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Rh principles of benevolence and righteousness, carried out with courtesy and in accordance with the rules of propriety, should have produced, we find the States biting and devouring one another, while the large and strong oppressed and absorbed the small and weak. In the Chuen on IX. xxix. 7, during a dispute at the court of Tsin on some encroachments which Loo had made on the territory of K‘e, an officer reminds the marquis of what Tsin itself had done in the same way. 'The princes,' said he, 'of Yu, Kwoh, Tsëaou, Hwah, Hoh, Yang, Han, and Wei were Kes, and Tsin's greatness is owing to its absorbing of their territories. If it had not encroached on the small States, where would it have found territory to take? Since the times of Woo and Hëen, we have annexed many of them, and who can call us to account for what we have done?' The fact was that Might had come to take the place of Right; and while statesmen were ever ready to talk of the fundamental principles of justice, benevolence, and loyalty, the process of spoliation went on. The number of States was continually becoming less, the smaller melting away into the larger. 'The good old rule' came more and more into vogue,

3. To ameliorate the evils arising from this state of disorder and anarchy, and to keep it moreover in check, there arose during the Ch‘un Ts‘ëw period the singular device of presiding chiefs,—the system of one State taking the lead and direction of all the others, and exercising really royal functions throughout the kingdom, while yet there was a profession of loyal attachment to the House of Chow. The seeds of this contrivance were sown, perhaps, at the very commencement of the dynasty, when the dukes of Chow and Shaou were appointed viceroys over the eastern and western portions of the kingdom respectively, and other princes were made, on their first investiture, 'chiefs of regions', embracing their own States and others adjacent to them. These arrangements were disused as the kings of Chow felt secure in their supremacy over all the States, and the nominees in the first instance had been sincerely loyal and devoted to the establishment of the dynasty; but now in the Ch‘un Ts‘ëw period the kings were not 114]