has made some Chinese critics attribute the compilation to their followers. But this conclusion does not stand investigation. Others have assigned different portions to different schools. Thus, Book V is given to the disciples of Tsze-kung; Book XI, to those of Min Tsze-ch'ien; Book XIV, to Yüan Hsien; and Book XVI has been supposed to be interpolated from the Analects of Ch'i. Even if we were to acquiesce in these decisions, we should have accounted only for a small part of the Work. It is best to rest in the general conclusion, that it was compiled by the disciples of the disciples of the sage, making free use of the written memorials concerning him which they had received, and the oral statements which they had heard, from their several masters. And we shall not be far wrong, if we determine its date as about the end of the fourth, or the beginning of the fifth century before Christ.

3. In the critical work on the Four Books, called 'Record of Remarks in the village of Yung',' it is observed, 'The Analects, in my opinion, were made by the disciples, just like this record of remarks. There they were recorded, and afterwards came a firstrate hand, who gave them the beautiful literary finish which we now witness, so that there is not a character which does not have its own indispensable place.' We have seen that the first of these statements contains only a small amount of truth with regard to the materials of the Analects, nor can we receive the second. If one hand or one mind had digested the materials provided by many, the arrangement and style of the work would have been different. We should not have had the same remark appearing in several Books, with little variation, and sometimes with none at all. Nor can we account on this supposition for such fragments as the last chapters of the ninth, tenth, and sixteenth Books, and many others. No definite plan has been kept in view throughout. A degree of unity appears to belong to some Books more than others, and in general to the first ten more than to those which follow, but there is no progress of thought or illustration of subject from Book to Book. And even in those where the chapters have

1

##-#, the village of Yung,' is, I conceive, the writer's nom

de plume.

*論語想是門弟子,如語錄一般,記在那 裏, 後來有一高手,鍊成文理這樣少,下字無一

不渾.

a common subject, they are thrown together at random more than on any plan.

4. We cannot tell when the Work was first called the Lun Yü1. The evidence in the preceding section is sufficient to prove that when the Han scholars were engaged in collecting the ancient Books, it came before them, not in broken tablets, but complete, and arranged in Books or Sections, as we now have it. The Old copy was found deposited in the wall of the house which Confucius had occupied, and must have been placed there not later than B.C. 211, distant from the date which I have assigned to the compilation, not much more than a century and a half. That copy, written in the most ancient characters, was, possibly, the autograph of the compilers.

We have the Writings, or portions of the Writings, of several authors of the third and fourth centuries before Christ. Of these, in addition to 'The Great Learning,' 'The Doctrine of the Mean,' and The Works of Mencius,' I have looked over the Works of Hsün Ch'ing of the orthodox school, of the philosophers Chwang and Lieh of the Tâoist school3, and of the heresiarch Mo1.

2

In the Great Learning, Commentary, chapter iv, we have the words of Ana. XII. xiii. In the Doctrine of the Mean, ch. iii, we have Ana. VI. xxvii; and in ch. xxviii. 5, we have substantially Ana. III. ix. In Mencius, II. Pt. I. ii. 19, we have Ana. VII. xxxiii, and in vii. 2, Ana. IV. i; in III. Pt. I. iv. 11, Ana. VIII. xviii, xix; in IV. Pt. I. xiv. 1, Ana. XI. xvi. 2; in V. Pt. II. vii. 9, Ana. X. xiii. 4; and in VII. Pt. II. xxxvii. 1, 2, 8, Ana. V. xxi, XIII. xxi, and XVII. xiii. These quotations, however, are introduced by 'The Master said,' or 'Confucius said,' no mention being made of any book called 'The Lun Yü,' or Analects. In the Great Learning, Commentary, x. 15, we have the words of Ana. IV. iii, and in

1 In the continuation of the 'General Examination of Records and Scholars

#), Bk. excviii. p. 17, it is said, indeed, on the authority of Wang Ch'ung (E), a scholar of our first century, that when the Work came out of the wall it was named a Chwan or Record (), and that it was when K'ung Ân-kwo instructed a native of Tsin, named Fû-ch'ing, in it, that it first got the name of Lun Yü:- ## 于孔壁中皆名曰傳,孔安國以古論教晉人枎卿,

Yen's preface.

VOL. I.

. If it were so, it is strange the circumstance is not mentioned in Ho

Mencius, III. Pt. II. vii. 3, those of Ana. XVII. i, but without any notice of quotation.

In the Writings of Hsün Ch'ing, Book I. page 2, we find something like the words of Ana. XV. xxx; and on p. 6, part of XIV. XXV. But in these instances there is no mark of quotation.

In the Writings of Chwang, I have noted only one passage where the words of the Analects are reproduced. Ana. XVIII. v is found, but with large additions, and no reference of quotation, in his treatise on 'Man in the World, associated with other Men 1.' In all those Works, as well as in those of Lieh and Mo, the references to Confucius and his disciples, and to many circumstances of his life, are numerous 2. The quotations of sayings of his not found in the Analects are likewise many, especially in the Doctrine of the Mean, in Mencius, and in the Works of Chwang. Those in the latter are mostly burlesques, but those by the orthodox writers have more or less of classical authority. Some of them may be found in the Chiâ Yü3, or Narratives of the School,' and in parts of the Lî Chî, while others are only known to us by their occurrence in these Writings. Altogether, they do not supply the evidence, for which I am in quest, of the existence of the Analects as a distinct Work, bearing the name of the Lun Yü, prior to the Ch'in dynasty. They leave the presumption, however, in favour of those conclusions, which arises from the facts stated in the first section, undisturbed. They confirm it rather. They show that there was abundance of materials at hand to the scholars of Han, to compile a much larger Work with the same title, if they had felt it their duty to do the business of compilation, and not that of editing.

