We now come to the arguments by which Mencius sought to prove that the original nature of man is good, and becomes corrupted only by environment. A philosopher of the day, named Kao, said, "Man's nature may be likened to a willow-tree, and duty towards one's neighbour to a bowl. You get charity of heart and duty towards one's neighbour out of man's nature just as you get a wooden bowl out of a willow-tree." "Sir," replied Mencius, "Can you get bowls from willow-trees without injuring the original nature of the trees? In order to get your bowl, you must first kill and rob the tree; and by parity of reasoning, in order to get charity of heart and duty towards one's neighbour, you must first kill and rob the man. The result would be that all mankind would regard charity of heart and duty towards one's neighbour as nothing better than calamities." The philosopher Kao said, "Man's nature is like rushing water; make a passage for it towards the east, and it will flow eastwards; make a passage for it towards the west, and it will flow westward. The philosopher Kao said, "What is reached at birth, that is the nature." "Do you mean to say, then," inquired Mencius, "that, in a similar way, all white is white?" "I do," replied Kao. "Do you mean," continued Mencius, "that the whiteness of a white feather is the same as the whiteness of snow, and that the whiteness of white snow is the same as the whiteness of white jade?" "I do," replied Kao. "Then," said Mencius, "you evidently mean that the nature of a dog is the same as that of an ox, and that the nature of an ox is the same as that of a man." Wishing for more direct instructions than can be found in the above, a disciple said to Mencius, "There is the philosopher Kao; he declares that the nature of man is neither good nor bad. Others say
Mencius proceeds to argue that crops of barley, for instance, if sown under identical conditions, will yield identical results; and that if there are any differences in results between the harvests of two crops, this will be due to inequalities of soil, of rainfall, or of cultivation, and not to any difference in the nature of the barley. Why, then, should man form an exception to the rule? He quotes in support of this an old philosopher who said, "If a man were to make sandals without knowing the size required, I know that he
"There is the Ox Mountain," said Mencius, "which was once overgrown with beautiful trees. The mountain, however, was situated on the frontier between two States; and in process of time all the trees were hacked about until there was very little left of them. Even when the trees did attempt to sprout again, cattle and goats came and browsed upon the young shoots, and the mountain was stripped bare, so that nowadays people do not understand that it was once finely wooded. But is bareness the nature of that mountain? And can we then say that the human mind is devoid of a sense of charity It was thus that Mencius satisfied himself and others that Confucius was not in error when he handed down the tradition that man is born good; a dogma which has ever since been accepted by Confucianists as the keystone of their arch. Its validity was disputed some few years later by a philosopher, named Hsün (see ante), who wrote an essay to prove that the nature of man at birth is evil. "A crooked stick," says Hsün Tzŭ, "must be softened and bent, if you want to make it straight; a blunt knife must be applied to the grindstone, if you want to make it sharp; and the nature of man, being evil, must be submitted to teachers and laws, if you want to make it correct. Our nature is from God; it cannot be obtained by learning and striving. It is erroneous to Apart from the question of man's nature at birth, Hsün Tzŭ has something to say on man's relations Hsün Tzŭ set his face against superstition. "When stars fall or trees shriek, all cry out in fear, 'What's that?' I say, '’Tis nothing but some natural process which we may marvel at, not fear.'" Again—a favourite quotation—"God does not speak, yet the four seasons pursue their regular course; and just so, The Chinese people decided early not to allow the logic of Hsün Tzŭ to displace the already accepted arguments of Mencius. Luckily for himself, Mencius was no longer alive when the controversy broke out. He had had a sufficient task, as it was, in combating other doctrines. "Master," said a disciple to hire, "people all say that you are fond of disputing; I venture to ask if that is so." "It is not," replied Mencius; "the fact is that I cannot do otherwise." He then proceeds to give reasons. "Unemployed There is another passage where Mencius, alluding to the system of ethical egoism preached by Yang Chu, has the following words: "Though he might have benefited the whole world by plucking out a single hair, he would not have done it." This is not quite fair to Yang Chu. The story is that someone said to him, "If by plucking a single hair from your body you could save the whole world, would you do it?" "The world could not possibly be saved by a single hair," replied Yang. "But if it could be so saved," said his questioner, "would you do it?" To this Yang made no reply. For us, no reply is necessary; the mere fact of such a question being "What then," he asked, "can be the object of human existence? Wherein is happiness to be found?—In the appointments of wealth and luxury? In the enjoyment of the pleasures of sense? Alas! those will not always charm, and these may not always be enjoyed. Besides, there is the stimulus of good report, there is the restraint of law, in things we may do and in things we may not do. And thus we struggle on for a breath of fame, scheming to be remembered after death; ever on our guard against the allurements of sense, ever on the watch over our hearts and actions. We miss whatever of real happiness is to be got out of life, never being able for a single moment to relax the vigilance of our heed. In what, indeed, do we differ from the fettered captives of a gaol? The men of old knew that with life they had come but for a while, and that with death they would shortly depart. Therefore they followed the desires of their own hearts, and did not deny themselves pleasures to which they felt naturally inclined. Fame tempted them not; but led by their instincts alone, they took such enjoyments as lay in their path,
