Page:The sayings of Confucius; a new translation of the greater part of the Confucian analects (IA sayingsofconfuci00confiala).pdf/24

 fication as will be found in this volume is absent. This is not necessarily to be regarded as a defect: jewels jumbled in a heap often have a charm which they lack when strung symmetrically into a necklace. The only danger is that unwary readers, looking in vain for a beginning, a middle and an end, may jump to the conclusion that Confucius himself was merely a master of casual apophthegms; they may very easily miss the connecting principles which serve to bind the Confucian teachings into one rounded system. Even the disciples seem to have been in danger of overlooking the whole in their admiration of the parts. It needed the penetration of Tsêng Tzǔ to tell them that the Master's Way was, after all, simple in its diversity, and might be summed up in two words: duty to oneself and charity to one's neighbour. Unhappily, owing to the misinterpretation of these important words, the beautiful simplicity of the Confucian doctrine has long passed unrecognised.

For what has been, and is perhaps even now, the prevailing conception of Confucius in the West? Does not the name conjure up in most minds the figure of a highly starched philosopher, dry, formal, pedantic, almost inhuman in the unimpeachable correctness of his personal conduct, rigid and precise in his notions of ceremonial, admirable no doubt in his sentiments, but always more a man of words than of deeds? He has