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wild tribes of the east, Confucius, answering, inquired: "If a superior man dwelt among them, what rudeness would there be?" (Analects, bk. ix., c. xiii., v. 2.)

In another place he says (Analects, bk. i., c. viii., v. 3): "Have no friends not equal to yourself!" meaning thereby of course not that they should be equal in abilities, necessarily, but equal in character and deportment. The same, very nearly, is the significance of this text: "When the persons on whom a man leans are proper persons for him to be intimate with, he can make them his guides and masters." (Analects, bk. i., c. xiii.)

This his disciples, with boundless admiration, asserted that they had themselves obeyed, when they had hung upon the lips of Confucius; for they leave this panegyric of their teacher: "Our Master cannot be attained to, precisely as the heavens cannot be scaled by the steps of a ladder." (Analects, bk. xix., c. xxv., v. 2.)

That the wisdom of this counsel is not confined to the case of a single associate, but instead extends to all associations both individual and communal, is shown by this additional text, already quoted in another connexion: "It is virtuous manners which constitute the excellence of a neighbourhood. If a man in selecting a residence do not fix on one where such prevail, how can he be wise?" (Analects, bk. iv., c. i.)

Yet the evil in man is useful for instruction, as well as the good; and he says of this: "When I

walk along with two others, they may serve me as my teachers. I will select their good qualities and follow them, their bad qualities and avoid them." (Analects, bk. vii., c. xxi.)

And in another place he warns his disciples, saying: "When we see men of worth, we should think of equalling them; when we see men of a contrary character, we should turn inwards and examine ourselves." (Analects, bk. iv., c. xvii.)

This does not, however, necessarily imply that he advises association with the latter nor indeed does he, though he says of himself: "It is impossible for me to associate with birds and beasts, as if they were the same with us. If I associate not with these people—with mankind—with whom am I to associate?" (Analects, bk. xviii., c. vi., v. 4.)

In reply to doubts expressed by his disciples, however, Confucius on one occasion defended himself in a manner very like the response of Jesus, saying: "I admit people's approach to me without committing myself as to what they may do when they have retired. Why must one be so severe? If a man purify himself to wait upon me, I receive him, so purified, without endorsing his past conduct." (Analects, bk. vii., c. xxviii.,

v. 2.)

It is interesting and refreshing to find in Confucius something akin to the sage words of the Elder Edda: "Unwise is he who permits the grass to grow between his house and his friend's." It

runs:

"How the flowers of the aspen-plum flutter and turn! Do I not think of you? But your house is distant.' The Master said: 'It is the want of thought over it. How is it distant?'" (Analects, bk. ix., c. xxx.)

That the truly virtuous man will not want for companionship, the sage thus declares: "Virtue is not left to stand alone. He who practises it, will have neighbours." (Analects, bk. iv., c. xxv.)

This is but another way of saying what is elsewhere so well said in these words: "Let the superior man never fail reverentially to order his own conduct, and let him be respectful to others and observant of propriety; then all within the four seas will be his brothers." (Analects, bk. xii.,

c. v., v. 4.)

Sexual Propriety. "The scholar keeps himself free from all stain." (Li Ki, bk. xxxviii., 15.) "The Master said, 'Refusing to surrender their wills or to submit to any taint to their persons; such, I think, were Pih-e and Shuh-ts'e.' (Analects, bk. xviii., c. viii., v. 2.) These two passages illustrate the sage's insistence upon sexual continence, among other virtues.

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While of course personal purity is a conception which, both in ancient China and in the modern Occident, embraces much more than this, and while abuses of the appetites for food or drink, or even of the more unconsciously exercised appetite for breathing, as in smoking, may contaminate in essentially the same fashion as the misuse of the

function which reproduces the race of men, yet both in the days of Confucius and in these later days the superior seductiveness of the appeal of feminine beauty causes the mind to recur at once to chastity when personal purity is spoken of.

Confucius distinguished and understood all of these evil habits which were exigent in his day and condemned them, as thus: "To find enjoyment in extravagant pleasures, to find enjoyment in idleness and sauntering, to find enjoyment in the pleasures of feasting-these are injurious." (Analects, bk. xvi., c. v.)

And again: "Hard is the case of him who will stuff himself with food the whole day, without applying the mind to anything." (Analects, bk. xvii., c. xxii.)

As regards all the physical functions, Mencius puts at once the problem and the difficulties, thus: "The physical organs with their functions belong to our Heaven-conferred nature. But a man must be a sage before he can satisfy the design of his physical organism." (Bk. vii., pt. i., c. xxxviii.)

But especially as respects the greatest of all human relations, that of a man with a woman, and those which grow out of it, the sage urged such regard for the purity of both sexes as would assure the suppression of mere playing with the means of the greatest of all human ends, the bringing of new lives into being and the development of higher and yet higher orders of human beings upon the earth. In the "Li Ki" it is thus in

sisted that the distinction between men and women must be observed and preserved for the good of all: "If no distinction were observed between males and females, disorder would arise and grow." (Bk. xvii., sect. i., 32.)

King Wan, one of the most celebrated rulers of China, in the time of Confucius already a character of almost legendary antiquity, is said in the first Appendix to the "Yi King" (sect. ii., c. xxxviii., v. 3) to have given this reason for the necessary distinction and separation of men from women: "Heaven and earth are separate and apart, but the work which they do is the same. Male and female are separate and apart, but with a common will they seek the same objects."

This rule of separation did not withdraw woman into the absolute seclusion of a harem; it permitted innocent intercourse of mind with mind. But, according to the "Li Ki," it avoided all physical contact and, so far as possible, all opportunities for it.

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These are some of the rules there laid down: "The Master said, 'According to the rules, male and female do not give the cup, one to the other, except at sacrifice. This was intended to guard the people.' (Bk. xxvii., 35.) "Males and females should not sit on the same mat, nor have the same stand or rack for their clothes, nor use the same towel or comb, nor let their hands touch in giving and receiving." (Bk. i., sect. i., pt. iii., c. vi., v. 31.) "They should not share the same

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