The philosopher Mo, who suffered at the hands of Mencius a castigation similar to that dealt out to Yang Chu, seems to have done no more than propound, as a remedy for all manner of existing evils, the simple doctrine above-mentioned—an equal love of one's fellow-creatures. As a specimen of Mo Tzŭ's reasoning, we may take the following parable. There are two men, one of whom discriminates in his love for his fellows; the other, in accordance with the teaching of Mo Tzŭ, loves all men equally. The former argues, "I cannot feel for my friend so strongly as I feel for myself, neither can I feel for my friend's parents so strongly as I feel for my own parents." As a consequence of this, he may see his friend hungry, and will not feed him; he may see him cold, and will not clothe him; he may see him sick, and will not nurse him; he may see him dead, and will not bury him. The latter argues, "He who wishes to play a
Between 332 and 295 B.C. there lived one Ch‘ü P‘ing, a famous statesman and poet, whose name is still a household word in China. In despair at the unsatisfactory political outlook, he committed suicide by drowning; and the search for his body has ever since been commemorated at all important centres by an annual regatta, known as the Dragon Festival. His writings, which remain to us, contain many allusions to a Deity—the Deity, in fact, with whom we became so familiar in the Odes. "Man," he says, "sprang originally from God, just as the individual comes from his parents. When the span of man is at an end, he goes back to that from which he sprang. Thus it is that in the hour of bitter trial and exhaustion, there is no man but calls to God, just as in his hours of sickness and sorrow every one of us will turn to his parents."B.C. 300-200
Let us begin to give pleasure to God.
Let us grasp the hilts of our long swords,
Let our jade ornaments tinkle and clang,
Let us have jasper couches and jade ear-plugs.
Why does not the augur seize the coral branch and diffuse fragrance?
Let us cook the orchid to provide the food;
Let us set forth offerings of cassia wine and pepper sauce;
Let us raise the drumstick and strike the drums,
At long intervals and slowly, with restrained song.
Then arrange the pipes and the psaltery, and lift up your voices,
And the medium will begin to dance in his grand vestments.
Delicious perfumes fill the hall;
The five notes 1 break into harmonious music,
And God is happy and at peace.
Another poem is addressed to "The Infinite One," whose presence is invoked on behalf of worshippers:Bathed in orchid water, washed with perfumes,
Dressed in robes gay-coloured like the alpinia,
The medium performs the ceremony of introducing the Spirit,
Whose glory shines around, magnificent beyond conception.
Ah, now it is at rest in our Hall of Longevity,
Rivalling in brightness the sun and the moon!
Now God, the Spirit, rides in His dragon chariot,
And in His flight circles around hither and thither.
When God has come down in all His glory,
He rapidly returns to His home in the distant sky.
He casts His eye over central China and all around,
Across the boundless spaces of the Four Seas. . . .
Longing to be with Thee, I sigh deeply,
And am overwhelmed in my heart with grief.
In the words of a modern patriotic song—
One of his longer poems consists of a string of questions addressed direct to the Deity. It is strangely entitled "God Questions," and not, as we should expect, "Questions to God," because, as the Chinese editor tells us, "God is an object of reverence and cannot be questioned; therefore the words are transposed." The poem opens as follows:
The poem rambles on to a considerable length, with questions on the myths and popular beliefs of ancient China, such as,
sometimes punishing the good, sometimes protecting the wicked, of which statement the poet quotes several historical examples. For the word "God," Shang Ti is used once; otherwise, T‘ien is employed, or Ti as an abbreviation of Shang Ti.
This singular poem was dealt with by Liu Tsung-yüan, a distinguished poet, who flourished in the eighth and ninth centuries of our era and published a set of "God Answers" to the famous questions, "of which," as a native critic has said, "he missed the real purport." For myself, I freely confess to missing the purport of a great many of the replies, which are wrapped up in exceedingly obscure language; while such as are easily intelligible, seem to be trivial. For instance, in reply to the question how it was that a divine girl who had no husband bore nine sons, the answer simply amounts to "because she was divine"; and the question how shutting brings darkness and opening brings light, meets with a direct denial that such is the case. We may therefore dismiss further reference to "God Answers," the author of which we shall meet again later on.
