The sage, probably, did not think it necessary to put down many of his own thoughts in writing, for he said of himself that he was “a transmitter, and not a maker.” Nor did he lay claim to have any divine revelations. He was not born, he declared, with knowledge, but was fond of antiquity, and earnest in seeking knowledge there. The rule of life for men in all their relations, he held, was to be found within themselves. The right development of that rule, in the ordering not of the individual only, but of society, was to be found in the words and institutions of the ancient sages.
China, it has already been observed, had a literature before Confucius. All the monuments of it, however, were in danger of perishing through the disorder into which the kingdom had fallen. The feudal system that had subsisted for more than 1500 years had become old. Confucius did not see this—did not see how
| “ | The old order changeth, giving place to new, |
| And God fulfils himself in many ways, | |
| Lest one good custom should corrupt the world.“[1] |
It was impossible that in his circumstances he should see it. China was in his eyes drifting from its ancient moorings, drifting on a sea of storms “to hideous ruin and combustion;” and the expedient that occurred to him to arrest the evil was to gather up and preserve the records of antiquity, illustrating and commending them by his own teachings. For this purpose he lectured to his disciples on the histories, poems, and constitutional works of the nation. What he thus did was of inestimable value to his own countrymen, and all other men are indebted to him for what they know of China before his time, though all the contents of the ancient works have not come down to us.
He wrote, we are told, a preface to the Shu King, or Book of Historical Documents. The preface is, in fact, only a schedule, without any remark by Confucius himself, giving the names of 100 books, of which it consisted. Of these we now possess 59, the oldest going back to the 23d century, and the latest dating in the 8th century B.C. The credibility of the earlier portions, and the genuineness of several of the documents have been questioned, but the collection as a whole is exceedingly valuable.
The Shi King, or Ancient Poems, as existing in his time, or compiled by him (as generally stated, contrary to the evidence in the case), consisted of 311 pieces, of which we possess 305. The latest of them dates 585 years B.C., and the oldest of them ascends perhaps twelve centuries higher. It is the most interesting book of ancient poetry in the world, and many of the pieces are really fine ballads. Confucius was wont to say that he who was not acquainted with the Shi was not fit to be conversed with, and that the study of it would produce a mind without a single depraved thought. This is nearly all we have from him about the poems.
The Li, or Books of Rites and Ancient Ceremonies and of Institutions, chiefly of the Chow dynasty, have come down to us in a sadly mutilated condition. They are still more than sufficiently voluminous, but they were edited, when recovered under the Han dynasty, with so many additions, that it is hardly worth while to speak of them in connection with Confucius, though much of what was added to them is occupied with his history and sayings.
Of all the ancient books not one was more prized by him than the Yih King, or “The Book of Changes,“ the rudiments of which are assigned to Fuh-hsi in the 30th century B.C. Those rudiments, however, are merely the 8 trigrams and 64 diagrams, composed of a whole and a broken line (—, – –), without any text or explanation of them earlier than the rise of the Chow dynasty. The leather thongs, by which the tablets of Confucius's copy were tied together, were thrice worn out by his constant handling. He said that if his life were lengthened he would give fifty years to the study of the Yih, and might then be without great faults. This has come down to us entire. If not intended from the first for purposes of divination, it was so used both before and after Confucius, and on that account it was exempted, through the superstition of the emperor of the Ts‘in dynasty, from the flames. It is supposed to give a theory of the phenomena of the physical universe, and of moral and political principles by the trigrams and the different lines and numbers of the diagrams of Fuh-hi. Almost every sentence in it is enigmatic. As now published, there are always subjoined to it certain appendixes, which are ascribed to Confucius himself. Pythagoras and he were contemporaries, and in the fragments of the Samian philosopher about the “elements of numbers as the elements of realities” there is a remarkable analogy with much of the Yih. No Chinese critic or foreign student of Chinese literature has yet been able to give a satisfactory account of the book.
- ↑ Spoken by King Arthur at his death in Alfred Tennyson's Idylls of the King.—ed.
