6. The Influence of Confucius

The Confucian scholars—Their victory over the Legalists—Defects of Confucianism—The contemporaneity of Confucius

The success of Confucius was posthumous, but complete. His philosophy had struck a practical and political note that endeared it to the Chinese after death had removed the possibility of his insisting upon its realization. Since men of letters never quite reconcile themselves to being men of letters, the literati of the centuries after Confucius attached themselves sedulously to his doctrine as a road to influence and public employment, and created a class of Confucian scholars destined to become the most powerful group in the empire. Schools sprang up here and there for the teaching of the Master’s philosophy as handed down by his disciples, developed by Mencius, and emended by a thousand pundits in the course of time; and these schools, as the intellectual centers of China, kept civilization alive during centuries of political collapse, much as the monks preserved some measure of ancient culture, and some degree of social order, during the Dark Ages that followed the fall of Rome.

A rival school, the “Legalists,” disputed for a while this leadership of Confucian thought in the political world, and occasionally moulded the policy of the state. To make government depend upon the good example of the governors and the inherent goodness of the governed, said the Legalists, was to take a considerable risk; history had offered no superabundance of precedents for the successful operation of these idealistic principles. Not men but laws should rule, they argued; and laws must be enforced until, becoming a second nature to a society, they are obeyed without force. The people are not intelligent enough to rule themselves well; they prosper best under an aristocracy. Even tradesmen are not too intelligent, but pursue their interests very often to the detriment of the state; perhaps, said some of the Legalists, it would be wiser for the state to socialize capital, monopolize trade, and prevent the manipulation of prices and the concentration of wealth.¹⁴⁴ These were ideas that were destined to appear again and again in the history of Chinese government.

In the long run the philosophy of Confucius triumphed. We shall see later how the mighty Shih Huang-ti, with a Legalist for his prime minister, sought to end the influence of Confucius by ordering that all existing Confucian literature should be burned. But the power of the word proved stronger than that of the sword; the books which the “First Emperor” sought to destroy became holy and precious through his enmity, and men died as martyrs in the effort to preserve them. When Shih Huang-ti and his brief dynasty had passed away, a wiser emperor, Wu Ti, brought the Confucian literature out of hiding, gave office to its students, and strengthened the Han Dynasty by introducing the ideas and methods of Confucius into the education of Chinese youth and statesmanship. Sacrifices were decreed in honor of Confucius; the texts of the Classics were by imperial command engraved on stone, and became the official religion of the state. Rivaled at times by the influence of Taoism, and eclipsed for a while by Buddhism, Confucianism was restored and exalted by the T’ang Dynasty, and the great T’ai Tsung ordered that a temple should be erected to Confucius, and sacrifices offered in it by scholars and officials, in every town and village of the empire. During the Sung Dynasty a virile school of “Neo-Confucians” arose, whose innumerable commentaries on the Classics spread the philosophy of the Master, in varied dilutions, throughout the Far East, and stimulated a philosophical development in Japan. From the rise of the Han Dynasty to the fall of the Manchus—i.e., for two thousand years—the doctrine of Confucius moulded and dominated the Chinese mind.

The history of China might be written in terms of that influence. For generation after generation the writings of the Master were the texts of the official schools, and nearly every lad who came through those schools had learned those texts by heart. The stoic conservatism of the ancient sage sank almost into the blood of the people, and gave to the nation, and to its individuals, a dignity and profundity unequaled elsewhere in the world or in history. With the help of this philosophy China developed a harmonious community life, a zealous admiration for learning and wisdom, and a quiet and stable culture which made Chinese civilization strong enough to survive every invasion, and to remould every invader in its own image. Only in Christianity and in Buddhism can we find again so heroic an effort to transmute into decency the natural brutality of men. And today, as then, no better medicine could be prescribed for any people suffering from the disorder generated by an intellectualist education, a decadent moral code, and a weakened fibre of individual and national character, than the absorption of the Confucian philosophy by the nation’s youth.

But that philosophy could not be a complete nourishment in itself. It was well fitted to a nation struggling out of chaos and weakness into order and strength, but it would prove a shackle upon a country compelled by international competition to change and grow. The rules of propriety, destined to form character and social order, became a strait-jacket forcing almost every vital action into a prescribed and unaltered mould. There was something prim and Puritan about Confucianism which checked too thoroughly the natural and vigorous impulses of mankind; its virtue was so complete as to bring sterility. No room was left in it for pleasure and adventure, and little for friendship and love. It helped to keep woman in supine debasement,¹⁴⁵ and its cold perfection froze the nation into a conservatism as hostile to progress as it was favorable to peace.

We must not blame all this upon Confucius; one cannot be expected to do the thinking of twenty centuries. We ask of a thinker only that, as the result of a lifetime of thought, he shall in some way illuminate our path to understanding. Few men have done this more certainly than Confucius. As we read him, and perceive how little of him must be erased today because of the growth of knowledge and the change of circumstance, how soundly he offers us guidance even in our contemporary world, we forget his platitudes and his unbearable perfection, and join his pious grandson, K’ung Chi in that superlative eulogy which began the deification of Confucius:

Chung-ni (Confucius) handed down the doctrines of Yao and Shun as if they had been his ancestors, and elegantly displayed the regulations of Wen and Wu, taking them as his model. Above he harmonized with the times of heaven, and below he was conformed to the water and land.

He may be compared to heaven and earth in their supporting and containing, their overshadowing and curtaining, all things. He may be compared to the four seasons in their alternating progress, and to the sun and moon in their successive shining. . . .

All-embracing and vast, he is like heaven. Deep and active as a fountain, he is like the abyss. He is seen, and the people all reverence him; he speaks, and the people all believe him; he acts, and the people are all pleased with him.

Therefore his fame overspreads the Middle Kingdom, and extends to all barbarous tribes. Wherever ships and carriages reach, wherever the strength of man penetrates, wherever the heavens overshadow and the earth sustains, wherever the sun and moon shine, wherever frosts and dews fall—all who have blood and breath unfeignedly honor and love him. Hence it is said: “He is the equal of Heaven.”¹⁴⁶