THE ETHICS OF CONFUCIUS. 91 



appeared in public he engaged in teaching school for some years ; 

 but, being imbued with the desire to effect a reformation among 

 his people, he gave up teaching and sought and obtained employ- 

 ment in a government position under the ruler of his native prov- 

 ince. His life as a civil officer enabled him to observe the 

 methods of official conduct, and still further intensified his desire 

 to restore a more righteous rule. He decided to seek the co-opera- 

 tion of some one of the many claimants to royal prerogative, 

 and, by enlisting such sympathy, he calculated that by inaugu- 

 rating a model reign, under whose influence men would turn 

 again to the correct paths, he would absorb all contiguous prov- 

 inces, unify the government of the race under a common flag, 

 and see virtue and peace again among men. But he failed, after 

 wandering from one province to another, to enlist the sympathy 

 or co-operation of any one in a position to assist him ; and he 

 eventually gave up in despair, and, gathering a small following 

 of disciples about him, he retired from public view, and passed 

 the remainder of his days in teaching his chosen few and lament- 

 ing the evil days upon which his peo^jle had come. To fully appre- 

 ciate the great task he had set out to accomplish, the reformation 

 of China upon a strict ethical basis, it is necessary, as far as pos- 

 sible, to picture the condition of his people at that time. If we 

 allow for some advance in civilization during the past twenty- 

 five hundred years^ and contemplate the China of our day with 

 what in his day it must have been, we must concede that he had 

 a very unpromising, crude material to work upon. From what 

 he wrote on the condition of things, and also from the writings 

 of Mencius a century later, we conclude that it was indeed a dark 

 picture for the idealist to contemplate. Mencius states that in 

 his time men had reached a state of degradation in which they 

 denied that there was any distinction between good and evil, 

 virtue and vice. All moral restraints were thrown off, and pub- 

 lic or private morality was unknown. But, notwithstanding the 

 philosopher was dead, his name and writings still existed, and 

 had their influence on a few minds. Among these was Mencius, 

 who seems to have been a more able man than Kung himself, and 

 who espoused the cause of reform. He was wise enough to see that 

 nothing might be hoped for in the way of co-operation of the 

 rulers, who were as bad as the common people, but he set to work 

 to gather and put into form the writings of Kung-fu-tse. Per- 

 haps but for this work the very name of the Sage would long ago 

 have been forgotten ; for his writings were left in a fragmentary 

 and scattered shape, and even do not take high rank in point of 

 literary merit. The Confucian Analects, as compiled by Mencius, 

 and with added comments by the latter, have been translated into 

 English by Rev. Mr. Legge, an eminent Oriental scholar, and the 



