SOURCE: "K'ung Ch'iu, Founder of the Ju School," in A Short History of Confucian Philolosophy, 1955. Reprint by Hyperion Press, Inc., 1979, pp. 13-25.

[In the following excerpt, Wu-chi focuses on the life and thought of Confucius and contends that Confucius's "greatness lies in his transforming the feudal code of rites and etiquette into a universal system of ethics."]

Chapter One: K'ung Ch'iu, Founder of the Ju School

1. On the Greatness of Ju Philosophy—A Prelude

The Ju philosophy that has dominated Chinese thought for the last twenty-five centuries had its beginning in the teachings of K'ung Ch'iu (551-479 B.C.), commonly known as Confucius, founder of the Ju school. Because of its long, eminent tradition, Ju philosophy also exerted the greatest influence on Chinese life. It moulded the national character; it touched every corner of human activity; it permeated life in all its aspects, whether moral, political, or social. It also gave continuity to a remarkable old civilization which, far from becoming extinct or stunted in its growth, showed rather a wonderful vitality in its struggle for survival and supremacy.

For one thing, the greatness of Ju philosophy is due to its power of adaptation. Phoenix-like, it has been constantly reborn and reorientated. Like the Chinese race, which conquered not by force, but by assimilation, the Ju philosophy also eliminated its rivals by virtue of absorption until all that was good and useful in the other doctrines became incorporated in its grand melting-pot, which was Chinese culture itself. Originally, these were separate systems of thought like Mohism, Legalism, Taoism, and Buddhism, but they were all pressed upon to contribute generously to the Ju stock, thus saving it from exhaustion.

As a result of this process of development, Ju philosophy to-day is just as different from the original teachings of K'ung Ch'iu as the latter is, for instance, from the teachings of Christ. To be sure, the words of K'ung Ch'iu still form the kernel of the Ju concept, but in the course of its evolution it has acquired so many novel ideas and interpretations that the main bulk of Ju philosophy to-day would be hardly recognizable to its great progenitor himself. This transformation, of course, was obviously healthy. Though there have been many complaints by the orthodox against this admixture of foreign elements, yet considered as a whole, these additions are really what gave impetus and animation to an ancient system of thought, which, but for these injections of new blood, would certainly have become anaemic long ago.

Important because of its tremendous impact upon Chinese life, the evolution of Ju philosophy is as complicated as it is interesting. To trace the various stages of this development and the main ideological trends with which it has come into contact is in fact to write a history of Chinese thought itself. But before we start on this long and arduous historical journey, let us pause first to have a look at the origin of the word Ju as well as at the Ju profession that flourished in the feudal society of the Chou period.

2. Scholars or 'Weaklings'?

In current usage, the word Ju means a scholar of the K'ung school. As such he is to be distinguished from the Buddhist or Taoist teacher, who holds an altogether different view of life. The close association between Ju and K'ung has also led Western writers, after they smugly transformed K'ung-fu-tz , or Master K'ung, to Confucius, to call the Ju teaching Confucianism and the Ju followers Confucianists. Though this is un-Chinese, yet in the sense that K'ung Ch'iu was the protagonist of the school, the translation is by no means entirely unacceptable.

But originally, there was also another meaning to the word Ju. Etymology tells us that Ju is a combination of two radicals, 'man' and 'weakness'. Hence the question naturally arises as to who these 'weaklings' were, if there was ever such a class of people. This is indeed a most intriguing question, to which, unfortunately, no clue has been given by the early Chinese writers. It is only in recent years that critics have begun to delve into the subject with apparently rich findings.

So far, two theories have been advanced.¹ According to the first, these 'weaklings' were actually descendants of the Shang people, whose dynasty had been overthrown by the Chou people in the twelfth century B.C. Being the survivors of a subjugated race, they extolled the virtue of weakness, or rather, the strength of weakness, as the best means of self-preservation. Degraded and dispossessed, but nevertheless rich in ceremonial knowledge, they made a living among their conquerors by assisting in funerals, marriages, and other occasions in the households of the Chou overlords. Because of their humble manners and occupation, so it is asserted, these Shang descendants earned for themselves the contemptible name of 'weaklings'.

