CONFEDERATION 



1533 



CONFUCIUS 



CONFEDERATION, kon fed era' shun, ARTI- 

 CLES OF. See ARTICLES OF CONFEDERATION. 



CONFUCIUS, konju'shius (551-478 B. c.), 

 a famous Chinese sage whose moral teachings, 

 after nearly twenty-five centuries, are still the 

 religious principles of millions of his country- 

 men. He was not the founder of a religion, 

 in the sense that 

 Christ and Mo- 

 hammed estab- 

 lished faiths, for 

 he had nothing 

 to say of man's 

 relation to a Su- 

 preme Being, but 

 as a teacher of 

 practical morality 

 he was one of the 



most influential MBW W 

 men who ever 

 lived. Confucius 

 was born in Shan- 

 tung, a province of the state of Lu, and was 

 the son of a soldier of royal descent. His 

 father, commander of one of the districts of 

 the province, died when his son was three 

 years old, and though the family was left with 

 very little money, the mother of Confucius 

 educated the boy according to the best ideals 

 of the time. One of the stories told of his 

 childhood is that he was extremely fond of 

 dressing himself in strange garb and conduct- 

 ing religious services, while his playmates 

 acted as worshipers. 



Confucius began his life work as a teacher 

 at the age of twenty-two, three years after his 

 marriage. He seems to have parted from his 

 wife and children about this time. For the 

 rest of his life, a period of fifty years, during 

 which he traveled widely in China, he endeav- 

 ored to teach others his ideas of what is good. 

 By the time he was thirty he had worked out 

 the precepts for which he is remembered, and 

 four years later his first pupils of importance 

 came to him. At this point in his career he 

 had several interviews with Lao-Tse, the 

 founder of Taoism (which see) ; Confucius, 

 the practical thinker, was much more pro- 

 foundly impressed with Lao-Tse, the dreamer, 

 than Lao-Tse was with his visitor. 



About the year 500 B. c. Confucius was ap- 

 pointed governor of the city of Chung-tu, in 

 his native state of Lu, and shortly afterwards 

 was made minister of crime. As a magistrate 

 he showed such sagacity and practical ability 

 that he roused the jealousy of the governor of 



the neighboring state of Tsi, whose interference 

 so lessened his authority that he resigned four 

 years later. For the next thirteen years he 

 wandered about from place to place, returning 

 to Lu in his sixty-ninth year, and spending the 

 last five years of his life in retirement. Before 

 he died he had compiled and edited the an- 

 cient Chinese writings, which are included in 

 the Five Classics; with these are grouped the 

 Four Books, written by his disciples. The nine 

 books together constitute the Chinese bible. 



Confucianism. The system of religion which 

 was worked out by Confucius, known as CON- 

 FUCIANISM, is lacking in spiritual elements. He 

 concerned himself neither with a God nor 

 with the immortality of the soul, but urged 

 men to live righteously while they were in the 

 present world. Goodness, he said, should be 

 practiced for its own sake and not because of 

 a future reward. He emphasized man's duty 

 to his fellow men rather than to a Supreme 

 Being, especially his duty to his parents. Had 

 Confucius written the Ten Commandments of 

 the Mosaic Law he would doubtless have given 

 the highest place to the one beginning, "Honor 

 thy father and thy mother." Respect for 

 parents has now become one of the very roots 

 of Chinese character, and in the filial devotion 

 of the people we see one of the strongest traces 

 of the influence of Confucius. Submission to 

 the state was another of his important doc- 

 trines. 



The great teacher laid down for his pupils 

 a negative form of Christ's Golden Rule "Do 

 not do unto others that which you would not 

 like to have them do unto you." His sayings 

 were collected by his followers, and they form 

 a set of proverbs that are full of practical 

 wisdom and good sense. Among them are 

 such maxims, as, "To see the right, and not to 

 do it, is to be a coward," and "Not to with- 

 draw after making an error is itself a new 

 error." 



After the death of Confucius he was given 

 the honors due a god, and ceremonies were in- 

 stituted to perpetuate his teachings, thus mak- 

 ing Confucianism practically a state religion. 

 In 1914, after a period in which religion was 

 overshadowed by the revolution which changed 

 the empire into a republic, there was an un- 

 successful attempt to reestablish Confucianism 

 as the state religion. It has about 256,000,000 

 followers. See CHINA, subhead Religion; RE- 

 LIGION, and references there given. B.M.W. 



CONGLOMERATE, konglom' erate, from 

 Latin words meaning to roll together, is a rock 