SECTION III.

OF COMMENTARIES UPON THE ANALECTS.

1. It would be a vast and unprofitable labour to attempt to

give a list of the Commentaries which have been published on this

Work. My object is merely to point out how zealously the business

of interpretation was undertaken, as soon as the text had been

一人間世.

* 家語.

2 In Mo's chapter against the Literati, he mentions some of

the characteristics of Confucius in the very words of the Tenth Book of the Analects.

3

recovered by the scholars of the Han dynasty, and with what industry it has been persevered in down to the present time.

2. Mention has been made, in Section I. 6, of the Lun of prince Chang, published in the half century before our era. Pâo Hsien 1, a distinguished scholar and officer, of the reign of Kwang-wû 2, the first emperor of the Eastern Han dynasty, A.D. 25-57, and another scholar of the surname Châu3, less known but of the same time, published Works, containing arrangements of this in chapters and sentences, with explanatory notes. The critical work of K'ung Ân-kwo on the old Lun Yü has been referred to. That was lost in consequence of suspicions under which Ân-kwo fell towards the close of the reign of the emperor Wû, but in the time of the emperor Shun, A.D. 126-144, another scholar, Mâ Yung*, undertook the exposition of the characters in the old Lun, giving at the same time his views of the general meaning. The labours of Chang Hsüan in the second century have been mentioned. Not long after his death, there ensued a period of anarchy, when the empire was divided into three governments, well known from the celebrated historical romance, called 'The Three Kingdoms.' The strongest of them, the House of Wei, patronized literature, and three of its high officers and scholars, Chăn Chün, Wang Su, and Châu Shăng-linh, in the first half, and probably the second quarter, of the third century, all gave to the world their notes on the Analects.

Very shortly after, five of the great ministers of the Government of Wei, Sun Yung, Chăng Ch'ung, Tsâo Hsî, Hsün K'aî, and Ho Yen, united in the production of one great Work, entitled, 'A Collection of Explanations of the Lun Yü. It embodied the labours of all the writers which have been mentioned, and, having been frequently reprinted by succeeding dynasties, it still remains. The preface of the five compilers, in the form of a memorial to the emperor, so called, of the House of Wei, is published with it, and has been of much assistance to me in writing these sections. Ho

6

'包咸‘光武.‘周氏.‘至順帝時, 南郡太 守,馬融,亦為之訓說。司農,陳羣;太常,王肅; 博士, 周生列 光祿大夫,關內侯,孫邕;光祿 大夫. 鄭 沖; 散騎常侍中領軍, 安鄉亭侯, 曹羲 侍中,荀顗;尙書,駙馬都尉,關內侯,何晏'論語 . I possess a copy of this work, printed about the middle of our fourteenth century.

Yen was the leader among them, and the work is commonly quoted as if it were the production of him alone.

3. From Ho Yen downwards, there has hardly been a dynasty which has not contributed its labourers to the illustration of the Analects. In the Liang, which occupied the throne a good part of the sixth century, there appeared the Comments of Hwang K'an1,' who to the seven authorities cited by Ho Yen added other thirteen, being scholars who had deserved well of the Classic during the intermediate time. Passing over other dynasties, we come to the Sung, A. D. 960-1279. An edition of the Classics was published by imperial authority, about the beginning of the eleventh century, with the title of The Correct Meaning.' The principal scholar engaged in the undertaking was Hsing P'ing 2. The portion of it on the Analects 3 is commonly reprinted in 'The Thirteen Classics,' after Ho Yen's explanations. But the names of the Sung dynasty are all thrown into the shade by that of Chû Hsî, than whom China has not produced a greater scholar. He composed, or his disciples compiled, in the twelfth century, three Works on the Analects: the first called Collected Meanings;' the second, 'Collected Comments 5;' and the third, 'Queries". Nothing could exceed the grace and clearness of his style, and the influence which he has exerted on the literature of China has been almost despotic.

The scholars of the present dynasty, however, seem inclined to question the correctness of his views and interpretations of the Classics, and the chief place among them is due to Mâo Ch'î-ling", known by the local name of Hsî-ho. His writings, under the name of 'The collected Works of Hsî-ho ',' have been published in eighty volumes, containing between three and four hundred books or sections. He has nine treatises on the Four Books, or parts of them, and deserves to take rank with Chăng Hsüan and Chû Hsî at the head of Chinese scholars, though he is a vehement opponent of the latter. Most of his writings are to be found also in the great Work called 'A Collection of Works on the Classics, under the Imperial dynasty of Ch'ing 10,' which contains 1400 sections, and is a noble contribution by the scholars of the present dynasty to the illustration of its ancient literature.

3

'皇侃論語蔬 ·邢昺 *邢昺. 論語正義.‘論語 集義 論語集註. 論語或問

5

9

6

*西河. ·西河全集 "皇清經解.

7

毛奇鹷.