Another theory, which we hold, is that these 'weaklings' were not the remnants of the once great but now degenerated Shang race, but disinherited members of the Chou aristocracy, who, in spite of their blue blood, had drifted into commonalty during the long centuries of the Chou dynasty. They were either offspring of the cadet branches of some noble family far removed from its great founder, or aristocrats who had been degraded into commoners. In either case, they had lost their rank and revenue as well as their special privileges. Though not as helpless as the ignorant peasants, who toiled all their lives on the soil, they were nevertheless so reduced in their circumstances that they had to employ whatever talents they might have acquired in the good old days to make a living. They thus became a new middle class between the patricians and the plebeians.

The number of such dispossessed nobles increased rapidly in the decades shortly before the advent of K'ung Ch'iu in the sixth century B.C. The feudal structure of Chou society built up by the great Duke of Chou² had been steadily crumbling since the removal of the Chou capital eastward to Lo in 770 B.C., but the process of deterioration did not assume alarming proportions until a century later. There emerged from this social transformation a new group of people, intelligent, resourceful, and eager to carve out a worthy career for themselves. But their inborn nobility and ambition notwithstanding, they were poor and powerless, and the best they could do was to become potential office-seekers.

What kind of talents did these people possess with which to earn a living? As former aristocrats, they must have been familiar with some or all of the six arts that were the hallmark of a noble education, namely, ceremonials and music, history (or writing) and numbers, archery and charioteering. As we can easily see, these were also good practical subjects, a knowledge of which would render a man useful to his feudal superiors. A knowledge of archery and charioteering, for instance, would qualify one to be a military commander or governor of a walled town, while a knowledge of writing and numbers would make one a good steward in the ministerial families. Likewise, as an expert in music and rituals, one could either become a tutor to the fledgling aristocrats or serve as a functionary on solemn ceremonial occasions. The rôles indeed were many in which these impoverished, disinherited nobles could employ their parts to advantage.

At the same time, their rank and file was further swelled by a large number of diviners, historiographers, and ceremonial and music masters, who were originally attached to the court, but who had lost their positions because of the dissolution of the feudal system and the decline and fall of the small principalities. Since their offices were formerly hereditary, they had been for many centuries custodians of Chinese culture, which, like the Promethean fire, had been jealously kept from the common people. But now, commoners themselves as a result of the great social upheaval, these forlorn intellectuals began to dole out their Olympian knowledge to all and sundry who had the means and the desire to learn. Thus was ushered in a new era noted for its wide diffusion of learning.

In the very beginning, we suspect, no name was given to this intellectual professional group. Apparently, their interests were greatly varied, and their jobs, now no longer hereditary, of a miscellaneous nature. No one word, indeed, could cover the multitudinous activities in which they were severally engaged. But for one of these professions a term had been coined, though it was by no means frequently used in K'ung Ch'iu's time. This was the word Ju, denoting a soft-spoken, genteel intellectual, whose job it was to assist at the ceremonies in the noble households. As the aristocratic society of the Chou period was extremely ritualistic, and its code of etiquette, known as li, highly elaborate, no ordinary man could conduct with propriety and proficiency such family ceremonies as capping and coiffure, marriage and funerals; or such stately entertainments as banqueting and archery contests; or the elaborate religious observances in the ancestral temples. Experts were needed for such occasions, and there soon appeared a group of people who specialized in all these branches of ritual and who were at the beck and call of any noble patron. To distinguish themselves, they were dressed in special costumes that bespoke their profession. Thus, wearing broad-sleeved robes girdled with silk sashes and trimmed with jade tablets, high round feather hats and square shoes, these men of li must have walked demurely, bowed deeply, and acted decorously—all of which earned for them the nickname of 'weaklings'.

3. A Great Ju Rises in the East

Just about this time there rose in Lu, one of the eastern states in the Chou kingdom, a remarkable young man by the name of K'ung Ch'iu. He was one of those disinherited nobles who claimed their ancestry from the ducal house of Sung, and thence from the fallen house of Shang. But by this time the royal blood had been so diluted that little of it was left in him except that which showed in the superior intelligence of the young man. This was in fact the only patrimony he had received from his great ancestors, or from his own father, a minor military official, who had died a few years after the boy's birth, leaving him and his mother to take care of themselves as best they could. Faced with the problem of making a living, young K'ung Ch'iu first took office as overseer of the granary and later of the herds.

