LIFE AND DOCTRINES OF KHOUNG-FOU-TSZE

(CONFUCIUS).

§ 5.-DAYS OF TEACHER LIFE.

CONFUCIUS had a large house, which he opened as a Lyceum to those who chose, without charge, to come and learn what wisdom he could teach them. The rich and poor were equally welcome, for the only condition was the desire to learn, and the practice of a moral life, and unto all he freely poured forth from the rich store of his varied knowledge. He taught them first to have confidence in themselves; many believed it to be utterly impossible they could attain to the possession of his knowledge, believed that he had some peculiar power, some special faculty with which the kind heavens had dowered him, and through which he was enabled to comprehend what must ever pass their understanding. This is the natural thought of timorous youth, and is one that it requires some skill on the part of the teacher without danger to obviate. Confucius met it boldly, declaring that he was not by nature endowed with any superior powers, that he had not travelled by any royal road to knowledge. "I loved, and," said he, "through that I studied the ancient "writings; hence came all my knowledge." Thus, as the same mines were accessible to his hearers, all could equally enrich themselves.

Through observation he believed himself to have acquired a knowledge of when it would rain, or, at least, that he had discovered one infallible sign. Upon one occasion, when going out on one of their walks, he advised his attendant disciples to take with them their umbrellas. The sky was fair and clear, giving no sign of rain, but they obeyed, and shortly after it rained. very heavily, when all agreed that their master must have supernatural knowledge. Confucius hastened to correct the error and disabuse their minds. "There is nothing supernatural about it," said he, "but simply this, a verse in the Shoo-King says that when the moon rises in the con"stellation pe heavy rain may be looked for. Last night I saw the moon "rise in that constellation, and hence my prediction." On several occasions he was called upon, by his strict love of truth, to correct a similar error, and he never failed in the task. Had he done so, the Chinese would have been stored with a long list of miracles of his working; what in their nature were only ordinary events, would have been wrought up into extraordinary violations of natural law. For this he is much to be honoured, seeing that when men are willing to treat another as a God, it can only be through great truthfulness and self-control that he foregoes the honour.

He had no hidden doctrines. The great schools of Egypt, Greece, and Rome, are known to have had two sets of lessons, two degrees of truth, the highest being only for the rarer few, who, through favour, obtained their initiation. They held themselves to be justified by the fact that some truths can only be fairly appreciated by the highest intellects; but overlooked the fact that the said highest intellects could only be discovered when tested by their reception of the higher and grander truths. Confucius had no hidden truth, but made all he knew known unto all, yet giving himself liberty in one particular. He says "If a man make no efforts to develope his own mind, I "shall not develope it for him. If a man do not choose to make use of his "faculty of speech (so as to convey his ideas in an intelligible manner), I "shall not trouble to penetrate the sense of his expressions. If, after having

"enabled him to know one angle of a square, he do not for himself discover the measure of the remaining three, then I shall not repeat the "demonstration."

Thus his doctrine was to give unto all equal opportunities; and having done this, the teacher was absolved from further trouble, seeing that they who had fitting capacities would not fail in being able to appreciate the true, whereas, with the others, it would be useless to waste farther time, seeing that Nature intended them for other callings and occupations. He laboured to impress all his pupils with a belief in the superiority of study over meditation. The Hindus are ever insisting upon meditation, upon surrendering up their whole minds to thought upon Brahm, and look with supreme contempt upon the study of ancient writing that has any other object. Confucius taught the contrary, and made study to be infinitely superior to abstract meditation. He said, "I have passed whole days without food, and entire nights without sleep, that I might give myself up to meditation, but it was no use, study is far preferable.' Yet, when realities are in question, then "to meditate in silence and to recal to one's mind the meditations of others "is good," and "he who devotes himself to the study of the true and the good, with perseverance and without relaxation, will derive therefrom great "satisfaction."

ઃઃ

cr

That was his own experience of life. He had sought for truth without relaxation, he had driven all foregone conclusions from his mind, and had felt, from the age of fifteen, when he resolved to become a philosopher, that it involved patience, suffering, and persistence to the end.

