Confucius. An Introduction and Biography.
Confucius (the name is a Latinization of K'ung Fu-Tze, the Master K'ung) lived 551-478 B.C. in what was then the state of Lu, and which later became known as Shantung Province. He was the child of his warrior father's second marriage, in old age. His father had been a famous and brave fighter; his grandfather and great-grandfather had been scholars; and the generations before them had been mostly warriors allied to and descended from nobility. At the age of fifteen Confucius followed his grandfather's course and took up study as his lifework; at twenty or thereabouts he set up as a teacher.
We call Confucius a philosopher; but he was more properly a sage. He was a teacher without a real school ‹ but so famous that it is said, clearly in exaggerated praise, that he had as many as three thousand disciples at one time. He was a student of history, government, poetry and mustic. He held pubic office: in early years as a keeper of fields and cattle; later as a magistrate or town governor; and as a court arbiter of ritual. He chose exile when the lords of neighboring areas intrigued against him ‹ presumably because his fame as a good administrator embarrassed them. On his travels while in exile he was accompanied by a band of loyal disciples; and we are told that he was sometimes welcomed by lords who heard his praises from afar, and sometimes himself sought out the local lord, hoping that his teachings of virtue in personal life and government might benefit the people of many regions. After thirteen years of exile he returned home at the age of 68, and spent his remaining years in literary work ‹ the collecting and editing of old ballads, and the first writing down of Chinese events as history rather than as commemorative eulogies.
The analects which are the largest part of the present book were not part of this literary work, and were not written by Confucius. They are his sayings of these last years as remembered ‹ and no doubt polished up ‹ by his disciples after his death. In the original they are epigrammatic and terse to an extreme: the translator, to make them reasonably clear in English, has had to expand their wordage considerably, and even them has had to leave them with many implications only suggested.
In a typical Chinese manner, they are not arranged in any sort of rational sequence, and even sometimes shift from the sayings of the teacher himself to descriptions of his person, his habits, and his character. But they do, together with The Doctrine of the Mean and The Great Learning, exhibit that combination of simple logic, shrewd insight, reverent modesty and humane kindness which have made the name of Confucius revered for centuries.
During the lifetime of Confucius, China was going through a gradual breakup of the feudal system which had been established some centuries earlier. Under this system the founder of the Chou dynasty had divided the kingdom into a series of vassal states, over each of which he had placed as ruler one of his relatives who had helped him to power. These rulers in turn gave their territorial subdivisions into the hands of loyal followers. Thus the empire was really a kind of enlarged family, with a sense of filial responsibility to the head. But as the original rulers died, and intrigue and self-interest led their successors and their successors' subordinates in various uncooperative directions, there was war, bitterness, usurpation, and a general breakdown of the family system.
Everything about Confucius must be seen with this background. Everything he wrote, taught, and practiced was aimed at restoring the loving, respectful stability of the family pattern.
As a historian, he wrote to show the proper family relations of the dynasty.
As a religious teacher he believed in no theology and no supernaturalism, but revived and reestablished ancestor worship as a stabilizing force in human life.
As a teacher of government he said over and over again that just as the father and the sons must recognize their mutual love and interest, and work together, so must the magistrate and his townsmen, the lord and his magistrates, the Emperor and his lords. Just as the father must set a good example if he wishes his sons to practice virtue, so much the officers of government.
As a teacher of ethics he taught men to look into their hearts and find there, before the pulls of self-interest had distorted it, the basic will to be good, and to be just and kind to others. He found this goodness operating naturally in the family, and again showed how it could be carried up into the relations of friends, towns and empire.
For, having looked into his heart to find the good path, the follower of Confucius, as a son, a brother, a friend, a governor, a lord or a king, would then be governed by the rules of propriety or (to give a less narrow translation) of "right conduct." These rules of right conduct which Confucius advocated were not mere arbitrary social conventions but that good pattern of manners and ritual which grew out of and were designed to maintain the loving, respectful balance of the family and super-family system.
The present text is the translation of James Legge, a Christian missionary in China, to whom the Western world owes its first clear picture of Confucius both as a teacher and as a man ‹ a man calm, firm, pure, reverent, wise, and humane.
