ART. VI.-1. The Works of Confucius, containing the original text with a translation. By J. MARSHMAN. Serampore. 1809. 2. The Chinese Classics, containing the Confucian Analects, the Great Learning, and the Doctrine of the Mean. By JAMES LEGGE, D.D. Hong Kong.

1861.

3. The Four Books. Translated into English by Rev. DAVID COLLIE. Malacca. 1828.

4. Memoires Historiques sur Confucius et Zoroastre. De Bock. 5. Abrégé Historique des principaux traits de la Vie de Confucius. HOLMAN.

6. Yu le Grand et Confucius. M. CLERC. Paris. 1769.

7. The Middle Kingdom. A Survey of the Geography, Government, Social Life, Arts, Religion, etc., of the Chinese. By S. WELLS WILLIAMS, LL. D. New York and London. 1848.

THERE exists in our day a nation whose origin is as complete a mystery as that of any race of by-gone ages; a people whose traditions carry them into imaginary ages prior to the creation of the world, and who are positively known to have existed more than two thousand years before the Christian era;* a nation which for upward of four thousand years has been governed by its own princes and with little deviation from the institutes of its first legislator; and which, more than five hundred years before Christ, produced a sage, the originator of a system of philosophy the oldest extant, and enlightened beyond many of later and more advanced eras. Whence had this nation-for centuries secluded in the middle. kingdom, and holding little or no intercourse, either by land or sea, with the other inhabitants of the earth-the elements of permanency, prosperity, and cultivation, which have maintained it in its place while empires around it rose, flourished,

* An eclipse, which occurred in the year B. C. 2155, is mentioned in the Chinese histories, and astronomical observations extracted therefrom and published, A. D. 1729.

and fell? The answer to this question may, to no inconsiderable extent, be found in the career, writings, and philosophy of one individual-the sage Confucius.

K'ung Foo-tsze-the Master K'ung-of which appellation Confucius is a Latinized version-while numbering a progeny which two hundred years ago exceeded eleven thousand males-has been credited by tradition with a genealogy of proportionate extent, tracing back to Hwang-te, the inventor of the cycle B. C. 2637.† In fact, however, nothing authentic can be affirmed of his ancestry prior to the commencement of the Tcheou dynasty, B. C. 1121. The first of his ancestors of whom we have positive record is commemorated by the sage himself in the book of the analects known as Wei-tsze-the Chief of Wei.

The Chief of Wei withdrew from the court; the Chief of K'e became a slave to Tcheou; Pe-kan remonstrated with him and died. Confucius said, The Yin Dynasty possessed these three men of virtueAna., Book XVIII., ch. i.

This chief of Wei was the founder of the sage's family. An elder brother (by a concubine) of the tyrant Tcheou, he left the court, that he might preserve the sacrifices of the family intact amid the ruin which he saw impending. ‡ He was subsequently invested by the emperor Tching-wang-the second of the house of Tcheou-with the dukedom of Sung, that he might there continue the sacrifices to the emperors of the Yin dynasty. In the regular line of succession this dukedom would have descended to Confucius, but in 893 B. C., it passed from them by the resignation of Fuh-ho, the progenitor of the sage, in favor of his younger brother.

* The present Regent and Prime Minister of China-the Prince K'ung -is of the family of Confucius.

+ Memoires concernant les Chinois, tome xii., p. 447, et seq.

The chiefs of K'e and Pe-kan were uncles of the tyrant. The former was thrown into prison by Tcheou, and to escape death feigned madness and was used by the tyrant as a buffoon. Pe-kan was barbarously put to death. Tcheou having the heart torn out, that he might inspect, he said, a sage's heart.-Duhalde, vol. i., p. 312.

When five generations had elapsed since the resignation of Fuh-ho, it became necessary, by the customs of the country, that the branch should cease its connection with the ducal stem, and merge among the people under a new surname. The representative of the family was, at this time, K'ung foo Kea, master of the horse in Sung, and from him originated the family name which was born by the great sage. Confucius, however, was not a native of Sung, a deadly feud with another powerful family having caused the K'ung to remove to the city of Fang, in the State of Loo, in which city the sage was born about the year B. C. 561.

As usual, with the great men of antiquity, the circumstances of Confucius's birth are encompassed with a cloud of fable; but fables so essentially prosaic, so devoid of beauty or interest as to be utterly unworthy of record. Of definite facts in regard to his early life we possess but few. When he was three years of age, his father died, leaving his family, it would appear, in poverty. Confucius says of himself:

Having

"When I was young, my condition was low; and therefore I acquired my ability in many things, but they were mean matters. no official employment, I acquired many arts.”—Ana., ix., 6.

