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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-sǎng 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 Mihr'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.

Pur. 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 bave 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."

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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?" "Yes," returned [the other].

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.

without?" [The other] replied, "There is a man older than I, and I give honour to his age;-it is not that there is in me a principle of reverence for age. It is just as when there is a white man, and I consider him white; -according as he is so externally to me. It is on this account that I say [of righteousness] that it is from without."

3. [Mencius] said, "There is no difference to us between the whiteness of a white horse, and the whiteness of a white man, but I do not know that there is no difference between the regard with which we acknowledge the age of an old horse, and that with which we acknowledge the age of a man older [than ourselves]? And what is it which we call righteousness? The fact of a man's being older [than we] ? or the fact of our giving honour to his age?"

4. [Kaou] said, "There is my younger brother; I love him. But the younger brother of a man of Ts'in I do not love; that is, it is [the relationship to] myself which occasions my complacency, and therefore I say that benevolence is from within. I give the honour due to age to an old man of Ts'oo, and to an old man of my own [kindred]; that is, it is the age which occasions the complacency, and therefore I say that righteousness is from without."

5. [Mencius] answered him, "Our enjoyment of meat broiled by a man of Ts'in does not differ from our enjoyment of meat broiled by [one of] our [own kindred]. Thus [what you insist on] takes place also in the case of [such] things; but is our enjoyment of broiled meat also from without?"

V. 1. Mr Măng Ke asked the disciple Kung-too, say

Par. 4. "A man of Ts'in," "a man of Ts'oo; "—i. e., people indifferent to me, strangers to me.

Par. 5. Mencius silences his opponent by showing that the difficulty which he alleged in regard to righteousness would attach also to the enjoyment of food, which he had himself allowed, at the outset of the conversation, to be internal, from the inward constitution of our nature.

CH. V. THE SAME SUBJECT:-A DIFFICULTY OBVIATED IN THE WAY OF

ing, "On what ground is it said that righteousness is from within ?"

2. [Kung-too] replied, "It is the acting out of our feeling of respect, and therefore it is said to be from within." 3. [The other] said, "[In the case of] a villager one year older than your elder brother, to which of them will you show the [greater] respect?" "To my brother," was the reply. "But for which would you pour out spirits first?" [Kung-too] said, "For the villager." [Măng Ke then argued], "Your feeling of respect rests on the one, but your reverence for age is rendered to the other; [righteousness] is certainly determined by what is without, and not by internal feeling."

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4. The disciple Kung-too was unable to reply, and reported [the conversation] to Mencius, who said, [You should ask him], 'Which do you respect more, your uncle, or your younger brother?' He will reply, 'My uncle.'. [Ask him again], 'If your younger brother be personating a deceased ancestor, to whom will you show respect more,-[to him or to your uncle]?' He will say, 'To my younger brother.' [You can go on], 'But where is the [greater] respect due, as you said, to your uncle?' He will say, '[I show it to my younger brother,] because he is in the position [of the deceased ancestor].' And then you must say, 'Because he is in that position;-and so ordinarily my respect is given to my elder brother, but a momentary respect is given to the villager.''

5. When Ke-tsze heard this, he observed, "When

THE CONCLUSION THAT THE DISCRIMINATION OF WHAT IS RIGHT IS FROM WITHIN.

Par. 1. Măng Ke was, probably, a younger brother of Mång Chung, who appears in II. Pt II. ii. 3 in close attendance on Mencius. He had heard the previous conversation with Kaou, or heard of it; and feeling some doubts on the subject, he applied to the disciple Kung-too.

Par. 3. "For whom would you pour out spirits first?"-i. e., at a feast. Courtesy then required that the honour should be given to a stranger; but Măng Ke does not consider this, but maintains that the manifestation of respect varied with the individual, and was therefore not from within.

Par. 4. "Personating a deceased ancestor; "-see the Prolegomena to Vol. IV. of my larger Work, pp. 135, 136, on the strange custom under the Chow dynasty of personating a deceased ancestor at a sacrificial feast by one of the descendants of the family.

Par. 5. Kung-too here beats down the cavilling of Măng Ke as Mencius did that of Kaou in the conclusion of last chapter.

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