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Rh so rich in detail are not to be credited;—the two centuries and a half become a blank. But it is impossible to rest in this view. The multitude of details which Tso gives makes him the principal witness in the case; but Kung and Kuh, greatly differing as they do from him in the style of their commentaries, very often bear out his statements, and are equally irreconcileable with the notices of the sage and the inferences which we naturally draw from them. How is it that the three men, all looking up with veneration to Confucius, yet combine to contradict him as they do? Kung and Kuh have their praise-and-censure theory to explain the language which the master uses; but we have seen that it is inadmissible, and it supplies no answer to the question which I have just put. And the mass of Chinese scholars and writers, for nearly 2000 years, have not scrupled to accept the history of the Ch‘un Ts‘ëw period given by Tso as in the main correct, maintaining at the same time their allegiance to Confucius as 'the teacher of all ages,' the one man at whose feet the whole world should sit, accepting every paragraph from his stylus as a divine oracle. The thing is to me inexplicable. There have been many times when I have mused over the subject in writing the pages of this volume, and felt that China was hardly less a strange country to me than Lilliput or Laputa would be.

3. The scholars of China are ready, even forward, to admit that Confucius in the Ch‘un Ts‘ëw often conceals the truth about things. On V. i. 6 Kung-yang says, 'The Ch‘un Ts‘ëw conceals [the truth] on behalf of the high in rank, out of regard to kinship, and on behalf of men of worth.' On V. i. 1 Tso says that it was the rule for the historiographers to conceal any wickedness which affected the character of the State. But this 'concealing' covers all the ground occupied by our three English words—ignoring, concealing, and misrepresenting.

[i.] The Ch‘un Ts‘ëw often ignores facts, and of this I will content myself with adducing two instances. The first shall be comparatively, if not quite, an innocent omission. The fifth Book, containing the annals of duke He, commences simply with the notice that 'it was his first year, the spring, the king's first month.' 40]