4. "Therefore a ruler endowed with talents and virtue will be gravely complaisant and economical, showing a respectful politeness to his ministers, and taking from the people only according to definite regulations.

5. "Yang Hoo said, He who seeks to be rich will not be benevolent; and he who seeks to be benevolent will not be rich.'

6. "[Under] the sovereigns of Hea, [each farmer received] fifty acres, and contributed [a certain tax]. [Under] those of Yin, [each farmer received] seventy acres, and [eight families] helped [to cultivate the public acres]. Under those of Chow, [each farmer received] a hundred acres, and [the produce] was allotted in shares. In reality what was paid in all these was a tithe. The share system means division; the aid system means mutual dependence.

7. "Lung-tsze said, 'For regulating the land there is no better system than that of mutual aid, and none worse than

there should be a sure provision for the support of the people, and that therefore their business should not be remissly attended to.

Par. 4 interjects two attributes of the good ruler, which are necessary to his carrying out the government which Mencius had at heart.

Par. 5. This Yang Hoo is the Yang Ho of the Analects, XVII. i. A worthless man, he made the observation given with a bad object; but there was a truth in it, and Mencius adduces it for a good purpose.

Par. 6. By the Hea statutes, every husbandman-head of a familyreceived 50 acres, and paid the produce of five of them, or one-tenth of the whole, to the government. This was called kung or tribute. Under the Shang dynasty, 630 acres were divided into nine portions of 70 acres each, the central portion belonging to the government, and being cultivated by the united labours of the holders of the other portions. Under the Chow dynasty, in the portions of the State distant from the capital eight husbandmen received each a hundred acres, and the same space in the centre was cultivated by them all together for the government. Yet they all united also in the cultivation of the other portions, and each one family received an equal share of the produce, the whole being divided into eight portions. Deducting twenty acres from the government portion which was given to the farmers for building huts on, &c., there remained eighty acres, or ten acres for the cultivation of each of the eight families; that is, in the country parts of the States of Chow the amount of the produce paid to the government was one-tenth. In the more central parts, however, the system of the Hea dynasty was in force. According to the above accounts, the contribution under the Shang dynasty amounted to one-ninth, but there was, no doubt, some assignment of a portion of the public fields to the cultivators, which reduced it to one-tenth.

Par. 7. Nothing certain is known of the Lung who is here introduced, but he was an ancient worthy." He gives us an important point of in

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that of contributing a certain tax. According to the tax system it was fixed by taking the average of several years. In good years, when the grain lies about in abundance, much might be taken without its being felt to be oppressive, and the actual exaction is small. In bad years, when [the produce] is not sufficient to [repay] the manuring of the fields, this system still requires the taking of the full amount. When he who should be the parent of the people causes the people to wear looks of distress, and, after the whole year's toil, yet not to be able to nourish their parents, and moreover to set about borrowing to increase [their means of paying the tax], till their old people and children are found lying in the ditches and water-channels :—where [in such a case] is his parental relation to the people?'

8. "As to the system of hereditary salaries, that is already observed in Tăng.

9. "It is said in the Book of Poetry,

'May it rain first on our public fields,

And then come to our private !'

It is only in the system of mutual aid, that there are the public fields, and from this passage we perceive that even in the Chow dynasty this system has been recognized.

10. "Establish ts'eang, seu, heoh, and heaou,- [all these educational institutions]-for the instruction [of the people]. The name ts'ëang indicates nourishing; heaou indicates teaching; and seu indicates archery. By the Hea dynasty the name hëaou was used; by the Yin dynasty that of seu; and by the Chow dynasty that of tseang. As to the hëoh,

formation about the way in which the amount of contribution according to the Hea system was determined, and shows how objectionable the whole system was.

Par. 8. See on I. Pt II. v. 3.

Par. 9. See the She, II. vi. VIII. 3. The quotation is intended to show that the system of cultivation according to the system of mutual aid, which Mencius recommended, though it was fallen in his time into disuse, had at one time obtained under the Chow dynasty.

Par. 10. The pith of Mencius' advice here is that education should be provided for all, and that it might be provided with advantage, when measures had been taken for the support of all by husbandry. As to the names and characters of the different institutions which he mentions, the discussions are endless. When he speaks of the human relations being illustrated by superiors, it is foreign to the object of the paragraph to suppose

they belonged equally to the three dynasties, [and by that name]. The object of them all is to illustrate the [duties of the] human relations. When these are [thus] illustrated by superiors, mutual affection will prevail among the smaller people below.

11. "Should a [true] king arise, he will certainly come and take an example [from you], and thus you will be the teacher of the [true] king.

12. It is said in the Book of Poetry,

'Although Chow was an old State,

The [favouring] appointment lighted on it recently.'

That is said with reference to king Wăn. Do you practise those things with vigour, and you will also give a new history to your State."

13. [The duke afterwards] sent Peih Chen to ask about the nine-squares system of dividing the land. Mencius said. to him, "Since your ruler, wishing to put in practice a benevolent government, has made choice of you, and put you into this employment, you must use all your efforts. Benevolent government must commence with the definition of the boundaries. If the boundaries be not defined correctly, the division of the land into squares will not be equal, and the produce [available for] salaries will not be evenly distributed. On this account, oppressive rulers and impure ministers are sure to

that he means the illustration of them in their personal conduct;-he means, I think, the inculcation of them by the institution of those educational establishments.