So this man had become a teacher; for a time he so continued, and then he taught by working, eventually falling back to the grand position of teacher. We call it a grand position, and know full well that it is a solemn one. Alas, for nations when the office of a teacher is despised, and when the teacher is not alive to the solemnity and world-wide importance of his labours. We have men, many men, who rush into the field as though, having a gift of speech, they were fully qualified for the task of teaching. They talk and talk, with ease and grace, and sometimes beauty, but when we examine what was uttered, alas! there is found nothing to satisfy the soul, or ease life of its too heavy burdens. There was no light to guide us on our way, no deeptoned sympathy to warm our hearts to love and duty, and none of the celestial fire that consumes our littleness of prejudice and frees our soul from bonds. Nay, the men did not look upon their speech as intended for any such purpose -it was merely to while away the hours and keep us, perhaps, out of mischievous action. It was intended for display on the one side, and to tickle the ears on the other. Listen to sermon after sermon, and speech after speech, such as are so liberally showered upon us in this great metropolis. Ŵe feel, as the men proceed, that they are playing a part, are performing task-work, are merely grinding out daily rations, and are not endeavouring to stir the souls of those who listen. All goes on as regularly as in a factory, but individuality and freedom are not known. It is like a play, and, indeed, our finest speakers are said to have taken lessons from the players, as though the form were everything, and the thing to be said as nothing. Who would charge Paul with having given his time to such pursuits? Who would charge Luther, or Pym, or Tell, or any who spoke words that shook kingdoms and empires into ruin, with having thus prepared themselves for the battle? With them the thought was all, the vehicle was unimportant; it was not a very gentle or artistic oration that Luther delivered before the Council at

Worms, but rugged and trenchant, yet it went to the very heart of the matter at issue, and exhausted the whole bearings of the subject. The heart and mind were both bound to the work, and hence the large results, for although listening to murmuring rivulets has a charm and meaning, yet, when work is to be done, the rude trumpet-blast is best and fitliest adapted for stirring us to action.

These illustrations naturally suggest the inquiry, In what position are we to place Confucius as a teacher-not in regard to the value of his doctrines, but considered only in the lower capacity, and as the literary man? Did he equal or surpass the other teachers of antiquity? Were his style and form of conveying his ideas equal or superior to theirs? To answer this, with all the necessary illustrations, would involve the writing of a substantial volume, and therefore we must rest content with suggesting a few thoughts upon the subject, which, however, shall be sufficiently definite to enable us to arrive at a sound conclusion. To that end it will be convenient to state that the various forms of teaching are divisible into classes comprising the sententious, didactic, dogmatic, and pictorial. It was to the first of these that the Chinese sage attached himself.

Confucius may be taken as the greatest teacher the world has known who adopted the sententious style, and who endeavoured to convey his meaning in the fewest possible words. He was a profound reasoner, of quick feeling, of noble sentiments, of the closest observation, and altogether the best-informed man China has ever possessed. There was nothing narrow, selfish, or egotistical about him, and when he spoke it was not for a sect or party, but for mankind. But his teaching was made up of results; the end of all his inquiries was thrown into the form of epigrammatic sentences, and as such it was given forth to the world. Thus one of his pages contains the condensed essence of a volume, and has more just thought in it than can be found in the heaviest tomes of many finished writers. His books are mere tracts, so small that either of them can be read in a few minutes, so far at least as the mere words are concerned, but so large, when we consider the quality of the matter, that many days must be given to each. Take as an illustration the Ta-hio or Grand Study, the first of the great classical books, which contains only 400 words, and is supposed to contain a complete summary of the nature, aims, and influences of philosophy, with an exposition of how it is to be applied to daily life. Its first proposition is, that "The law of the Grand Study, or practical philosophy, consists in developing the luminous principle of reason, which we have received from Heaven, for the regeneration of man, and in placing "his final destiny in perfection, or the sovereign good." The truth of the proposition will not be gainsayed by any man who understands it, but the difficulty lies in getting men to pursue the course of study through which alone they can rise to a due comprehension of its deep meaning and value. Thousands learn to repeat, and are apt in citing his sentences, the same as in our own country men freely quote sentences from the volumes into which the wise sayings of great men have been collected, but they do not understand their true meaning or value. All such works are for the great body of men, and for all practical purposes, worse than valueless. The sentences are like bank-notes which cannot be cashed. They deceive with a show of wealth, but unto those who possess them they are of no real worth. Many will sit for hours reading books of wise sayings, imagining that they can.

The Chinese Empire, Abbe Huc, p. 75.

nourish their minds upon such fare. But it is a fallacy. As the Esquimaux mixes sawdust with his train-oil, in order that it shall not be too strong for the stomach, so with all these wise sayings something else must be mixed, or the learner will never digest them. In fact, in order to do justice to them, the student must first become a philosopher-must attain to the means of working out conclusions for himself; they merely show him the results to be arrived at, but do not show how they are to be reached. It is much the same as giving the school-boy the sum and the result without showing him how to work it. He may be able to say that twelve times twelve are one hundred and forty-four; but, if he be unable to work it out, he is practically as poor in arithmetic as the simplest savage. We are not enriched by what we possess unless mentally we have conquered it. The idiot is poor, though amid the wealth of a palace, and so are they who have these results without the system of working them out.

P. W. P.

HISTORY AND UNDERLYING LAWS.

