non-Confucian circles.
51. Cf. XIV, 2.
52. A vast mass of discussion has centred round this passage. Cf. Journal of the American Oriental Society, December 1933 and March 1934.
53. It would be pedantic always to say 'the early Confucians' or the compilers of the Analects; though that is, strictly speaking, what I mean when I say 'Confucius.'
54. XI, 19.
55. V , 12.
56. VII, 20.
57. VII, 20.
58. Or 'knows about life.' …
59. Cf. The Way and Its Power, pp. 24 seq.
60. Cf. The Book of Songs, p. 346. …
61. VIII, 4.