Page:Sacred Books of the East - Volume 27.djvu/66

 satisfactoriness of the replies to the questions that are propounded. The principal idea indeed in the mind of the author, whoever he was, was that the rites were the outcome of the natural feelings of men, and that mourning was a manifestation of filial piety. The most remarkable passage is that with which the Treatise concludes, that the use of the staff was not to be sought in any revelation from heaven or earth, but was simply from the good son's filial affection. The way in which the sentiment is expressed has often brought to my mind the question of the Apostle Paul about faith, in Romans x. 6-8.

Like the last two Books and the two that follow, the Fû Wǎn is omitted in the expurgated editions. It is still shorter than the Wǎn Sang, and treats also of the mourn- ing rites, and specially of the dress in it, and changes in it, which naturally gave rise to questioning.

The writer, or compiler, often quotes from what he calls the Kwan, a name which has sometimes been translated by "Tradition." But the Chinese term, standing alone, may mean what is transmitted by writings, as well as what is handed down by oral communication. It is used several times in Mencius in the sense of "Record" and "Records." I have called it here "The Directory of Mourning." Wù Khǎng says rightly that the Book is of the same character as XIII; that the mourning rites were so many, and some of them so peculiar, that collisions between different rites must have been of frequent occurrence. The Fû Wǎn takes up several such cases and tells us how they were met satisfactorily, or, as we may think, unsatisfactorily.

The Kien Kwan is a Treatise on subsidiary points in the mourning rites. It is not easy to render the name happily in English. I have met with it as "The