Heen told me that you do good without wishing for any praise from men;-is it so?' Tsze-sze replied, 'No, that is not my feeling. When I cultivate what is good, I wish men to know it, for when they know it and praise me, I feel encouraged to be more zealous in the cultivation. This is what I desire, and am not able to obtain. If I cultivate what is good, and men do not know it, it is likely that in their ignorance they will speak evil of me. So by my good-doing I only come to be evil spoken of. This is what I do not desire, but am not able to avoid. In the case of a man, who gets up at cockcrowing to practise what is good, and continues sedulous in the endeavour till midnight, and says at the same time that he does not wish men to know it, lest they should praise him, I must say such a man, that if he be not deceitful he is stupid.' of Another day, the duke asked Tsze-sze saying, "Can my State be made to flourish." "It may," was the reply. "And how?" Tszesze said, "O prince, if you and your ministers will only strive to realize the government of the duke of Chow and of Pih-k'in ; practising their transforming principles, sending forth wide the favours of your ducal house, and not letting advantages flow in private channels;-if you will thus conciliate the affections of the people, and at the same time cultivate friendly relations with neighbouring States, your kingdom will soon begin to flourish." On one occasion, the duke asked whether it had been the custom of old for ministers to go into mourning for a prince whose service and State they had left. Tsze-sze replied to him, "Of old, princes advanced their ministers to office according to propriety, and dismissed them in the same way, and hence there was that rule. But now-a-days, princes bring their ministers forward as if they were going to take them on their knees, and send them away as if they would cast them into an abyss. If they do not treat them as their greatest enemies, it is well.-How can you expect the ancient practice to be observed in such circumstances? "21 These instances may suffice to illustrate the character of Tsze-sze, as it was displayed in his intercourse with the princes of his time. We see the same independence which he affected in private life, and a dignity not unbecoming the grandson of Confucius. But we miss the reach of thought and capacity for administration which belonged 21 This conversation is given in the Le Ke, II. Pt. II. ii. 1. to the Sage. It is with him, however, as a thinker and writer that we have to do, and his rank in that capacity will appear from the examination of the Chung Yung in the section that follows. His place in the temples of the Sage has been that of one of his four assessors, since the year 1267. He ranks with Yen Hwuy, Tsăng Sin, and Mencius, and bears the title of "The Philosopher Tsze-sze, Transmitter of the Sage."22 22 述聖子思子 SECTION III. ITS INTEGRITY. 1. In the testimony of K'ung Foo, which has been adduced to prove the authorship of the Chung Yung, it is said that the Work consisted originally of 49 pën. From this statement it is argued by some, that the arrangement of it in 33 chapters, which originated with Choo He, is wrong; but this does not affect the question of integrity, and the character pen is so vague and indefinite, that we cannot affirm that Kung Foo meant to tell us by it that Tsze-sze himself divided his Treatise into so many paragraphs or chapters. It is on the entry in Lew Hin's catalogue, quoted Section 1,"Two peen of observations on the Chung Yung," that the integrity of the present Work is called in question. Yen Sze-koo, of the Tang dynasty, has a note on that entry to the effect:-"There is now the Chung Yung in the Le Ke in one pen. But that is not the original Treatise here mentioned, but only a branch from it."2 Wang Wei, a writer of the Ming dynasty, says :-"Anciently, the Chung Yung consisted of two peen, as appears from the History of Literature of the Han dynasty, but in the Le Ke we have only one peen, which Choo He, when he made his 'Chapters and Sentences,' divided into 33 chapters. The old Work in two pen is not to be met with now." 113 1 See the 四書摭餘說art.中庸 2顏師古日今禮記有中 庸 ·篇亦非本禮經蓋此之流 有篇者 籍見漢藝文志而在禮記中者一篇而已,朱 為章句因其 FJD 1 者不可見矣 中古子篇 扁者分為三十三章而古所謂二篇 These views are based on a misinterpretation of the entry in the Catalogue. It does not speak of two p'een of the Chung Yung, but of two p'ëen of Observations thereon. The Great Learning carries on its front the evidence of being incomplete, but the student will not easily believe that the Doctrine of the Mean is so. I see no reason for calling its integrity in question, and no necessity therefore to recur to the ingenious device employed in the edition of the five king published by the imperial authority of K'ang He, to get over the difficulty which Wang Wei supposes. It there appears in two p'een, of which we have the following account from the author of "Supplemental Remarks upon the Four Books: ""The proper course now is to consider the first 20 chapters in Choo He's arrangement as making up the first p'ëen, and the remaining 13 as forming the second. In this way we retain the old form of the Treatise, and do not come into collision with the views of Choo. For this suggestion we are indebted to Loo Wang-chae" (an author of the Sung dynasty). 4 See the 四書摭餘說 art.中庸 SECTION IV. ITS SCOPE AND VALUE. 