1. The authorship of the Great Learning is a very doubtful point, and one on which it does not appear possible to come to a decided conclusion. Chu Hsi, as I have stated in the last section, determined that so much of it was Ching, or Classic, being the very words of Confucius, and that all the rest was Chwan, or Commentary, being the views of Tsang Shan upon the sage's words, recorded by his disciples. Thus, he does not expressly attribute the composition of the Treatise to Tsang, as he is generally supposed to do. What he says, however, as it is destitute of external support, is contrary also to the internal evidence. The fourth chapter of commentary commences with 'The Master said.' Surely, if there were anything more, directly from Confucius, there would be an intimation of it in the same way. Or, if we may allow that short sayings of Confucius might be interwoven with the Work, as in the fifteenth paragraph of the tenth chapter, without referring them expressly to him, it is too much to ask us to receive the long chapter at the beginning as being from him. With regard to the Work having come from the disciples of Tsang Shan, recording their master's views, the paragraph in chapter sixth, commencing with 'The disciple Tsang said,' seems to be conclusive against such an hypothesis. So much we may be sure is Tsang's, and no more. Both of Chu Hsi's judgments must be set aside. We cannot admit either the distinction of the contents into Classical text and Commentary, or that the Work was the production of Tsang's disciples.
2. Who then was the author? An ancient tradition attributes it to K'ung Chi, the grandson of Confucius. In a notice published, at the time of their preparation, about the stone slabs of Wei, the
following statement by Chia K'wei, a noted scholar of the first century, is found:-- 'When K'ung Chi was living, and in straits, in Sung, being afraid lest the lessons of the former sages should become obscure, and the principles of the ancient sovereigns and kings fall to the ground, he therefore made the Great Learning as the warp of them, and the Doctrine of the Mean as the woof [1].' This would seem, therefore, to have been the opinion of that early time, and I may say the only difficulty in admitting it is that no mention is made of it by Chang Hsuan. There certainly is that agreement between the two treatises, which makes their common authorship not at all unlikely.
3. Though we cannot positively assign the authorship of the Great Learning, there can be no hesitation in receiving it as a genuine monument of the Confucian school. There are not many words in it from the sage himself, but it is a faithful reflection of his teachings, written by some of his followers, not far removed from him by lapse of time. It must synchronize pretty nearly with the Analects, and may be safely referred to the fifth century before our era.
SECTION III.
ITS SCOPE AND VALUE.
1. The worth of the Great Learning has been celebrated in most extravagant terms by Chinese writers, and there have been foreigners who have not yielded to them in their estimation of it. Pauthier, in the 'Argument Philosphique,' prefixed to his translation of the Work, says:-- 'It is evident that the aim of the Chinese philosopher is to exhibit the duties of political government as those of the perfecting of self, and of the practice of virtue by all men. He felt that he had a higher mission than that with which the greater part of ancient and modern philosophers have contented themselves; and his immense love for the happiness of humanity, which dominated over all his other sentiments, has made of his
1 唐氏秦疏有曰,虞松校刻石經于魏表,引漢賈逵之言,曰,孔伋窮居于宋,懼先聖之學不 明,而帝王之道墜,故作大學以經之,中庸以緯之; see the 大學證文,一, p. 5.
philosophy a system of social perfectionating, which, we venture to say, has never been equalled.'
Very different is the judgment passed upon the treatise by a writer in the Chinese Repository: 'The Ta Hsio is a short politico-moral discourse. Ta Hsio, or "Superior Learning," is at the same time both the name and the subject of the discourse; it is the summum bonum of the Chinese. In opening this Book, compiled by a disciple of Confucius, and containing his doctrines, we might expect to find a work like Cicero's De Officiis; but we find a very different production, consisting of a few commonplace rules for the maintenance of a good government [1].'
My readers will perhaps think, after reading the present section, that the truth lies between these two representations.