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CONFUCIUS

Confucius (Kong Fu-tse) was an ancient Chinese philosopher. He was born around 551 BC at Shantung province and died around 479 BC. His father, Shuh-liang-heih, who was of royal descent, died when Confucius was three years old, and the boy was reared in comparative poverty by his mother, Ching-tsai. At the age of seventeen he was made inspector of corn-markets, at nineteen he married, and after about four years of domesticity, in which a son and two daughters were born him, he commenced his career as a teacher.

In 517 BC he was induced by two members of one of the principal houses in Lu, who had joined his band of disciples, to visit the capital with them, where he had interviews with Lao-tse, the founder of Taoism. Though temporarily driven from Lu to Tsi by a revolution, he soon returned thither with an increasing following, and at the age of fifty-two was made chief magistrate of the city of Chung-too. So striking a reformation was effected by him that he was chosen for higher posts, became minister of crime, and with the aid of two powerful disciples elevated the state of Lu to a leading position in the kingdom. Its marquis, however, soon after gave himself up to debauchery, and Confucius became a wanderer in many states for thirteen years. In 483 he returned to Lu, but would not take office. The deaths of his favourite disciples Yen Hwin and Tse-lu in 481 and 478 did much to further his own, which took place in about 479.

Confucius left no work detailing his moral and social system, but the five canonical books of Confucianism are the Yih-king, the Shu-king, the Sbi-king, the Le-king, and the Ghun-tsien, with which are grouped the 'Four Books', by disciples of Confucius, the Ta-heo or Great Study, the Chung-Yung or Invariable Mean, the Tun-yu or 'Philosophical Dialogues', and the Hi-tse, written by Meng-tse or Mencius. The teaching of Confucius has had, and still has, an immense influence in China. All his teaching was devoted to practical morality and to the duties of man in this world in relation to his fellow-men; in it was summed up the wisdom acquired by his own insight and experience, and that derived from the teaching of the sages of antiquity.
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