1. The Doctrine of the Mean is a work not easy to understand. "It first," says the philosopher Ch'ing, "speaks of one principle; it next spreads this out and embraces all things; finally, it returns and gathers them up under the one principle. Unroll it, and it fills the universe; roll it up, and it retires and lies hid in secrecy." There is this advantage, however, to the student of it, that, more than most other Chinese Treatises, it has a beginning, a middle, and an end. The first chapter stands to all that follows in the character of a text, containing several propositions of which we have the expansion or development. If that development were satisfactory, we should be able to bring our own minds en rapport with that of the author. Unfortunately it is not so. As a writer he belongs to the intuitional school more than to the logical. This is well put in the "Continuation of the General Examination of Literary Monuments and Learned Men," "The philosopher Tsăng reached his conclusions by following in the train of things, watching and examining; 1 See the Introductory note, pp. 246, 247. whereas Tsze-sze proceeds directly and reaches to Heavenly virtue. His was a mysterious power of discernment, approaching to that of Yen Hwuy." We must take the Book and the author, however, as we have them, and get to their meaning, if we can, by assiduous examination and reflection. 2. "Man has received his nature from Heaven. Conduct in accordance with that nature constitutes what is right and true,—is a pursuing of the proper path. The cultivation or regulation of that path is what is called instruction.' It is with these axioms that the Treatise commences, and from such an introduction we might expect that the writer would go on to unfold the various principles of duty, derived from an analysis of man's moral constitution. Confining himself, however, to the second axiom, he proceeds to say that "the path may not for an instant be left, and that the supe-. rior man is cautious and careful in reference to what he does not see, and fearful and apprehensive in reference to what he does not hear. There is nothing more visible than what is secret, and nothing more manifest than what is minute, and therefore the superior man is watchful over his aloneness." This is not all very plain. Comparing it with the 6th chapter of Commentary in the Great Learning, it seems to inculcate what is there called "making the thoughts sincere." The passage contains an admonition about equivalent to that of Solomon,-" Keep thy heart with all diligence, for out of it are the issues of life." The next paragraph seems to speak of the nature and the path under other names. "While there are no movements of pleasure, anger, sorrow, or joy, we have what may be called the state of equilibrium. When those feelings have been moved, and they all act in the due degree, we have what may be called the state of harmony. This equilibrium is the great root of the world and this harmony is its universal path." What is here called "the state of equilibrium," is the same as the nature given by Heaven, considered absolutely in itself, without deflection or inclination. This nature acted on from without, and responding with the various emotions, so as always "to hit"s the mark with entire correctness, produces the state of harmony, 2 Sce the續文獻通考,Bk.exeix, art. 子思一會子得之于隨 事省察而子思之學則直達天德庶幾顏氏之妙悟 3中節 and such harmonious response is the path along which all human activities should proceed. Finally, "Let the states of equilibrium and harmony exist in perfection, and a happy order will prevail throughout heaven and earth, and all things will be nourished and flourish." Here we pass into the sphere of mystery and mysticism. The language, according to Choo He, "describes the meritorious achievements and transforming influence of sage and spiritual men in their highest extent." From the path of duty, where we tread on solid ground, the writer suddenly raises us aloft on wings of air, and will carry us we know not where, and to we know not what. 3. The paragraphs thus presented, and which constitute Choo He's first chapter, contain the sum of the whole Work. This is acknowledged by all;-by the critics who disown Choo He's interpretations of it, as freely as by him. Revolving them in my own mind often and long, I collect from them the following as the ideas of the author:-1st, Man has received from Heaven a moral nature by which he is constituted a law to himself; 2d, Over this nature man requires to exercise a jealous watchfulness; and 3d, As he possesses it, absolutely and relatively, in perfection, or attains to such possession of it, he becomes invested with the highest dignity and power, and may say to himself—"I am a god; yea, I sit in the seat of God." I will not say here that there is blasphemy in the last of these ideas; but do we not have in them the same combination which we found in The Great Learning,-a combination of the ordinary and the extraordinary, the plain and the vague, which is very perplexing to the mind, and renders the Book unfit for the purposes of mental and moral discipline? And here I may inquire whether we do right in calling the Treatise by any of the names which foreigners have hitherto used for it? In the note on the title, pp. 246, 247, I have entered a little into this question. The Work is not at all what a reader must expect to find in what he supposes to be a treatise on "The Golden Medium," "The Invariable Mean," or "The Doctrine of the Mean." Those names are descriptive only of a portion of it. Where the phrase Chung Yung 4 Compare Choo He's language in his concluding note to the 1st chapter: 11 篇之體要, and Maou Se-ho's, in his 中庸說卷一,p.1:此中庸 書之領要也 |