The Awakening of China Part 8

In theory there was under this and the preceding dynasty no private ownership of land. The arable ground was laid out in plots of nine squares, thus:

Eight of these were a.s.signed to the people to cultivate for themselves; and the middle square was reserved for the government and tilled by the joint labour of all. The simple-hearted souls of that day are said to have prayed that the rains might first descend on the public field and then visit their private grounds.

In later years this communistic scheme was found not to work perfectly, owing, it is said, to the decay of public virtue. A statesman, named Shangyang, converted the tenure of land into fee simple--a natural evolution which was, however, regarded as quite too revolutionary and earned for him the execrations of the populace.

The charming simplicity of the above little diagram would seem to have suggested the arrangement of fiefs in the state, in which the irregular feudality of former times became moulded into a symmetrical system. The sovereign state was in the centre; and those of the feudal barons were ranged on the four sides in successive rows. The central portion was designated _Chung Kwoh_, "Middle Kingdom," a t.i.tle which has come to be applied to the whole empire, implying, of course, that all the nations of the earth are its va.s.sals.

Laid out with the order of a camp and ruled with martial vigour, the new state prospered for a few reigns.

[Page 86]

At length, however, smitten with a disease of the heart the members no longer obeyed the behests of the head. Decay and anarchy are written on the last pages of the history of the House of Chou.

The martial king died young, leaving his infant heir under the regency of his brother, the Duke of Chou. The latter, who inherited the tastes and talents of Wen-w.a.n.g, was avowedly the character which the great Sage took for his pattern. With fidelity and ability he completed the pacification of the state. The credit of that achievement inured to his ward, who received the t.i.tle of _Cheng-w.a.n.g_, "The Completer."

Accused of scheming to usurp the throne, the Duke resigned his powers and withdrew from the court. The young prince, opening a golden casket, found in it a prayer of his uncle, made and sealed up during a serious illness of the King, imploring Heaven to accept his life as a ransom for his royal ward. This touching proof of devotion dispelled all doubt; and the faithful duke was recalled to the side of the now full-grown monarch.

Even during the minority of his nephew the Duke never entered his presence in other than full court costume. On one occasion the youthful king, playing with a younger brother, handed him a palm leaf saying, "This shall be your patent of n.o.bility. I make you duke of such and such a place." The regent remonstrated, whereupon the King excused himself by saying, "I was only in sport." The Duke replied, "A king has no right to indulge in such sports," and insisted that the younger lad receive the invest.i.ture and [Page 87]

emoluments. He was also, it is said, so careful of the sacred person that he never left on it the mark of his rod. When the little king deserved chastis.e.m.e.nt, the guardian always called up his own son, Pechin, and thrashed him soundly. One pities the poor fellow who was the innocent subst.i.tute more than one admires the scrupulous and severe regent. The Chinese have a proverb which runs, "Whip an a.s.s and let a horse see it."

What shall be said of the successors of Cheng-w.a.n.g? To account for the meagre chronicles of previous dynasties one may invoke the poverty of a language not yet sufficiently mature for the requirements of history; but for the seeming insignificance of the long line of Chous, who lived in the early bloom, if not the rich fruitage, of the cla.s.sic period, no such apology is admissible.

Some there were, doubtless, who failed to achieve distinction because they had no foreign foe to oppose, no internal rebellion to suppress.

Others, again, were so hampered by system that they had nothing better to do than to receive the homage of va.s.sals. So wearied was one among them, Mu-w.a.n.g, the fifth in succession, with those monotonous ceremonies that he betook himself to foreign travel as a relief from ennui, or perhaps impelled by an innate love of adventure. He delighted in horses; and, yoking eight fine steeds to his chariot, he set off to see the world. A book full of fables professes to record the narrative of his travels. He had, it says, a magic whip which possessed the property of compressing the surface of the earth into a small s.p.a.ce. To-day Chinese envoys, with steam and [Page 88]

electricity at command, are frequently heard to exclaim: "Now at last we have got the swift steeds and the magic whip of Mu-w.a.n.g."