This was in line with the tradition of his people, who, as dispossessed aristocrats, had to seek miscellaneous jobs for a living. Since he had had no formal instruction in the useful arts, what else could K'ung Ch'iu do but take up this mean employment? Just as his father before him had become an army officer, so K'ung Ch'iu became a state employee. As such, he was known to have been a hard, conscientious worker, who always kept a correct account of the grain and fed his oxen and sheep so well that they grew fat and strong and multiplied. It was no doubt in recognition of these services that, when a male child was born to K'ung Ch'iu, the Duke of Lu sent him the ceremonial present of a carp. One can well imagine the excitement which the gift created in the humble K'ung family. Indeed, in token of this great honour, the boy was named Li, or carp!

But, if circumstances had forced him to accept these petty positions, the ambitious and idealistic K'ung Ch'iu was by no means satisfied. He was looking forward to employment more congenial to his nature and worthier of his talents. The break came when his mother died and he was forced to go into seclusion for three years in accordance with the previaling custom. Great thoughts, it seems, were then agitating his breast, and he began to make preparations for launching out into a brave new world hitherto unexplored.

4. The Brave New World of Education

When at the age of thirty-four K'ung Ch'iu next emerged into public notice, he was already a distinguished teacher of ceremony. We know practically nothing about his life in the intervening years except that during this period he had been exploring all the avenues of learning in order to improve himself. There is no doubt, however, that he became, through sheer diligent study, an expert in the code of li. The period of mourning over, this self-made scholar soon started as a public teacher, gathering to his door young men interested in acquiring training for a profession. Even though his father had been an army officer and he himself was familiar with archery and charioteering, K'ung Ch'iu, it seems, did not include military science in his curriculum. What he taught was li, his main subject, as well as writing, numbers, and oratory. All these qualified his students for government jobs and stewardships in aristocratic households.

There was nothing startling in this educational programme. But what was original was the way in which K'ung Ch'iu enlisted his students. In former days there had been official teachers, whose duty it was to educate the scions of the overlords in the six arts. These hereditary pedagogues were part of the aristocratic appanage, and their learning was available only to the rulers and their sons. Besides, there might have been in K'ung Ch'iu's time private tutors who could be hired by anyone. But, to set up a sort of school for young men of all classes was something unheard of in history; at least, there is no record of such a practice before the sixth century B.C. It was a daring experiment first made by K'ung Ch'iu, and his success led to the rapid development of the system in the decades after him.

The new schoolmaster, moreover, was a man of great vision. Tuition, of course, he had to charge in order to carry on his work, but it was so nominal—just a bundle of dried meat—that it was within the means of the humblest. Scions of noble families, who were able to pay liberally, were welcome, but no intelligent young man who had the desire to learn ever found the door of the K'ung school closed to him. This democratic basis of admission was the more remarkable when we remember that K'ung Ch'iu lived in the feudal period when there was still a great dividing line between aristocracy and commonalty. But to K'ung Ch'iu, the first teacher, such distinctions did not exist; certainly, they were overlooked in his school-room. Very proudly he announced to his students: 'There is no class in education.'³

Master K'ung's educational policy being such, all sorts of young men flocked to his schoolroom. There was Tzŭ-lu, once a swashbuckling bravado, who died a loyal official and a martyr to the cause of li; there was Yen Hui, a poor but industrious scholar, who was satisfied with his bamboo bowl of rice and his gourd cup of water; there was Ssŭ-ma Niu, in constant fear of persecution by his elder brother, a wicked minister of Sung; there was Kung-yeh Ch'ang, who, while studying with the Master, was thrown into jail; there was Tsai-yü, who fell to day-dreaming during the Master's lecture; there was Fan Chi, who seemed to be more interested in gardening and farming than in literature and politics; there was Kung-hsi Chih, a ceremonial expert in the great ceremonial school; and many others from every walk of life, equally rich and diversified in their personality. What a galaxy of wits these were that enlivened the happy atmosphere of the K'ung school!

