the superior man who can follow this way, and go out and in by this door. It is said in the Book of Poetry :

'The way to Chow was like a whetstone

And straight as an arrow.

[So] the officers trod it,

And the common people looked on it.'"

9. Wan Chang said, "When Confucius received his ruler's message calling him [to his presence], he went without waiting for his carriage to be yoked; did Confucius then do wrong?" [Mencius] replied, "Confucius was in office, and had its appropriate duties devolving on him; and moreover he was called on the ground of his office."

VIII. 1. Mencius said to Wan Chang, "The scholar whose excellence is most distinguished in a village will thereon make friends of the [other] excellent scholars of the village. The scholar whose excellence is most distinguished in a State will thereon make friends of the [other] excellent scholars of the State. The scholar whose excellence is most distinguished in the kingdom will thereon make friends of the [other] excellent scholars of the kingdom.

2. "When [a scholar] finds that his friendship with the excellent scholars of the kingdom is not sufficient [to satisfy him], he will ascend to consider the men of antiquity. He will repeat their poems, and read their books;

dicated in the words of the ode quoted, it once was in the best days of the Chow. The way to Chow was as it is here described, because the ways of the kings of Chow had been fashioned according to righteousness and propriety.

Par. 9. See Ana. X. xiii. 4.

CH. VIII. HOW FRIENDSHIP WILL FIND ITS CONGENIAL ASSOCIATIONS ACCORDING TO THE CONDITIONS OF PLACE AND TIME, AND WE MAY MAKE OUR FRIENDS OF THE GREAT AND GOOD OF ANTIQUITY BY STUDYING THEIR POEMS AND OTHER BOOKS, AND HISTORY.

Par. 1. The eminence of the most excellent scholars specified attracts others to them, and they have thus the opportunity of learning and adding to their own excellence, which no inflation arising from their own superiority prevents them from doing. It is a pity that the Chinese mind should be so unwilling to admit that excellence may be found out of China.

Par. 2. It is certainly a discriminating study of the worthies of antiquity which Mencius here recommends.

and as he does not know whether they were as men all that was approvable, he will consider their history. This is to ascend and make friends [of the men of antiquity]."

IX. 1. King Seuen of Ts'e asked about high ministers. Mencius said, "Which high ministers is your Majesty asking about?" "Are there differences among them?" said the king. "Yes," was the reply; "there are high ministers who are noble, and relatives of the ruler, and there are those who are of a different surname from him." "Allow me to ask," said the king, "about the high ministers who are noble, and relatives of the ruler." [Mencius] answered, "If the ruler have great faults, they ought to remonstrate with him; and if he do not listen to them, when they have done so again and again, they ought to appoint another in his place."

2. The king looked moved, and changed countenance. 3. [Mencius] said, "Let not your Majesty think [what I say] strange. You asked me, and I did not dare to reply but correctly."

4. The king's countenance became composed, and he begged to ask about the high ministers who were of a different surname from the ruler. [Mencius] said, "When the ruler has faults, they ought to remonstrate with him; and if he do not listen to them when they have done so again and again, they ought to leave [the State]."

CH. IX. THE DUTIES OF MINISTERS TO THEIR RULER, ACCORDING AS THEY ARE OF THE SAME SURNAME WITH HIM, OR A DIFFERENT, THAT IS, ACCORDING AS THEY ARE RELATED TO HIM OR NOT.

Par. 1. By "great faults" is meant such as endangered the State, or at least the safety of the ruling House. It seems to be intimated that of other and lesser faults these ministers would not take any notice. In par. 4 all the ruler's faults, small or great, come under the notice and criticism of his other ministers.

Parr. 2, 3. It was not surprising that king Seuen should be annoyed and surprised at the words of Mencius. They certainly afford a striking instance of the boldness of our philosopher's thinking, and of the decided manner in which he gave expression to his sentiments. All the members of the family of which the ruler is the Head may be said to have an interest in the throne, but to suggest to them that it may become their duty to displace the actual occupant of it, and substitute another of their number in his place, may open the way to confusion and disaster.

BOOK VI.

KAOU-TSZE. PART I.

CHAPTER I. 1. Kaou-tsze said, "[Man's] nature is like a willow tree, and righteousness is like a cup or a bowl. The fashioning benevolence and righteousness out of man's nature is like making cups and bowls from a willow tree.”

2. Mencius replied, "Can you, in accordance with the nature of the willow tree, make cups and bowls from it? You will do violence and injury to the tree before you can make cups and bowls from it. If you will do violence and

TITLE OF THIS BOOK. Kaou-tsze, i. e., Mr Kaou, or the scholar Kaou, who appears in the first and other chapters questioning Mencius, gives his name to the Book. He is probably the same who is referred to by our philosopher in II, Part I. ii. 2. Chaou K'e tells us that his name was Puhhae, seeming to identify him with Haou-săng Puh-hae of VII. Pt II. xxv. He adds that Kaou, while a student under Mencius, gave himself also to the examination of the doctrines of the heresiarch Mih (III. Pt I. v., Pt II. ix. 9); and from a passage in Mih's writings this is not unlikely, but the name of Kaou appears there as Shing.