Two other kings, Li and Yu, are pointed at with the finger of scorn as examples of what a king ought not to be. The latter set aside his queen and her son in favour of a concubine and her son; and so offended was high heaven by this unkingly conduct that the sun hid his face in a total eclipse. This happened 775 B. C.; and it furnishes the starting-point for a reliable chronology. For her amus.e.m.e.nt the king caused the signal-fires to be lighted. She laughed heartily to see the great barons rush to the rescue and find it was a false alarm; but she did not smile when, not long after this, the capital was attacked by a real foe, the father of her injured rival. The signal-fires were again lighted; but the barons, having once been deceived by the cry of "Wolf," took care not to expose themselves again to derision.

The other king has not been lifted into the fierce light that beats upon a throne by anything so tragic as a burning palace; but his name is coupled with that of the former as a synonym of all that is weak and contemptible.

The story of the House of Chou is not to be disposed of in a few paragraphs, like the accounts of the preceding dynasties, because it was preeminently the formative period of ancient China; the age of her greatest sages, and the birthday of poetry and philosophy.

I shall therefore devote a chapter to the sages and another to the reign of anarchy before closing the Book of Chou.

[Page 89]

CHAPTER XVII

THE SAGES OF CHINA

_Confucius--Describes Himself as Editor, not Author--"Model Teacher of All Ages"--Mencius--More Eloquent than his Great Master--Lao-tse, the Founder of Taoism_

I shall not introduce the reader to all who justly bear the august t.i.tle of sage; for China has had more and wiser sages than any other ancient country. Some of them may be referred to in the sequel; but this chapter I shall devote chiefly to the two who by universal consent have no equals in the history of the Empire--Confucius and Mencius. These great men owe much of their fame to the learned Jesuits who first brought them on the stage, clad in the Roman toga, and made them citizens of the world by giving them the euphonious names by which they are popularly known. Stripped of their disguise they appear respectively as K'ung Fu-tse and Meng-tse. Exchanging the _ore rotunda_ of Rome for the sibillation of China, they never could have been naturalised as they are now.

CONFUCIUS

Born in the year 549 B. C., Confucius was contemporaneous with Isaiah and Socrates. Of a respectable but not opulent family he had to struggle for his [Page 90]

education--a fact which in after years he was so far from concealing that he ascribed to it much of his success in life. To one who asked him, "How comes it that you are able to do so many things,"

he replied, "I was born poor and had to learn." His schoolmasters are unknown; and it might be asked of him, as it was of a greater than Confucius, "How knoweth this man letters, having never learned?"

Of his self-education, which continued through life, he gives the following concise account: "At fifteen I entered on a life of study; at thirty I took my stand as a scholar; at forty my opinions were fixed; at fifty I knew how to judge and select; at sixty I never relapsed into a known fault; at seventy I could follow my inclinations without going wrong." Note how each stage marks an advance towards moral excellence. Mark also that this pa.s.sage gives an outline of self-discipline. It says nothing of his books or of his work as a statesman and a reformer.

He is said to have had, first and last, three thousand disciples.

Those longest under instruction numbered twelve. They studied, not with lectures and textbooks, as in modern schools, but by following his footsteps and taking the impress of his character, much as Peter and John followed the steps and studied the life of Christ.

Some of them followed Confucius when, bent on effecting a political as well as an ethical reform, he travelled from court to court among the petty princ.i.p.alities. They have placed it on record that once, when exposed to great peril, he comforted them by saying, "If Heaven has made me the depositary of these teachings, what can my enemies do against [Page 91]

me?" n.o.bly conscious of a more than human mission, so pure were his teachings that, though he taught morals, not religion, he might fairly, with Socrates, be allowed to claim a sort of inspiration.

The one G.o.d, of whom he knew little, he called Heaven, and he always spoke of Heaven with the profoundest reverence. When neglected or misunderstood he consoled himself by saying, "Heaven knows me."

During a serious illness a disciple inquired if he should pray for him, meaning the making of offerings at some temple. Confucius answered, "I have long prayed," or "I have long been in the habit of praying."

In letters he described himself as an "editor, not an author,"

meaning that he had revised the works of the ancients, but had published nothing of his own. Out of their poetry he culled three hundred odes and declared that "purity of thought" might be stamped on the whole collection. Into a confused ma.s.s of traditional ceremonies be brought something like order, making the Chinese (if a trifle too ceremonious) the politest people on earth. Out of their myths and chronicles he extracted a trustworthy history, and by his treatment of vice he made princes tremble, lest their heads should be exposed on the gibbet of history. He gave much time to editing the music of the ancients, but his work in that line has perished. This, however, cannot be regarded as a very great loss, in view of the rude condition in which Chinese music is still found. However deficient his knowledge of the art, his pa.s.sion for music was extraordinary.