ANNALS do not constitute History. Dates and events, the mere dry facts of the past, are truly the data wherewith the historian has to deal, but he who deals only with these is not the historian, but the mere annalist. The relation of the latter to the former is the same as the labourer to the master-builder, or better still, as the statistician to the social philosopher: the one provides the materials with which the other is to work. The true historian looks beneath the facts to find the soul of them; he deals not with mere dates and events, but with the principles of which they are the expression, and of the existence whereof they constitute the evidence. Here is a man, for example, who has a keen eye for facts; he registers day by day its occurrences, the births, deaths, and marriages which take place, the way the wind blows, the changes in the thermometer; he can tell you the exact moment at which any particular event occurred; but ask him its meaning, seek from him an explanation of its relation with the events of the yesterday or the morrow, these things he knows not. But there is another man who seizes the facts which this one has collected, and discovers some broad generalization which links them together, exposes the laws which underlie them all, lays bare the great principles they represent. So it is that out of the facts collected through the ages the sciences have been born. As yet, however, we have no science of history. Our histories are all annals, and not complete even as annals; we wait for the man with intellect large enough, with soul broad enough, to comprehend them, and show us the laws which underlie them all.

History is the evolution of principles, and until the historian comes who recognises this, the meaning and teaching of the Great Past which lies behind us will not be comprehended. With regard to much of History, we are in the same position as mankind were with reference to Astronomy ere yet a Copernicus, a Kepler, and a Newton (if indeed Newton be entitled to a place beside the others) had, by means of the aid afforded by the work of Tycho Brahe and the discoveries of Galileo, created a Science out of isolated facts and false theories. We have yet to learn the great central laws of History, the principles which govern the Rise and Fall of Nations. We have yet to learn the relation of all the historic past to this present and to the future time; and so we have, in History, even as formerly in Astronomy there were, theories which fit not the facts. It is true that something has been done,

and the time is ripe for doing more, in relation to this matter; we wait only the man or men who shall reduce the possible into the actual.

Again and again poets have sung of Time the destroyer, and of Death the conqueror. In so doing, however, they have forgotten their mission and betrayed their trust, by giving currency to ideas which are false. Time is not the destroyer, but the great builder; if he destroy, it is but that he may rebuild. Nor is Death the conqueror, for Life ever triumphs over Death. "Life mocks the idle hate

Of his arch-enemy Death-yea, seats himself
Upon the tyrant's throne-the sepulchre,
And of the triumphs of his ghastly foe

Makes his own nourishment."

Yes! Life, the vital principle, is ever active. The death of the Old is but the birth of the New. Out of the bosom of corruption and decay spring up new forms of life. The forest giants derive their vital juices from the mouldering remains of the forests which existed before them, and out from the grave of the Past springs the life of the Present. The mighty oak, which strikes its roots among the tombs of bygone generations, the little flower which blooms upon the new-made grave, are but types of the great principle which underlies all, the operation of which is found alike in History and in Nature, no less in the moral than in the physical universe.

Truth marches on to Error, Civilization takes the place of Barbarism, Youth presses on to take the place of Age and what are these but victories of the vital principle? The death of the Old is the condition by which the New is called into life-and Death is no conqueror, but only the conquered. Decay is the beginning of new existence, and Time the great renovator of all things. Not towards destruction and dissolution does God's Universe proceed, but to a constant renewing of itself in higher and better forms; for Progress is the Divine law written all over this world, and found in operation throughout all history. This has always been, is now, and ever will be so. Nothing dies but to renew itself. Even as Life conquers Death in the world of Nature, so Truth ever gains the victory over Error in the world of Thought, while Civilization triumphs over Barbarism in the sphere of History; Time being the condition required in each case. It is the victory of the active principles in Nature, Thought, and History which we see in every new phase of the existence of our earth and of humanity; and wherein we find the promise of a nobler future, hereafter to be achieved by man.

The processes of Nature, the discoveries of Science, and the records of History, all alike prove the truth of this. Does any man doubt this? Let him turn to the facts of geology, and learn there the truth which God has written on the stone walls of this world, learn how the vital principle of organization gradually evolved out of the primæval chaos ever new and higher forms of life, until the earth became fitted to serve as the arena of man's existence and continual progress. Does any man doubt? Let him turn to the records of man's mental advance, and in all the realms of thought he will see that the vital principle of truth has ever been necessary to the continued existence of any system, and however strongly error has been supported, it has ever carried with it the seeds of decay-while truth has been, even as now it is, constantly taking its place. Does any man yet doubt? Let him turn to the pages of history, and find there, in the rise and fall of nations, in every new historic epoch, in the grand onward march of universal man, the same thing exemplified. JAS. L. GOODING.