As a result of Master K'ung's indefatigable teaching, a number of his students became ritual experts, stewards of ministerial families, governors of walled towns, officials, courtiers, as well as teachers. By this time, K'ung Ch'iu, who had started as a teacher of ceremonies, had greatly widened his scope of instruction to include in his curriculum history and poetry, ethics and politics, all of which were essential to a successful public career. The importance of historical knowledge to government officials is readily understood; but, in those days, poetry too played a vital part in diplomatic intercourse, in which ancient odes were often quoted not only to show the speaker's good breeding, but also to illustrate and support by subtle implication the argument to be advanced. Especially among his younger students, both these subjects were studied with increasing interest, and the literary tradition of the K'ung school was thus established.

In the meantime, Master K'ung had grown more experienced in human affairs, just as he had become more advanced in learning. Desiring to study its culture at first hand, he had visited Lo, the Chou capital. There he had learned from Lao-tan, the great ceremonialist and keeper of the royal archives. Next, he had visited Ch'i, where he had become acquainted with its divine music, which so engrossed him that he is said to have forgotten the taste of meat for three months. He had also filled responsible administrative positions in Lu, first as magistrate, then as minister of crime and, possibly, as acting premier. He had taken part in the diplomatic conference between Ch'i and Lu, in which his supreme knowledge of ritual had won for his state a great moral triumph. Later, when he had had to give up his office in Lu, he had spent thirteen or fourteen years abroad, travelling, teaching, and visiting the feudal rulers of his time. When at last he was recalled to Lu, he was already an old man, an elder statesman, whose advice was constantly sought after by both the reigning duke and his chief minister. The humble overseer of herds, who had turned schoolmaster, was now the most honoured man in his native state; he was also the most learned scholar of the Chinese world.

5. A Happy Innovation

A new inspiration seized K'ung Ch'iu in the last years of his life. He must have then realized that his days were fast running short, and that, if he had successfully initiated a noble profession, he was by no means sure that his doctrines would be handed down intact through mere oral tradition. Something, it seemed, should be done to insure their preservation in future years. Hence, thoughts like these led ultimately to his becoming a literary editor and anthologist.

K'ung Ch'iu, an authority on Chou culture, was also its preserver. For many years he had industriously gathered all the literary materials that he could lay his hands on. In this attempt he was more than fortunate, for at that time many of the official documents formerly kept in the court archives and ancestral temples had begun to leak out to the public. In addition, he must have obtained a large part of his materials through his connexions with the feudal courts. In Lu, which had long been the centre of Chou culture, he had had direct access to valuable sources hitherto not available to the common people. His trip to the Chou capital must also have yielded a rich harvest, as undoubtedly did his visit to the other states. What he had collected, however, was mostly unedited material in bundles of bamboo tablets that had to be strung together with leather thongs. Books in the modern sense of the word did not exist; and Master K'ung, the pedagogue, soon became China's first book-maker.

K'ung Ch'iu's contribution to Chinese literature can never be over-estimated. He it was who first brought together the Chou classics under the name of his school. It is possible, of course, that portions of the Classic of Poetry and the Classic of History had been in circulation long before K'ung Ch'iu's time. But it is doubtful whether they ever existed in the form left to us by him, who was in this sense their 'sole begetter'.⁴ To be sure, what he actually did was merely to collate and edit, but even so, this work that seems so conventional and simple to us, was in those days certainly an epoch-making innovation.

Unfortunately, Anthologist K'ung's labour on rituals and music has been lost to posterity. The Record of Rites that we have is a compilation of the Han dynasty, though it may retain much of the original material as well as many of the Master's observations on these subjects.

The Classic of Change, a manual of divination, said to have been written by King Wen, founder of the Chou dynasty, and the Duke of Chou, is probably the earliest Chinese book extant. Its mysterious contents seem to have fascinated K'ung Ch'iu in his last years, but his share in this work is rather uncertain. According to some critics, even the philosophical interpretation given it in the ten 'Wings' or 'Appendices' traditionally attributed to Master K'ung might have come from another pen.

So far, in all the works we have mentioned, K'ung Ch'iu was satisfied to play the rôle of a transmitter.⁵ It was a great rôle without doubt, for what he transmitted was none other than the main bulk of ancient Chinese culture. But that was not all. To K'ung Ch'iu also belonged the honour of being the first Chinese author, a great honour indeed.