After hearing a fine performance "he was unable for [Page 92]

three months to enjoy his food." A fifth task was the editing of the _Yih-King_,[*] the book of divination compiled by Wen-w.a.n.g.

How thoroughly he believed in it is apparent from his saying, "Should it please Heaven to grant me five or ten years to study this book, I would not be in danger of falling into great errors." He meant that he would then be able to shape his conduct by the calculation of chances.

[Footnote *: This and the preceding are the Five Cla.s.sics, which, like the five books of Moses, lie at the root of a nation's religion and learning.]

Great as were his labours in laying the foundation of literary culture, the impression made by his personal intercourse and by his collected sayings has been ten-fold more influential. They form the substance of the Four Books which, from a similar numerical coincidence, the Chinese are fond of comparing with our Four Gospels.

Confucius certainly gives the Golden Rule as the essence of his teaching. True, he puts it in a negative form, "Do not unto others what you would not have them do to you"; but he also says, "My doctrine is comprehended in two words, _chung_ and _shu_."

The former denotes fidelity; the latter signifies putting oneself in the place of another, but it falls short of that active charity which has changed the face of the world.

It were easy to point out Confucius' limitations and mistakes; yet on the whole his merits were such that his people can hardly be blamed for the exaggerated honours which they show to his memory.

They style him the "model teacher of all ages," but they do not invoke him as a tutelary deity, nor do they represent [Page 93]

him by an image. Excessively honorific, their worship of Confucius is not idolatry.

MENCIUS

A hundred years later Mencius was born, and received his doctrine through the grandson of the Sage. More eloquent than his great master, more bold in rebuking the vices of princes, he was less original. One specimen of his teaching must suffice. One of the princes asking him, "How do you know that I have it in me to become a good ruler?" he replied, "I am told that, seeing the extreme terror of an ox that was being led to the altar, you released it and commanded a sheep to be offered in its stead. The ox was before your eyes and you pitied it; the sheep was not before your eyes and you had no pity on it. Now with such a heart if you would only think of your people, so as to bring them before your eyes, you might become the best of rulers."

Mencius lost his father in his infancy, but his mother showed rare good sense in the bringing up of her only child. Living near a butcher, she noticed that the boy mimicked the cries of the pigs.

She then removed to the gate of a cemetery; but, noticing that the child changed his tune and mocked the wailing of mourners, she struck her tent and took up her abode near a high school. There she observed with joy that he learned the manners and acquired the tastes of a student. Perceiving, however, that he was in danger of becoming lazy and dilatory, she cut the warp of her web and said, "My son, this is what you are doing with the web of life."

[Page 94]

The tomb of each of these sages is in the keeping of one of his descendants, who enjoys the emoluments of a hereditary n.o.ble. Mencius himself says of the master whom he never saw, "Since men were born on earth there has been no man like Confucius."

LAO-TSE

I cannot close this chapter without a word or two on Lao-tse, the founder of Taoism. He bore the family name of _Li_, "plum-tree,"

either from the fact that his cottage was in a garden or possibly because, like the Academics, he placed his school in a grove of plum-trees. The name by which he is now known signifies "old master,"

probably because he was older than Confucius. The latter is said to have paid him a visit to inquire about rites and ceremonies; but Lao-tse, with his love of solitude and abstract speculation, seems not to have exerted much influence on the mind of the rising philosopher. In allusion to him, Confucius said, "Away from men there is no philosophy--no _tao_."

Less honoured by the official cla.s.s, Lao-tse's influence with the ma.s.ses of China has been scarcely less than that of his younger rival. Like the other two sages he, too, has to-day a representative, who enjoys an official status as high priest of the Taoist sect.

Chang Tien-shi dwells in a stately palace on the summit of the Tiger and Dragon Mountain, in Kiangsi, as the head of one of the three religions. But, alas! the sublime teachings of the founder of Taoism have degenerated into a contemptible mixture of jugglery and witchcraft.