矜腥 德民,于戮詛中泯○ ○ 刑 刑罔上方盟于泯 戮皇發有上告虐信棼 聞馨帝無威以棼胥 無覆罔漸 4 those who could offer some excuse. The mass of the people were gradually affected by this state of things, and became dark and 'disorderly. Their hearts were no more set on good faith, but they violated their oaths and covenants. The multitudes who suffered from the oppressive terrors, and were in danger of being murdered, declared their innocence to Heaven. God surveyed the people, and there was no fragrance of virtue arising from them, but the rank odour of their cruel punishments. 5.“The great emperor compassionated the innocent multitudes who were in danger of being murdered, and made the oppressors feel the 極陰之刑,‘castration.’| 被虐威而陷于刑戮之 The char. was originally written 歜越 兹云云,thie was the way in which 11. On the meaning of they abused the four punishments just men see XXI., p. 3. 刑發聞 惟 腥‘what the pun tioned. K'ang-shing takes here--ishments sent forth to be smelt was only a rank 于此施刑并制; but I prefer to odour.' Tsee says:一而刑戮發聞 retain the meaning of 附 as in the transla- 莫非腥穢 tion. 民典胥漸 -on the extent [For the first part of par. 3, we find in Mih's of 民 here, sce on the next par. 漸 (read 尙同中-呂刑之道日,苗 tsèen, 1st tone)=漸染 民否用練折則刑惟作五 殺之刑日法 The critics say that fluence was communicated from one to another. 練 and靈弗 and否折 and 制 were all sounded like each other. Even if we should 泯泯昏棼禁 (Shing edits 粉| admit thie, how do we have 則 for U, and 粉)亂罔中于信中 is here 心‘the heart;’the centre of the man. Chin King says:-罔中于信我 殺 for虐? The same pass. appears in the Le Ke, Bk. p. 3, in a form which is somewhat 緇衣 different still:甫刑日,苗民匪用 命制以刑惟作五虐之刑 日法 Pp.5–11. How the Meaouites were dealt with; the evils produced by them remedied; and the system of punishments in the empire put into a tion in connection with this paragraph is as to the satisfactory state. 5. The important quesCr emperor whom we are to understand by Kang-shing, followed of course by 皇帝 威寡帝鰥在降 惟畏德明惟 下 辜 寡下格地○苗報 辭問無明群天乃民虐 明后通命無以 苗民 秦之罔重世威 惟德鰥皇常逮有黎在 terrors of his majesty. He restrained and finally extinguished the people of Meaou, so that they should not continue to future generations. 6 Then he commissioned Ch'ung and Le to make an end of the communications between earth and heaven, and the descents of spirits ceased. From the princes down to the inferior officers, all helped with clear intelligence the spread of the regular principles of duty, 7 and the solitary and widows were no more disregarded. The great emperor with an unprejudiced mind carried his inquiries low down among the people, and the solitary and widows laid before him their complaints against the Meaou. He sought to awe the people by his virtue, and all were filled with dread; he proceeded also to Këang Shing and Wang Ming-shing thought | ‘Daily Explanation’gives:-竄其君于 heuh who was the subject, after which the 三分比其黨以遏絕有 by Woo Ching. makes the emperor to be You 苗之民而使其繼世在 all through. Neither view is admissible. The | things spoken or in parr.8,9,can only be ascribe 下國以貽百姓之害焉 that in this par. and the next it was Chuen discourse turns to Yaou. Gan-kwǔ, who is foll. ed to Shun. 乃命 at the beginning of p. 8, connects it so closely with p. 7, that we can only understand Shun to be the 皇帝 And as there is no intimation of that being difft. from the person indicated by the same title in par. 5, we must believe that Shun who is the principal subject in all the rest of this chapter is there intended. This is the view of T's'ae, after Lin Che-k'e. We get from what is said of the Meaou in these parr. a higher idea of them and their From prince than is commonly entertained. king Muh's language I judge that Shun had in 6. 乃命至降格,this par. seems to interpose a difficulty in the way of the view The passage formed the subject of a conversation in the lifetime of Confucius, between king Chaou (昭王;B.C. 514–488) of Tsoo and one him a powerful rival, and that the struggle of his ministers, called Kwan Yih-foo (觀射 which lasted through the reigns of Yaou, Shun, and Yu was of a dynastic nature. The chief of San-meaon was more than the head of a bar barous horde. He was a dangerous rival for What is meant,' asked the king, ‘by what is said in one of the Books of Chow about Chung and Le, that they really brought it about that there was no intercourse between the throne. The ' people ' mentioned in p. 4, were probably the people of the empire generally. heaven and earth? If they had not done so, 庶戮 皇帝至不辜,W we must take would people have been able to ascend to here as in the last 遏色, heaven?”