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CONFUCIUS

THE SAYINGS OF THE MASTER AND HIS
DISCIPLES UPON THE CONDUCT
OF "THE SUPERIOR MAN"

ARRANGED ACCORDING TO THE PLAN OF CONFUCIUS

WITH RUNNING COMMENTARY BY

MILES MENANDER DAWSON

MEMBER OF THE CONFUCIAN SOCIETY OF CHINA

WITH A FOREWORD BY

WU TING FANG

LATE MINISTER TO THE UNITED STATES FROM CHINA

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To

MISS JESSIE B. RITTENHOUSE,

DISCRIMINATING CRITIC AND UNFAILING FRIEND,

TO WHOSE APPRECIATION

THE AUTHOR'S PERSEVERANCE IN THE ARDUOUS LABOR

OF COLLECTING AND COLLATING THE TEXT FOR THIS BOOK

AND PREPARING IT FOR ITS READERS IS CHIEFLY DUE,

THIS VOLUME IS GRATEFULLY INSCRIBED.

FOREWORD

WHEN Confucius died, it is recorded that his last words were regrets that none among the rulers then living possessed the sagacity requisite to a proper appreciation of his ethical philosophy and teachings. He died unhonoured,-died in his seventy-third year, 479 B.C., feeling in the flickering beats of his failing heart that his inspiring pleas for truth and justice, industry and selfdenial, moderation and public duty, though then without having awakened men's impulses, would yet stir the depths of the social life of his land.

Only the future will tell how far his staunch guide-ropes to correct conduct will be extended within China, and even be threaded through the dark and dangerous passages of existence in the lands of the Occident to lead humanity safely, to that elevated plane which the lofty ideals of the philosopher aimed at establishing. Not yet has the world, sagacious as it is, appreciated the wealth of gentleness, the profound forces for good, the uplifting influences embodied in the teachings of the ancient sage, whose aim, reduced to its simplest definition, was to show "how to get through life like a courteous gentleman."

A great step forward in the dissemination of the doctrine in foreign lands is taken in “The Superior Man." Lofty as appear the ideals, in the usual translations, they lose the effect on the average

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