Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 16.djvu/14

Rh M E N C I U S tudes were oppressed; the supplies of food and drink flowed away like water.&quot; It is not wonderful that, when the foundations of government were thus overthrown, speculations should have arisen that threatened to over throw what he considered to be the foundations of truth and all social order. &quot;A shrill-tongued barbarian from the south,&quot; as Mencius called him, proclaimed the dissolu tion of ranks, and advocated a return to the primitive simplicity, &quot;When Adam delved and Eve span.&quot; He and his followers maintained that learning was quackery, and statesmanship craft and oppression, that prince and peasant should be on the same level, and every man do everything for himself. Another, called Yang-chu, denied the difference between virtue and vice, glory and shame. The tyrants of the past, he said, were now but so many rotten bones, and the heroes and sages were no more. It was the same with all at death ; after that there was but so much putridity and rottenness. The conclusion of the whole matter therefore was &quot; Let us eat and drink ; let us gratify the ears and eyes, get servants and maidens, beauty, music, wine ; when the day is insufficient, carry it on through the night. Each one for himself.&quot; Against a third heresiarch, of a very different stamp, Mencius felt no less indignation. This was Mo Ti, who found the source of all the evils of the time and of all time in the want of mutual love. He taught, therefore, that men should love others as themselves ; princes, the states of other princes as much as their own ; children, the parents of others as much as their own. Mo, in his gropings, had got hold of a noble principle, but he did not apprehend it distinctly nor set it forth with discrimination. To our philosopher the doctrine appeared contrary to the Confucian orthodoxy about the five relations of society ; and he attacked it without mercy and with an equal confusion of thought. &quot;Yang s principle,&quot; he said, &quot;is each one for himself, which does not acknowledge the claims of the sovereign. Mo s is to love all equally, which does not acknowledge the peculiar affection due to a father. But to acknowledge neither king nor father is to be in the state of a beast. The way of benevolence and righteousness is stopped up.&quot; On this seething ocean of lawlessness, wickedness, heresies, and misery Mencius looked out from the quiet of his school, and his spirit was stirred within him to attempt the rescue of the people from the misrule and error. It might be that he would prove the instrument for this pur pose. &quot; If Heaven,&quot; he said, &quot; wishes that the kingdom should enjoy tranquillity and good order, who is there besides me to bring it about 1 &quot; He formed his plan, and proceeded to put it in execution. He would go about among the different kings till he should find one among them who would follow his counsels and commit to him the entire administration of his government. That obtained, he did not doubt that in a few years there would be a kingdom so strong and so good that all rulers would acknowledge its superiority, and the people hasten from all quarters to crown its sovereign as monarch of the whole of China. This plan was much the same as that of Confucius had been ; but, with the bolder character that belonged to him, Mencius took in one respect a position from which &quot; the master &quot; Avould have shrunk. The former was always loyal to Chau, and thought he could save the country by a reformation; the latter saw the day of Chau was past, and the time was come for a revolution. Mencius s view was the more correct, but he was not wiser than the sage in forecasting for the future. They could think only of a reformed dynasty or of a changed dynasty, ruling according to the model principles of a feudal con stitution, which they described in glowing language. They desired a repetition of the golden age in the remote past ; but soon after Mencius disappeared from the stage of life there came the sovereign of Ch in, and solved the question with fire and sword, introducing the despotic empire which has since prevailed. An inquiry here occurs &quot; How, in the execution of his plan, was Mencius, a scholar, without wealth or station, to find admission to the courts of lawless and unprincipled kings, and acquire the influence over them which he expected 1 &quot; It can only be met by our bearing in mind the position accorded from the earliest times in China to men of virtue and ability. The same written character denotes both scholars and officers. They are at the top of the social scale, the first of the four classes into which the population has always been divided. This appreciation of learning or culture has exercised a most powerful influence over the government under both conditions of its exist ence ; and out of it grew the system, which was organized and consolidated more than a thousand years ago, of making literary merit the passport to official employment. The ancient doctrine was that the scholar s privilege was from Heaven as much as the sovereign s right ; the modern system is a device of the despotic rule to put itself in Heaven s place, and have the making of the scholar in its own hands. The feeling and conviction out of which the system grew prevailed in the time of Mencius. The dynasties that had successively ruled over the kingdom had owed their establishment not more to the military genius of their founders than to the wisdom and organizing ability of the learned men, the statesmen, who were their bosom friends and trusted counsellors. Why should not he become to one of the princes of his day what I Yin had been to Thang, and Thai-kung Wang to King Wan, and the duke of Chau to Wu and Ch ang ? But, though Mencius might be the equal of any of those worthies, he knew of no prince like Thang and the others, of noble aim and soul, who would welcome and adopt his lessons. In his eager ness he overlooked this condition of success for his enter prise. He might meet with such a ruler as he looked for, or he might reform a bad one, and make him the coadjutor that he required. On the strength of these peradventures, and attended by several of his disciples, Mencius went for more than twenty years from one court to another, always baffled, and always ready to try again. He was received with great respect by kings and princes. He would not enter into the service of any of them, but he occa sionally accepted honorary offices of distinction ; and he did not scruple to receive large gifts which enabled him to live and move about as a man of wealth. In delivering his message he was as fearless and outspoken as John Knox. He lectured great men, and ridiculed them. He unfolded the ways of the old sage kings, and pointed out the path to universal sway ; but it was all in vain. He could not stir any one to honourable action. He confronted heresy with strong arguments and exposed it with withering sarcasm ; but he could work no deliverance in the earth. The last court at which we find him was that of Lu, probably in 310 B.C. The marquis of that state had given office to Yo-chang, one of Mencius s disciples, and he hoped that this might be the means of a favourable hearing for himself. So it had nearly happened. On the suggestion of Yo-chang the marquis had ordered his carriage to be yoked, and was about to step into it, and proceed to bring Mencius to his palace, when an unworthy favourite stepped in and diverted him from his purpose. The disciple told his master what had occurred, reproaching the favourite for his ill-timed intervention; Mencius, however, said to him, &quot;A man s advancement or the arresting of it may seem to be effected by others, but is really beyond their power. My not finding in the marquis of Lu a ruler who would confide