(周書所謂重黎實使 par. 遏絶 云云,the measures referred to in the Can. 天地不通者何也若無然 of Shun,' pp. 12 and 27, are thus described, The 民將能登天平). The minister replied that that was not the meaning of the language at all, and he proceeded to give his own view of it at great length, and to the following effect: -Anciently, the people attended to the discharge of their duties to one another, and left the worship of spiritual beings-seeking intercourse with them, and invoking and effecting their descent on earth-to the officers who were appointed for that purpose. In this way things proceeded with great regularity. The people minded their own affairs, and the spirits minded theirs. Tranquillity and prosperity were the consequence. But in the time of Shaou-haou, through the lawlessness of Kew-le, a change took place. The people intruded into the func tions of the regulators of the spirits and their worship. They left their duties to their fellow men, and tried to bring down spirits from above. 羣后之逮在下,-I have translated this and the rest of the par. after Ts'ae. The 'Daily Explanation' gives for it : 之諸侯及在下之 The spirits themselves, no longer kept in check 官,皆精白其心輔助常道, 之順是道者則嘉與之 and subjected to rule, made their appearance all irregularly and disastrously. All was con fusion and calamity, when Chuen-heuh took✰*U the case in hand. He appointed Ch'ung, the minister of the South, to the superintendency of heavenly things, to prescribe the rules for the spirits, and Le, the minister of Fire (or of the North), to the superintendency of earthly things, to prescribe the rules for the people. 輔助 為善 (命南正重司天以屬神命 蒙福亦未有蔽而不得伸 introduced by Ch'ung and Le, a general reforma- himself a Kew-13 redivivus, till Yaou called forth AUTR, with which the next the descendants of Ch'ung and Le who had not forgotten the virtue and function of their fathers, and made them take the case in hand again. From the details of this strange passage of which I have given a summary, it would appear par. commences. It will be observed how all [Këang Shing follows 罔有降格 with that the speaker considered that the Chung, and edits to the end of p. 8 and Le of the text were ministers of Yaou, alluded to on p. 3. of 'The Canon of Yaou,' that who are mentioned there. descended from those of Chuen-heuh; and this on a very unsatisfactory authority, that of Mih has given rise to the 民 That opinion is without a tittle of satisfac- 有辭有苗日羣后之肆 居民在德三哲山三 在 tory evidence. Acc. to Yih-foo's statements, Ch'ung's function was that of the minister of Religion, and Le's that of the minister of In- 威雞威德明維明,乃名 struction, while He and Ho were simply minis ters of astronomy, and their descendants continue 功 伯夷降典 to appear as such in the reign of Ch'ung-k'ang, T* 土主 the grandson of Yu, long after we know that men of other families were appointed to the two 川稷隆播種農嘉穀 important ministries in question. Gaubil's specu lations about the employment of the astronomer 后成功維假於民] in the time of Yaou, not only to calculate and observe the motions of the heavenly bodies, but also to do away with conjurors, false worship, &c., fall to the ground;-see 'Le Chou-king,' p. 292, n. 1. He says also, that as Chung and Le are the same as He and Ho, if we suppose that Shun is the emperor spoken of here, we must assume that he gave those officers a new commission. But if we were to allow that it is Yaou who is P. 7. How Shun proceeded to remedy and remove the evils inflicted by the Meaou. 清心 spoken of, which I have shown on the last par. to Z, this is understood to be a de 1 成嘉播山水惟降于三明。 功穀種川土刑典民后O 惟 農稷主禹折伯恤 殷后殖 降名平民夷功命 8 enlighten them by his virtue, and all were enlightened. And he charged the three chiefs to labour with compassionate anxiety in the people's behalf. The baron E delivered the statutes of ceremony, to prevent the people from rendering themselves obnoxious to punishment. Yu reduced to order the water and the land, distinguishing by name the hills and rivers. Tseih spread abroad a knowledge of husbandry, so that the people could largely cultivate the admirable grains. When the three chiefs had accomplished their scription of Shun's method of governing the this place. Soo Shih, Wang Kang-chin (王 people, in opposition to the wicked ways of the Meaon. Ts'ne says:-苗以虐為威 以察為明帝反其道 德 威而天下無不畏以德明 而天下無不明 These clauses are quoted in the Le Ke, Bk. 