Ch‘ü P‘ing believed in divination, and he has left
"Tell me," cried Ch‘ü P‘ing, "whether I should steadily pursue the path of truth and loyalty, or follow in the wake of a corrupt generation. Should I work in the fields with spade and hoe, or seek advancement in the retinue of a grandee? Should I rest content in the cultivation of virtue, or practise the art of wheedling women in order to secure success? Should I be pure and clean-handed in my rectitude, or be an oily-mouthed, slippery, timeserving sycophant? Should I hold on my course like an impetuous charger, or oscillate to and fro, with the indecision of a duck in a pool, as self-interest directs? Should I vie with the wild goose in soaring to heaven, or scramble for food on a dunghill with hens? Of these alternatives I would know which to choose. The age is muddy and will not be made clean. The wing of the cicada outweighs a thousand pounds. The priceless goblet is set aside for the delf cup. Flatterers fill high places; men of worth are ignored. Alas! who is there that knows my worth?" T‘an Kung, the writer of the fourth and third centuries B.C. from whom we have already taken a note on the custom of burying people alive, provides further sidelights upon such topics as ordinary burial and mourning. "A certain man," he says, "travelled from afar to witness the funeral obsequies of Confucius. He stayed at the house of a disciple, who observed that a sage conducting a funeral is one thing, and that a sage's funeral is another, and asked the visitor what he had expected to see. 'Do you not remember,' said the disciple, 'that our Master once said, "Some persons pile up the earth over graves into square, others into long-shaped tumuli. Others are content with small heaps. I prefer the small heaps"? So we have given him only a few handfuls of earth, and he is already buried. Is not this as he would have wished it himself?'" The question of mourning is treated by T‘an Kung as follows: "One day, Yu-tzŭ and Tzŭ-yu, two of Confucius’ disciples, happened to see a child weeping for the loss of its parents. Thereupon the former said, 'I never could understand why mourners should necessarily jump about to show their grief; I would long ago have got rid of the custom. Now here you "'Consider. A man who is pleased will show it in his face. He will sing. He will get excited. He will dance. So, too, a man who is vexed will look sad. He will sigh. He will beat his breast. He will jump about. The due regulation of these emotions is the function of a set ceremonial. "'Further, a man dies and becomes an object of loathing. A dead body is shunned. Therefore a shroud is prepared, and other paraphernalia of burial, in order that the survivors may cease to loathe. At death there is a sacrifice of wine and meat; when the funeral procession is about to start there is another; and after burial there is yet a third sacrifice. Yet no one has ever seen the spirit of the departed come to taste the food. "'These have been our customs from remote antiquity. They have not been discarded, because, in consequence, men no more shun the dead. What you may censure in those who perform the ceremonial is no blemish in the ceremonial itself.'" The same writer introduces into the same subject the question of a divorced mother. He tells how the son of Tzŭ-ssŭ, the grandson of Confucius, who Three divorces in four generations of the same family might lead to the inference that divorce has always been common in China; but whatever may have been the case in ancient times, of which even the most meagre statistics are wanting, it is quite certain that nowadays divorce, which has always been justified under certain conditions, is of very rare occurrence. The lady's family has to be reckoned with, and her relatives and friends take care that justice is done. Premising that, in China, the dog has always been regarded as an unclean animal, and is used as a term of abuse, we read that a man, named Pao Yung, who lived about the time of the Christian era, has ever since been lauded for his filial piety, because he divorced his wife, somewhat harshly as we should think, for calling her mother-in-law a bitch. The last quarter of the third century B.C. witnessed the final disappearance of the Feudal System, which had endured, with more or less vigour, for the long period of over eight hundred years. China now became an empire, under the self-named "First Emperor," whose successors were to be called Second, Third, Fourth, and so on, for ever. We need not here linger over the historical fact that the Second Emperor was deposed and put to death, thus bringing the Chin dynasty, as it was styled, to an early end; but it is necessary, in order to a full understanding of the literature and religion of China, to mention an extraordinary event which occurred under the preceding reign. The First Emperor, about B.C. 212, issued instructions, at the suggestion of his prime In our present connexion, this Emperor plays an
The east is regarded by the Chinese as the source of life; it is from that quarter that the sun daily renews its light, after being nightly extinguished in the waves of the western sea. Mt. T‘ai dominates the east; and consequently, when an Emperor desired a son, it was to this mountain that he addressed his prayer: "From of old, your divine influence has been concentrated upon the production of life. You dominate one quarter of the empire, and secretly give assistance to the State. I, with all my imperfections, have now for eleven years been the respectful depositary of the will of God, and during this period I have reverently served the spirits of heaven and earth without any neglect. I have no heir, and this causes me constant anxiety. Therefore I have Some of the still extant prayers addressed to the mountain read more like invocations of God Himself. For instance, one prayer opens thus: "O Thou Spirit, who since the beginning of the world hast ruled with might over the eastern quarter, who bringest the clouds and the rain, and dost nourish in abundance all living creatures, etc., etc." The functions of Mt. T‘ai have not been restricted to care for the living; at a very early date the mountain came to be regarded as the rendezvous of the dead, whose souls found their way thither after death, and settled down on a small hill hard by, where relatives often put up tablets to their memory. This connexion with the dead gave rise to the belief that the mountain was in some way an arbiter of human existence, in consequence of which it became customary to address to the spirit prayers for the prolongation of life. The ascent of Mt. T‘ai by the First Emperor seems to have been nothing more than an incident, as compared with a similar ascent, B.C. 110, by Wu Ti of the Han dynasty, one of China's most famous Emperors, whose long reign extended from B.C. 140 108:1 Of the ancient Chinese scale. 120:1 See Le T‘ai Chan, by Prof. E. Chavannes.Hills are not famous for height alone;
’Tis the Genius Loci that gives them their charm.