And as there is a total absence of that fondness for the marvelous and that tendency to exaggerate the Master's powers which so generally characterize traditional accounts of religious teachers, we may fairly infer that we have here a trustworthy, and in the main, accurate representation of Confucius' personality and of his teaching. As I have largely drawn upon this work in writing the Life of that prophet, I need not now detain the reader with any further quotations.
Subdivision 2.—The Ta Heo.
Passing to the Ta Hëo, or Great Learning, we find ourselves occupied with a book which bears the same kind of relationship to the Lun Yu as the Epistle to the Hebrews does to the Gospels. This work is altogether of a doctrinal character; and as in the Epistle, the exposition of the doctrines is by no means so clear and simple as in the oral instructions of the founder of the school. The Ta Hëo is attributed by Chinese tradition to K'ung Keih, the grandson of Confucius; but its authorship is in fact, like that of the Epistle, unknown. It was added to the Le Ke, or Record of Rites, in the second century A.D.
It begins with certain paragraphs which are attributed, apparently without authority, to Confucius; and all that follows is supposed to be a commentary on this original text. The text begins thus:—
1. "What the Great Learning teaches, is—to illustrate illustrious virtue; to renovate the people; and to rest in the highest excellence. . . .
4. "The ancients who wished to illustrate illustrious virtue throughout the Empire, first ordered well their own States. Wishing to order well their States, they first regulated their families. Wishing to regulate their families, they first cultivated their persons. Wishing to cultivate their persons, they first rectified their hearts. Wishing to rectify their hearts, they first sought to be sincere in their thoughts. Wishing to be sincere in their thoughts, they first extended to the utmost their knowledge. Such extension of knowledge lay in the investigation of things."
After a few more verses of text, we come to the "Commen-