表記, p. 34. where it is added 非虞帝其孰能 如此乎. Chin Sze-k'ae remarks that this is a clear testimony that Shun is the empeopinion has the 表記 on its side, whatever ror spoken of. It certainly shows that that weight may be attached to it. P. 8. How Shun proceeded in the work of government by means of his ministers. The 'three princes or chiefs, are those immediately mentioned. 恤功于民=致憂 民之功 to carry out their merits in painful anxiety for the people.' This is Ts'ae's and a host of critics, go about in vain to 鋼振) defend it by trying to show that rules of propriety and penal laws are essentially the same thing; ‘wise,'‘knowing.' Taking that term here as a wise on the subject of punishments;' in which his words just quoted, adds−使不入于 刑辟. Woo Ching comes nearest to an :一伯 explanation of the phrase, and is better than admissible construction of the passage: Woo Ching's, who says:一恤功以民事 爲憂也 伯夷至惟刑伯夷 see(The Can. of Shun,'p.23. The 'statutes' which E delivered were of course those of what are there called 'the three ceremonies,'--all the canons of religious worship. I am not able to construe. Gan kwǒ defines 折by斷,‘to decide,' and gives for the whole:-伯夷下典禮教民 而斷以法, understanding 刑 to mean “the laws' of propriety or ceremony. But such 夷教民以禮民入于禮,而 不入于刑折絶斯民入刑 之路,‘The baron E taught the people the rules of ceremony, so that they were observers of propriety, and did not pursue punishable ways, thus shutting up the path by which the people, entering on it, would have been led to punishment.' The translation follows this in terpretation. 主名山川, superintended the naming of the mountains and rivers.' Këang Shing gives a more specific meaning to making it = 立山川之 a meaning of may be at once rejected in, 'he appointed the spirits who should preside 中乃 于刑 惟德之勤故 明 о 中百于 于四方罔 明 穆品 民 下在 穆教 о 刑 九 節 民之 故不灼上德之制 9 work, it was abundantly well with the people. The minister of Crime exercised among the people the restraint of punishments, in exact 10 adaptation to each offence, to teach them to reverence virtue. The greatest gravity and harmony in the sovereign, and the greatest intelligence in those below him, thus shining forth to all quarters of the empire, all were rendered diligent in cultivating their virtue. Hence, if anything more were wanted, the clear adjudication of punishments effected the regulation of the people, and helped them to observe the over the mountains and rivers, and arranged their sacrifices.' This is not necessary. Ying-tă observes that the hills and rivers being as old as heaven and earth themselves, they ought to have had names before this; but Yu's regulation of the waters constituted a new era. Old things were passed away, and the names of those objects were perhaps lost, so that Yu named but, as is subjoined, 'to teach them to rever- then anew! Certainly, the oldest names of the I). This is refining; mountains and streams of a country are those given by the first inhabitants; as the Chinese believe that their hills and rivers got their names from Yu, this is to us a strong evidence that the country was first peopled, or began to be occupied, in his time. On the work of Tseih, see 'Can. of Shun,' p. 18. His appointment there has precedence of that of the baron E, and so has that of Kaou-yaou as the minister of crime. This is a not unimportant point of difference between the more ancient document and these statements of king Muh. 降,‘sent down;' here = 'taught the knowledge of.' 農 is taken=厚 but it may be admitted. From king Muh's thus separating Kaou-yaou from the three princes' in the last par., both emperors and people have at difft. times been led to place the minister of Crime on a lower level than the other great ministers of State. Kaouyaou was certainly no inferior man with Shun. Nor was he so in the estimation of Muh. He is mentioned by him last. as it was his object to make all his previous statements converge to the subject of punishments. P. 10. The happy results of this govt. of Shun. 穆穆在上 is descriptive of Shun; 惟殷于民¬殷明明在下of his ministers. These two clauses are the subjects of the next 'affluent,' 'abundant,' or, as a noun,; and the effects on all the 'affluence,' 'prosperity.' The 'Daily Explana tion'says:一段富庶之意也 P. 9. The appointment of the minister of Crime, and the object of it. The minister of Crime was Kaou-yaou. In the Can. of Shun,' p. 20, as here, he is simply called . [Under the Han dynasty, however, the passage appears with instead of -restrained—regulated—the people in the midst of punishments; ie., surrounded them with punishments. This was done. however, not with the design of punishing them, |