1 This is the Work so often referred to as the 四書集證, the full title being 四書經註集證. The passage here translated from it will be found in the place several times referred to in this section.
2 The author of the 四書拓餘說 adopts the view that the Work was composed in Sung. Some have advocated this from ch. xxviii. 5, compared with Ana. III. ix, 'it being proper,' they say, 'that Tsze-sze, writing in Sung, should not depreciate it as Confucius had done out of it!'
3 See in the 'Sacrificial Canon,' on Tsze-sze.
4 This is the Work referred to in note 1, p. 40.
wishing for any praise from men;-- is it so?" Tsze-sze replied, "No, that is not my feeling. When I cultivate what is good, I wish men to know it, for when they know it and praise me, I feel encouraged to be more zealous in the cultivation. This is what I desire, and am not able to obtain. If I cultivate what is good, and men do not know it, it is likely that in their ignorance they will speak evil of me. So by my good-doing I only come to be evil spoken of. This is what I do not desire, but am not able to avoid. In the case of a man, who gets up at cock-crowing to practise what is good and continues sedulous in the endeavour till midnight, and says at the same time that he does not wish men to know it, lest they should praise him, I must say of such a man, that, if he be not deceitful, he is stupid."'
Another day, the duke asked Tsze-sze, saying, 'Can my state be made to flourish?' 'It may,' was the reply. 'And how?' Tsze-sze said, 'O prince, if you and your ministers will only strive to realize the government of the duke of Chau and of Po-ch'in; practising their transforming principles, sending forth wide the favours of your ducal house, and not letting advantages flow in private channels; if you will thus conciliate the affections of the people, and at the same time cultivate friendly relations with neighboring states, your state will soon begin to flourish.'
On one occasion, the duke asked whether it had been the custom of old for ministers to go into mourning for a prince whose service and state they had left. Tsze-sze replied to him, 'Of old, princes advanced their ministers to office according to propriety, and dismissed them in the same way, and hence there was that rule. But now-a-days, princes bring their ministers forward as if they were going to take them on their knees, and send them away as if they would cast them into an abyss. If they do not treat them as their greatest enemies, it is well.-- How can you expect the ancient practice to be observed in such circumstances [1]?'
These instances may suffice to illustrate the character of Tsze-sze, as it was displayed in his intercourse with the princes of his time. We see the same independence which he affected in private life, and a dignity not unbecoming the grandson of Confucius. But we miss the reach of thought and capacity for administration which belonged to the Sage. It is with him, how-
1 This conversation is given in the Li Chi, II. Sect. II. Pt. ii, 1.
ever, as a thinker and writer that we have to do, and his rank in that capacity will appear from the examination of the Chung Yung in the section iv below. His place in the temples of the Sage has been that of one of his four assessors, since the year 1267. He ranks with Yen Hui, Tsang Shan, and Mencius, and bears the title of 'The Philosopher Tsze-sze, Transmitter of the Sage [1].'
SECTION III.
ITS INTEGRITY.
In the testimony of K'ung Fu, which has been adduced to prove the authorship of the Chung Yung, it is said that the Work consisted originally of forty-nine p'ien. From this statement it is argued by some, that the arrangement of it in thirty-three chapters, which originated with Chu Hsi, is wrong [2]; but this does not affect the question of integrity, and the character p'ien is so vague and indefinite, that we cannot affirm that K'ung Fu meant to tell us by it that Tsze-sze himself divided his Treatise into so many paragraphs or chapters.
It is on the entry in Liu Hsin's Catalogue, quoted section i,-- 'Two p'ien of Observations on the Chung Yung,' that the integrity of the present Work is called in question. Yen Sze-ku, of the Tang dynasty, has a note on that entry to the effect:-- 'There is now the Chung Yung in the Li Chi in one p'ien. But that is not the original Treatise here mentioned, but only a branch from it [3]' Wang Wei, a writer of the Ming dynasty, says:-- 'Anciently, the Chung Yung consisted of two p'ien, as appears from the History of Literature of the Han dynasty, but in the Li Chi we have only one p'ien, which Chu Hsi, when he made his "Chapters and Sentences," divided into thirty-three chapters. The old Work in two p'ien is not to be met with now [4].'