"The way of Heaven and Earth is large and substantial, high and brilliant, far reaching and long enduring" (Chung Yung, xxvi. 7, 8).
And in a very high-flown passage on the character of the sage—said to refer to the author's grandfather—he is spoken of as "the equal of Heaven" (Ibid., xxxi. 3).
Heaven, however, is not the only superhuman power that is mentioned in the Chung Yung. In one of its chapters we are told that Confucius thus expressed himself:—
"How abundantly do spiritual beings display the powers that belong to them!
"We look for them, but do not see them; we listen to, but do not hear them; yet they enter into all things, and there is nothing without them.
"They cause all the people in the Empire to fast and purify themselves, and array themselves in their richest dresses, in order to attend at their sacrifices. Then, like overflowing water, they seem to be over the heads, and on the right and left of their worshipers" (Chung Yung, xvi. 1-3).
This positive expression of opinion is scarcely consistent with the habitual reserve of Kung-tse on subjects of this kind (Lun Yu, vii. 20), and were it not that it rests apparently on adequate authority, we might be tempted to reject it as apocryphal.
Subdivision 4.—The works of Mang-tsze.
The next place in the Chinese Scriptures is occupied by the works of Mang-tsze, the philosopher Mang, or as he is frequently called, Mencius. Mang lived nearly two hundred years later than Confucius, having been born about 371, and having died in 288 B. C. He was not an original teacher asserting independent authority, and has no claim to the title of prophet. On the contrary, he was an avowed disciple of Confucius, to whose dicta he paid implicit reverence, and whom he quoted with the respect due to the exalted character which the sage had already acquired in the eyes of his school.
The so-called "Works of Mang" are not original compositions of this philosopher, but collections of his sayings, resembling the Lun Yu, or Confucian Analects. Whether he compiled them, or took any part in their compilation himself, is uncertain. But, considering their character, the more probable hypothesis seems to be that they were committed to writing by his friends, or disciples, either during his own life, or immediately after his death.