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Rh sympathy with power than with weakness, and would overlook wickedness and oppression in authority rather than resentment and revenge in men who were suffering from them. He could conceive of nothing so worthy of condemnation as to be insubordinate. Hence he was frequently partial in his judgments on what happened to rulers, and unjust in his estimate of the conduct of their subjects. In this respect he was inferior to Mencius his disciple.

I have written these sentences about Confucius with reluctance, and from the compulsion of a sense of duty. I have been accused of being unjust to him, and of dealing with him inhumanly. Others have said that I was partial to him, and represented his character and doctrines too favourably. The conflicting charges encourage me to hope that I have pursued the golden Mean, and dealt fairly with my subject. My conscience gives no response to the charge that I have been on the lookout for opportunities to depreciate Confucius. I know on the contrary that I have been forward to accord a generous appreciation to him and his teachings. But I have been unable to make a hero of him. My work was undertaken that I might understand for myself, and help others to understand, the religious, moral, social, and political condition of China, and that I might see and suggest the most likely methods of accomplishing its improvement. Nothing stands in the way of this improvement so much as the devotion of its scholars and government to Confucius. It is he who leads them that causes them to err and has destroyed the way of their paths.

5. The above sentence leads me to the last point on which I proposed to touch in this section,—the influence which the Ch‘un Ts‘ëw has had on the successive governments of China and on the Chinese people at large. And here I will be brief.

A great part of the historical literature of the country continues still to be modelled after our Classic and the Chuen of Tso. Immediately after the Chow dynasty the name of Ch‘un Ts‘ëw was given to a species of Work having little affinity with that of Confucius. We have the Ch‘un Ts‘ëw of Leu Puh-wei, the chief minister of Ts‘in, Luh Këa's Ch‘un Ts‘ëw of Ts‘oo and Han, and many others, which were never held in great repute. In the after Han dynasty, however, 51]