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 standard history of China, he placed himself first in the first rank of all commentators on the Confucian Canon. He introduced interpretations either wholly or partly at variance with those which had been put forth by the scholars of the Han dynasty and hitherto received as infallible, thus modifying to a certain extent the pre- vailing standard of political and social morality. His principle was simply one of consistency. He refused to interpret words in a given passage in one sense, and the same words occurring elsewhere in another sense. The result, as a whole, was undoubtedly to quicken with intelligibility many paragraphs the meaning of which had been obscured rather than elucidated by the earlier scholars of the Han dynasty. Occasionally, however, the great commentator o'erleapt himself. Here are two versions of one passage in the Analects, as inter- preted by the rival schools, of which the older seems unquestionably to be preferred :

Han. Chu Hsi.

Meng Wu asked Confucius Meng Wu asked Confucius

concerning filial piety. The concerning filial piety. The

Master said, " It consists in Master said, " Parents have the

giving your parents no cause for sorrow of thinking anxiously

anxiety save from your natural about their children's ailments." ailments."

The latter of these interpretations being obviously incomplete, Chu Hsi adds a gloss to the effect that children are therefore in duty bound to take great care of themselves.

In the preface to his work on the Four Books as explained by Chu Hsi, published in 1745, Wang Pu- clung (born 1671) has the following passage: "Shao Yung tried to explain the Canon of Changes by

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