Page:Ch'un Ts'ew Pt I.pdf/56

Rh his , and, next, a judgment on the influence which it has had on the successive governments of China and on the Chinese people at large.

2. My readers have received, I hope, a distinct idea of the nature of the Work as made up of the briefest possible notices of the events of the time which it covers, without any attempt to exhibit the connexion between them, or any expression of opinion as to the moral character which attaches to many of them. I have spoken of the disappointment which this occasions us, when we address ourselves to its perusal with the expectations which its general reputation and the glowing accounts of it given by Mencius have awakened. We cannot reconcile it with our idea of Confucius that he should have produced so trivial a Work; and we cannot comprehend how his countrymen, down to the present day, should believe in it, and set it forth as a grand achievement.

If there were no other attribute but this triviality belonging to it, we might dismiss it from our notice, and think of it only as of a mirage, which had from the cloudland lured us to it by the attractive appearances which it presented, all vanishing as we approached it and subjected it to a close examination. But there are other attributes of the Work which are of a serious character, and will not permit us to let it go so readily. On p.13 I have applied the term colourlessness to the notices composing it, meaning thereby simply the absence of all indication of feeling or opinion respecting the subjects of them on the part of the writer or compiler. But are the things so dispassionately told correct in point of fact? Are all the notices really informing, or are many of them misleading? Is the very brief summary a fair representation of the events, or is it in many cases a gross misrepresentation of them?

In what I have said in the preceding sections, I have repeatedly intimated my own opinion that many of the notices of the Ch‘un Ts‘ëw are not true; and the proof of this is found in the contradictions which abound between them and the events as given in detail in the Chuen of Tso, contradictions which are pointed out in my notes in hundreds of cases. It may occur to some that the Classic itself is to be believed rather than the narratives of Tso and the other commentators on it. If we are to rest in this dictum, there is of course an end of all study of the Ch‘un Ts‘ëw period. From the Work of Confucius, confessedly, we learn nothing of interest, and now the relations of Tso which are 39]