- ples any very intelligible principles concerning spiritual matters,
it is simply because he is honestly conscious of having none to teach.
There are, indeed, indications which might be taken to imply the existence of an esoteric doctrine. "To those," he says, "whose talents are above mediocrity, the highest subjects may be announced. To those who are below mediocrity, the highest subjects may not be announced" (Lun Yu., vi. 19). We are further told that Tsze-kung said, "the Master's personal displays of his principles, and ordinary descriptions of them may be heard. His discourses about man's nature, and the way of Heaven, cannot be heard" (Ibid., v. 12). This last passage appears to mean that they were not open to the indiscriminate multitude, nor perhaps to all of the disciples. But we may reasonably suppose that the intimate friends who recorded his sayings were considered by him to be above mediocrity, and were the depositaries of all he had to tell them on religious matters.
Yet this, little as it was, may not always have been rightly understood. Once, for example, he says to a disciple, "Sin, my doctrine is that of an all-pervading unity." This is interpreted by the disciple (in the Master's absence) to mean only that his doctrine is "to be true to the principles of our nature, and the benevolent exercise of them to others" (Ibid., iv. 15). I can hardly believe that Confucius would have taught so simple a lesson under so obscure a figure; and it is possible that the reserve that he habitually practiced with regard to his religious faith may have prevented a fuller explanation. "The subjects on which the Master did not talk were—extraordinary things, feats of strength, disorder, and spiritual beings" (Lun Yu, vii. 20). And although, in the Doctrine of the Mean (a work which is perhaps less authentic than the Analects) we find him discoursing freely on spiritual beings, which, he says, "abundantly display the powers that belong to them" (Chung Yung, 16). There are portions of the Analects which confirm the impression that he did not readily venture into these extra-mundane regions. Heaven itself, he once pointed out to an over-curious disciple, preserves an unbroken silence (Lun Yu, xvii. 19). Interrogated "about serving the spirits of the dead," he gave this striking answer: "While you are not able to serve men, how can you