Kaou appears from this Book to have been much perplexed respecting the real character of human nature in its relations to good and evil, which is the subject mainly discussed throughout it; and it is to the view of human nature as here developed that Mencius is chiefly indebted for his place among the sages of his country. "The Book," says the Relish and Root of the four Books, "treats first of the nature; then of the heart; and then of instruction: the whole being analogous to the lessons in the doctrine of the Mean. The second Part continues to treat of the same subject, and a resemblance will generally be found between the views of the parties there combated and those of the scholar Kaou."

CH. I. THAT BENEVOLENCE AND RIGHTEOUSNESS ARE NO UNNATURAL AND FORCED PRODUCTS OF HUMAN NATURE. Choo He says that there underlies the words of Kaou here the view of human nature afterwards insisted on by the philosopher Seun (see the prolegomena), that,human nature is evil. But Kaou might have disallowed such an induction from his words. Seun maintained that human nature was positively evil, and that any good in it was an artificial product. Kaou perhaps would have contended that it was like a tabula rasa, on which either good or evil might be made to appear.

Par. 2. "In accordance with the nature of the willow tree; " i. e., leaving

injury to the willow tree in order to make cups and bowls, will you also do violence and injury to a man, to fashion benevolence and righteousness [from him]? Your words, alas! would certainly with all men occasion calamity to benevolence and righteousness."

II. 1. Kaou-tsze said, "[Man's] nature is like water whirling round [in a corner]. Open a passage for it on the east, and it will flow to the east; open a passage for it on the west, and it will flow to the west. Man's nature is indifferent to good and evil, just as water is indifferent to the east and west."

2. Mencius replied, "Water indeed will flow indifferently to the east or west, but will it flow indifferently up or down? The [tendency of] man's nature to goodness is like the [tendency of] water to flow downwards. There are none but have [this tendency to] goodness, [just as] water flows downwards.

3. "Now by striking water, and causing it to leap up, you may make it go over your forehead; and by damming and leading it, you may make it go up a hill; but are [such movements according to] the nature of water. It is the force applied which causes them. In the case of a man's

its nature untouched, doing no violence to it. "Will you also do violence and injury to a man?"-i. e. to a man's nature, to humanity.

CH. II. THAT MAN'S NATURE IS NOT INDIFFERENT TO GOOD AND EVIL. ITS PROPER TENDENCY IS TO GOOD. Here, it seems to me, Kaou more clearly explains what he meant in the last chapter. Choo He says, however, that his idea here was akin to that of Yang Heung, a writer about the beginning of our era. Yang held that good and evil were mixed in the nature of man, and that the passion-nature was like a horse drawing the man, according as it moved, either to good or to evil. Kaou, however, appears to have differed from him in thinking that there was neither good nor evil in the nature itself.

Par. 1. The phrase which I have translated-" water whirling round" is explained in the dictionaries as "water flowing rapidly," "water flowing quickly over sand;" and hence Julien renders it by "rapide fluens aqua." So also Williams. Chaou K'e, followed by Choo He, gives the meaning which I have adopted.

Parr. 2, 3. Choo He says:-"This chapter tells us that the nature is properly good, so that if we accord with it, we shall do nothing but what is good; and that it is properly without evil, so that we must violate it before we do what is evil. It shows that the nature is not properly without a decided character so that it may do good or evil indifferently."

being made to do what is not good, his nature is dealt with in this way."

III. 1. Kaou-tsze said, "[The phænomena of] life is what I call nature."

2. Mencius replied, "Do you say that life is nature just as you say that white is white?" "Yes," was the reply. [Mencius asked again], "Is the whiteness of a white feather like the whiteness of white snow, and the whiteness of white snow like that of white jade ?” returned [the other].

"Yes,"

3. Mencius retorted, "Very well. Is the nature of a dog like the nature of an ox, and the nature of an ox like the nature of a man?"

IV. 1. Kaou-tsze said, "[To delight in] food and in sexual pleasure is nature. Benevolence is from within, and not from without; righteousness is from without and not from within."

2. Mencius said, "What is the ground of your saying that benevolence is from within, and righteousness from

CH. III. THE NATURE IS NOT TO BE CONFOUNDED WITH THE PHÆNOMENA OF LIFE. Choo He says that "by life is intended that whereby men and animals perceive and move," and he adds that Kaou's sentiment was analogous to that of the Buddhists, who made " doing and moving" to be the nature. We must understand, I think, by life here the phænomena of the life of sensation, and Kaou's idea led to the ridiculous conclusion that wherever there were those phænomena the nature of the subjects is the same. We find it difficult to place ourselves in sympathy with him in this conversation, and also to follow Mencius in passing from the second paragraph to the third. His questions in the former refer to the qualities of inanimate things, and then he jumps to others about the nature of animals and of man.

CH. IV. THAT THE DISCRIMINATION OF WHAT IS RIGHT, AS WELL AS THE FEELING OF LOVE OR BENEVOLENCE, IS INTERNAL, AND NOT MERELY DETERMINED BY WHAT IS EXTERNAL TO US.

Par. 1. The first remark of Kaou here would seem to be intended to explain his statement in the preceding chapter that "life was nature." Then he seems to give in to the view of Mencius that benevolence proceeds from a principle within us, just as we are moved by an internal feeling to food and sexual pleasure, but he still contends that it is not so in the exercise of righteousness;-by which term Chinese writers mean, "the conduct proper in reference to men and things without us, and the showing it to them." This meaning of " righteousness" is put out by Mencius at the close of the third paragraph.