As a writer, K'ung Ch'iu is chiefly remembered for his Spring and Autumn, annals of Lu covering the reigns of its twelve dukes from 722-481 B.C. It was probably the last literary work that he undertook. As the first Chinese book written by a private individual,⁶ it had an immense historical interest. As a matter of fact, K'ung Ch'iu himself entertained such a high opinion of this unprecedented adventure that he staked his reputation on it. Said he: 'If anyone recognizes my greatness in future generations, it will be because of the Spring and Autumn. If any one condemns me in future generations, it will likewise be because of the Spring and Autumn.'⁷

Such being the author's opinion of the Spring and Autumn, it comes as a surprise that the book contains merely a list of dry, uninspiring entries under the reign of each of the twelve dukes. But we have an explanation for this. In K'ung Ch'iu's time the Chinese language, as we know, had not attained that flexibility, eloquence, and richness which characterize the historical and philosophical writings of a later period. K'ung Ch'iu's style, therefore, was simple, straightforward, and factual. This, too, was natural enough, because it was only the facts, the bare historical events of his native state and the confederated Chou world, in which he was primarily interested. But even here little credit was due to the writer, who did not first record these events, but took them from the official chronicles of Lu. Hence K'ung Ch'iu's originality consisted merely in his arrangement of the entries, his wording, his style, and his purpose, which was to use the past to mirror the present and the future.⁸ If this first historical book by a private individual fails to meet our expectation as a great work of literature, we must bear in mind that it is after all only an innovation.

6.Short of a Miracle: the Professionals turned Philosophers

When K'ung Ch'iu died in 479 B.C. at the age of seventy-three, his mission of embodying in himself and his school the best of orthodox Chou culture had been accomplished. As we remember, he started his career as a ritual expert, vaguely known in those days as Ju, but soon became famous as a scholar of wide learning. Though a Ju by profession, he seemed to have used the word rather gingerly in his recorded sayings. In fact, only once did he mention it, and that was when he advised Tzŭ-hsia, one of his younger pupils, to become a noble, and not a lowly, Ju. Here, however, the meaning is somewhat equivocal. Since Tzŭ-hsia has never been known as a ritual practitioner, we might infer that the Master was using the word in the broader sense of a scholar rather than in its original sense of a mild-dispositioned man of li. Anyway, the Ju class, from which K'ung Ch'iu sprang, and of which he was the greatest representative, had been so closely identified with him that Ju and K'ung soon became synonymous. Meanwhile, the word Ju began to assume its new meaning, as Master K'ung had used it in reference to Tzŭ-hsia, as a scholar of the K'ung school. And, most important of all, amidst all these changes, a Ju philosophy had been developed.

It all came about like this. While basing his teaching on the authority of the sage kings of antiquity⁹ and the orthodox feudal concepts of his time, K'ung Ch'iu, the great originator, soon evolved a new ethical and political philosophy of his own. In politics he contributed the idea of paternal government, in which the ruler should govern his people benevolently, as a patriarch his family. And just as a father is bound to his children by the tie of blood, which accounts for their attachment to one another, so should a prince be bound to his subjects by the same inalienable tie of love and kindness. Hence to a ruler the most important consideration was the welfare of the people. To summarize, according to Master K'ung, the three fundamental requirements of a state are that its sovereignty be safeguarded by adequate military strength, its welfare by sufficient food, and its government by the confidence of the people; of which the last is the most important. When we remember how the peasants of those days were oppressed by the autocratic rulers, we can see very well why Master K'ung's principle of benevolent government, though to us trite and old-fashioned, was, when viewed historically, highly significant.

But K'ung Ch'iu's real greatness lies in his transforming the feudal code of rites and etiquette into a universal system of ethics. It is wonderful that the humble practitioner of li should have become ultimately the greatest teacher of morality; but what is even more wonderful is that that morality, though 2,500 years old, is in its fundamental concept strikingly up to date and still aspiring. Here we are not referring to his observations on family relationship, which have failed to harmonize with modern trends owing to the great social changes of the past centuries. But what impresses us most is his lofty conception of the basic virtues of chung (faithfulness to oneself and others), shu (altruism), jen (human-heartedness), yi (righteousness), li (propriety), chih (wisdom), hsin (realness or sincerity), all of which the Master preached so forcibly and exemplified in himself so worthily that they have since become an ethical creed of the Chinese people. In fact, it was this insistence on man's moral cultivation, irrespective of rank and class, that has made K'ung Ch'iu such an immortal teacher. Thus, though living in the medieval society of the sixth century B.C., he was able to transcend the limitations of his age and profession to develop a far-reaching philosophy with moral perfection as its ultimate aim. As he himself had constantly asserted, he was all his life championing a way of life, or truth, which he called tao; and he would not be satisfied until it had been adopted by mankind.