Confucius (the name is a Latinization of K'ung Fu-Tze, the Master K'ung) lived 551-478 B.C. in what was then the state of Lu, and which later became known as Shantung Province. He was the child of his warrior father's second marriage, in old age. His father had been a famous and brave fighter; his grandfather and great-grandfather had been scholars; and the generations before them had been mostly warriors allied to and descended from nobility. At the age of fifteen Confucius followed his grandfather's course and took up study as his lifework; at twenty or thereabouts he set up as a teacher.
We call Confucius a philosopher; but he was more properly a sage. He was a teacher without a real school ‹ but so famous that it is said, clearly in exaggerated praise, that he had as many as three thousand disciples at one time. He was a student of history, government, poetry and mustic. He held pubic office: in early years as a keeper of fields and cattle; later as a magistrate or town governor; and as a court arbiter of ritual. He chose exile when the lords of neighboring areas intrigued against him ‹ presumably because his fame as a good administrator embarrassed them. On his travels while in exile he was accompanied by a band of loyal disciples; and we are told that he was sometimes welcomed by lords who heard his praises from afar, and sometimes himself sought out the local lord, hoping that his teachings of virtue in personal life and government might benefit the people of many regions. After thirteen years of exile he returned home at the age of 68, and spent his remaining years in literary work ‹ the collecting and editing of old ballads, and the first writing down of Chinese events as history rather than as commemorative eulogies.
The analects which are the largest part of the present book were not part of this literary work, and were not written by Confucius. They are his sayings of these last years as remembered ‹ and no doubt polished up ‹ by his disciples after his death. In the original they are epigrammatic and terse to an extreme: the translator, to make them reasonably clear in English, has had to expand their wordage considerably, and even them has had to leave them with many implications only suggested.
In a typical Chinese manner, they are not arranged in any sort of rational sequence, and even sometimes shift from the sayings of the teacher himself to descriptions of his person, his habits, and his character. But they do, together with The Doctrine of the Mean and The Great Learning, exhibit that combination of simple logic, shrewd insight, reverent modesty and humane kindness which have made the name of Confucius revered for centuries.
During the lifetime of Confucius, China was going through a gradual breakup of the feudal system which had been established some centuries earlier. Under this system the founder of the Chou dynasty had divided the kingdom into a series of vassal states, over each of which he had placed as ruler one of his relatives who had helped him to power. These rulers in turn gave their territorial subdivisions into the hands of loyal followers. Thus the empire was really a kind of enlarged family, with a sense of filial responsibility to the head. But as the original rulers died, and intrigue and self-interest led their successors and their successors' subordinates in various uncooperative directions, there was war, bitterness, usurpation, and a general breakdown of the family system.
Everything about Confucius must be seen with this background. Everything he wrote, taught, and practiced was aimed at restoring the loving, respectful stability of the family pattern.
As a historian, he wrote to show the proper family relations of the dynasty.
As a religious teacher he believed in no theology and no supernaturalism, but revived and reestablished ancestor worship as a stabilizing force in human life.
As a teacher of government he said over and over again that just as the father and the sons must recognize their mutual love and interest, and work together, so must the magistrate and his townsmen, the lord and his magistrates, the Emperor and his lords. Just as the father must set a good example if he wishes his sons to practice virtue, so much the officers of government.
As a teacher of ethics he taught men to look into their hearts and find there, before the pulls of self-interest had distorted it, the basic will to be good, and to be just and kind to others. He found this goodness operating naturally in the family, and again showed how it could be carried up into the relations of friends, towns and empire.
For, having looked into his heart to find the good path, the follower of Confucius, as a son, a brother, a friend, a governor, a lord or a king, would then be governed by the rules of propriety or (to give a less narrow translation) of "right conduct." These rules of right conduct which Confucius advocated were not mere arbitrary social conventions but that good pattern of manners and ritual which grew out of and were designed to maintain the loving, respectful balance of the family and super-family system.
The present text is the translation of James Legge, a Christian missionary in China, to whom the Western world owes its first clear picture of Confucius both as a teacher and as a man ‹ a man calm, firm, pure, reverent, wise, and humane.
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Text source: An undated, unattributed essay on Confucius in an edition of James Legge's translation of Confucius. Published by the Peter Pauper Press, Mount Vernon, New York, undated.
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