Parr. 11, 12 show what duke Wan would be sure to accomplish by following the advice which he had received. See the She, III. i. I. 1.

Par. 13. Peih Chen must have been the minister employed by duke Wan to organize the agricultural system of the State according to the views of Mencius. He is here sent to the philosopher to get more particular instructions for his guidance. On the nine-squares system of dividing the land, see the note on II. i. V. 2. By defining the boundaries must be meant, I think, the boundaries of each space of nine squares, and not, as Chaou K'e supposes, the boundaries of the State. How the unequal division of the fields would affect the salaries of officers we have not sufficient information on the subject to enable us to speak exactly. But it is difficult to conceive of the division of the fields of a State on this plan, especially when it had become pretty thickly peopled. The natural irregularities of the surface would be one great obstacle. And we find, below, "the holy field," and other assignments, which must continually have been requiring new arrangements of the boundaries.

neglect the defining of the boundaries. When the boundaries have been defined correctly, the division of the fields and the regulation of the salaries may be determined [by you] sitting [at your ease].

14. "Although the territory of T'ăng be narrow and small, there must be in it, I apprehend, men of a superior grade, and there must be in it country-men. If there were not men of a superior grade, there would be none to rule the countrymen; if there were not country-men, there would be none to support the men of superior grade."

15. "I would ask you, in the [purely] country districts, to observe the nine-squares division, having one square cultivated on the system of mutual aid; and in the central parts of the State, to levy a tenth, to be paid by the cultivators. themselves.

16. "From the highest officers downwards, each one must have [his] holy field, consisting of fifty acres.

17. "Let the supernumerary males have [their] twentyfive acres.

18. On occasions of death, or of removing from one dwelling to another, there will be no quitting the district. In the fields of a district, those who belong to the same nine-squares render all friendly offices to one another in their going out and coming in, aid one another in keeping watch and ward, and sustain one another in sickness. Thus the people will be led to live in affection and harmony.

Par. 14. "Men of a superior grade" are men in office, who did not have to earn their bread by the sweat of their brow. All other classes may be supposed to be comprehended under the denomination of country-men.

Par. 15. See the note on par. 6.

Par. 16. These 50 acres were in addition to the hereditary salary alluded to in par. 8. I call them "the holy field," because Chaou K'e and Choo He explain the term by which they are called by "pure," and the produce was intended to supply the means of sacrifice. Other explanations of the term have been proposed.

Par. 17. A family was supposed to consist of the grandfather and grandmother, the husband, wife, and children, the husband being the grandparents' eldest son. The extra fields were for other sons of the grandparents, and were given to them when they reached the age of sixteen. When they married and became the heads of families themselves, they received the regular allotment of a family. In the mean time they were called " supernumerary males." Other explanations of this phrase have been proposed.

Par. 18 sets forth various social and moral advantages flowing from the nine-squares division of the land.

And it

19. "A square le covers nine squares of land, which nine squares contain nine hundred acres. The central square contains the public fields; and eight families, each having its own hundred acres, cultivate them together. is not till the public work is finished that they presume to attend to their private fields. [This is] the way by which the country-men are distinguished [from those of a superior grade].

20. "These are the great outlines [of the system]. Happily to modify and adapt them depends on your ruler and you."

IV. 1. There came from Ts'oo to Tăng one Heu Hing, who gave out that he acted according to the words of Shinnung. Coming right to his gate, he addressed duke Wän,

Par. 19. Under the Chow dynasty, 100 poo, or paces, made the length or side of a mow, or acre; but the exact length of the pace is not exactly determined. Some will have it that the 50 acres of Hea, the 70 of Shang, and the 100 of Chow were actually of the same dimensions.

CH. IV. MENCIUS' REFUTATION OF THE DOCTRINE THAT THE RULER OUGHT TO LABOUR AT HUSBANDRY WITH HIS OWN HANDS. HE SHOWS THE NECESSITY OF A DIVISION OF LABOUR, AND OF A LETTERED CLASS CONDUCTING GOVERNMENT. The first three paragraphs, it is said, relate how Heu Hing, the heresiarch, and Ch'in Seang, his follower, sought to undermine the arrangements advised by Mencius for the division of the land. The next eight paragraphs expose the fundamental error of Heu Hing that the ruler must labour at the toils of husbandry equally with the people. From the 12th paragraph to the 16th, Seang is rebuked for forsaking his master, and taking up with the heresy of Heu Hing. In the last two paragraphs Mencius proceeds, from the evasive replies of Seang, to give the coup de grace to the new pernicious teachings.

Par. 1. All that we know of Heu Hing is from this chapter. He was a native of Ts'oo, and had evidently got in his seething brain the idea of a new moral world where there would be no longer the marked distinctions of ranks in which society had arranged itself. Shin-nung, "Wonderful husbandman," is the designation of the second of the five famous emperors of Chinese præ-historic times. He is also called Yen-te, "the Blazing emperor." He is placed between Fuh-he, and Hwang-te, though separated from the latter by the intervention of seven reigns, making with his own over 500 years. If any faith could be placed in this chronology, it would place him B.C. 3272. In the appendix to the Yih King he is celebrated as the Father of husbandry. Other traditions make him the Father of medicine also. Those who, like Heu Hing, in the time of Mencius, gave out that they were his followers, had no record of his words or principles, but merely used his name to recommend their own wild notions. The benevolent government" was the division of the land on the principles described in last chapter.