The pursuit of this tao was therefore the greatest endeavour of Master K'ung's life. He also taught it to his pupils, no matter what personal ambitions they might have. In studying with him, they might seek training as ritual functionaries, family stewards, courtiers, governors, or teachers, but no one could leave the door of the K'ung school without being instilled with a lofty sense of morality. The Master's enthusiasm was so intense that a number of his devoted disciples were fired by it. Thus these men who had come to him to learn a profession turned out to be the torch-bearers of a grand new philosophy, the Ju philosophy, whose ultimate achievement was the superior man.

Notes

1. Page 15. For a discussion of this subject, see Hu Shih, 'On the Ju,' in his Recent Essays on Learning (Chinese), Shanghai, 1935, 3-102; Fung Yu-lan, A History of Chinese Philosophy (Chinese), II, Appendix, 1-61; Ch'ien Mu, An Interlinking Chronology of the Ante-Ch'in Philosophers (Chinese), 85-8, 92; and Ch'ien Mu, An Outline of Chinese National History (Chinese), Shanghai, 1948, I, 65-6.
2. Page 15. The Duke of Chou (12th century B.C.), one of the great figures in ancient Chinese history, was highly praised by Master K'ung as a model statesman. He helped his father, King Wen, and his brother, King Wu, to establish the Chou dynasty and to institute the feudal system that lasted for many centuries.
3. Page 19. Lun-yü (The Analects), Bk XV, Ch. 38.
4. Page 22. In the course of the Ch'in fire, as told later in Ch. VII, most of the K'ung classics were destroyed. But they were restored later by the Han scholars. It is believed that these Han versions are substantially the same as those handed down by Master K'ung himself.
5. Page 22. Master K'ung once called himself a transmitter who believed in and loved the ancients. (Lun-yü, VII, 1.)
6. Page 23. The Chou Li (The Ritual of Chou) was supposed to have been written by the Duke of Chou, but his authorship has been generally discredited by scholars, and the book itself is now considered as a much later work, probably at the time of the Warring States (5th-3rd century B.C.). Also of dubious origin are the Kuan-tzŭ (The Works of Master Kuan), a Legalist book attributed to Kuan Chung, a great statesman of the 7th century B.C. and the Tao Teh Ching (The Classic of Tao), attributed to Lao-tan, a senior contemporary of Master K'ung. After such elimination, the Ch'un Ch'iu (Spring and Autumn) becomes the first Chinese book written by a known author.
7. Page 23. Meng-tzŭ (The Works of Master Meng), Bk III, Pt ii, Ch. 9.
8. Page 23. Cf. Meng K'o's somewhat exaggerated claim that 'When Master K'ung completed the Spring and Autumn rebellious ministers and villainous sons were struck with terror.' Ibid. These words, however, make a good testimony to the significance of the book which, though unimportant to us, had nevertheless a great influence in its time when the lessons of history it contains were still fresh in the minds of its readers.
9. Page 24. For a list of the sage kings and their periods, see Appendix 1. All these kings were noted for their great virtue. Yao and Shun were model rulers who, instead of leaving the throne to their lineal descendants, yielded it to their sage ministers, i.e. Yao to Shun, and Shun to Yü. Yü, the founder of Hsia, the first Chinese dynasty, was the saviour of the Chinese people from a devastating flood that had overrun the land. When the last of the Hsia kings, who came to the throne some 400 years later, proved to be a tyrant, he was overthrown by the virtuous Tang, who established the Shang dynasty. Likewise, after some 600 years, the Shang came to an end during the reign of Chou Hsin, another tyrant, and it was succeeded by the Chou dynasty, whose founders, as we have already noted, were King Wen, King Wu, and the Duke of Chou. Some modern critics, however, doubt the existence of Yao, Shun, and Yü as well as the historicity of the Hsia dynasty. Still others believe that the entire story of these sage kings was invented by the Confucianists to give authority to their political teachings.