serve their spirits?" And when "Ke Loo added, 'I venture to ask about death?' he was answered, 'While you do not know life, how can you know about death?'" (Ibid., xi. 11). Another instance of a similar reticence is presented by his conduct during an illness. "The Master being very sick, Tsze-Loo asked leave to pray for him. "He said, 'May such a thing be done?' Tsze-Loo replied, 'It may. In the prayers it is said, Prayer has been made to the spirits of the upper and lower worlds.' The Master said, 'My praying has been for a long time'" (Ibid., vii. 34). I am unable to see "the satisfaction of Confucius with himself," which Dr. Legge discovers in this reply. To me it appears simply to indicate the devout attitude of his mind, which is evinced by many other passages in his conversation. In short, though we may complain of the indefinite character of the faith he taught, and wish that he had expressed himself more fully, there can scarcely be a doubt that Confucius had a deeply religious mind; and that he looked with awe and reverence upon that power which he called by the name of "Heaven," which controlled the progress of events, and would not suffer the cause of truth to perish altogether.
It is true, however, that he confined himself chiefly, and indeed almost entirely, to moral teaching. His main object undoubtedly was to inculcate upon his friends, and if possible to introduce among the people at large, those great principles of ethics which he thought would restore the virtue and well-being of ancient times. Those principles are aptly summarized in the following verse: "The duties of universal obligation are five, and the virtues wherewith they are practiced are three. The duties are those between sovereign and minister, between father and son, between husband and wife, between elder brother and younger, and those belonging to the intercourse of friends. Those five are the duties of universal obligation. Knowledge, magnanimity, and energy, these three are the virtues universally binding; and the means by which they carry the duties into practice is singleness" (Chung Yung, xx. 7). In the Analects, "Gravity, generosity of soul, sincerity, earnestness, and kindness," are said to constitute perfect virtue (Lun Yu, xvii. 6).
It is as an earnest and devoted teacher, both by example and by precept, of these and other virtues, that Confucius must be