"At fifteen, I bent my mind to learning; at thirty, I stood firm; at forty, I had no doubts; at fifty, I knew the decrees of Heaven; at sixty, my car was an obedient order for the reception of truth; at seventy, I could follow out what my heart desired without transgressing what was right."-Ana., ii., 4.

This is nearly all that we know of the sage until his marriage at the age of nineteen to a lady of the K'een K'wan family. Of the issue of this marriage we have little information except that the eldest son was called Le, signifying a carp, from a present sent to the sage by the Duke Tcha-'ou, on the occasion of the child's birth. The analects tell us that Confucius had also a daughter whom he gave in marriage to one King-Yay *-but of the name of this daughter we have no record.

* Ana., vi., 1.

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At the time when Confucius commenced his career, the Chinese Empire was divided into a number of petty principalities or duchies, owning a nominal allegiance to the central authority, but practically independent and continually at feud with one another. There were thirteen principalities of note, and numerous smaller dependencies. The chiefs, not unlike the feudal barons of the middle-ages in Europe, made war on one another, and were virtually sovereigns in their own provinces. These chiefs were generally surrounded by hereditary ministerial families, who, in many instances, governed their nominal rulers, and were in turn encroached upon by their own constituents and dependents. Thus the provinces were, to a great extent, controlled by oligarchies of the worst kind. This was, pre-eminently, the case with Confucius's native State of Loo, in which three families, known as the K'e, the Shuh, and the Ming,* kept the ducal house in a state of absolute dependence.†

The earliest public employment of the future sage was in his native principality, as keeper of the stores of grain, whence in the following year he was promoted to the charge of the public fields and lands. These functions he appears to have discharged as a means of support, without thought of advancement or distinction, saying, when he undertook the first: "My calculations must all be right; that is all that I have to care about;" and when he assumed the second, observing: "The oxen and sheep must be fat, and strong, and superior; that is all that I have to care about." In these sayings we find a key to the real character and objects of the sage—namely, the disposition to fulfill honorably his duty in whatever station of life his lot should be cast. He said of himself:

* Confucius was himself connected with the K'e family; and his disciples Ho-ke and King Shuh with the Ming, possibly also with the Ke and Shuh.

+ Legge, pp. 64, 67. Prolegomena.

Amyot, vol. xii., p. 24.

"With coarse rice to eat, with water to drink, and my bended arm for a pillow, I have still joy in the midst of these things. Riches and honors acquired by unrighteousness are to me a floating cloud."Ana., vii., 15.

Such a man, however, could not long remain in comparative obscurity. In his twenty-second year he was able to follow the real bent of his inclinations in devoting himself to the instruction of youth. This was with him a labor rather of love than of profit. Where he could discover in the disciple capacity and willingness to learn, he was contented with whatever emolument might come within his means; or, to use his own words:

"From the man who brought his bundle of dried flesh for my teaching upwards, I never refused instruction to any one."-Ana., vii., 7. His teaching, however, was only for those who showed an ability and disposition to profit by it. He adds:

"I do not open up the truth to one who is not eager to get knowledge, nor help out any one who is not anxious to explain himself. When I have presented one corner of a subject to any one, and he cannot from it learn the other three, I do not repeat my lesson."—Ana., vii., 8.

He was, however, an accurate judge of the capacity of his pupils. Of H‘wuy-Yen, a favorite disciple, he said:

"I have talked with H'wuy a whole day, and he has made no objection to any thing I said--as if he were stupid. He has retired, and I have examined his conduct when away from me, and found him able to illustrate my teachings. H'wuy! he is not stupid."--Ana., ii., 9.

It may well be imagined that he soon gathered around him an earnest and attached band of disciples.* These he inspired with such reverence that they made notes of his sayings, even in ordinary conversation; and from this source

* Confucius divisa sa doctrine en quatre parties, et ses disciples dans un pareil nombre de classes. La premiére ordre était de ceux qui s'étudiaient à acquérir les vertus; la seconde classe était de ceux qui apprenaient l'art de raisonner juste et l'éloquence; dans la troisiéme classe on traitait du gouvernement de l'État, et des devoirs des magistrats; la quatriéme classe s'occupait à discourir noblement et d'une maniére propre à persuader sur tout ce qui regarde des moeurs et des usages civiles.--Yu le Grand et Confucius, p. 113.