ART. 448. The lower soon resemble the upper classes. 449. Importance of propriety and education to the life of the state. 450. The education of the people therefore characterises the government. 451. An uneducated people is useless even for war. 452. The result of education is prosperity. (b.) Schools. 453. Of several kinds-boarding, military, elementary, and 464. Levelling downward by compromises is to be rejected. 465. The ideal is to be held firmly. 466. Instruction gives ideas, but not the ability to carry them out. 467. The farther education of life. 468. Nominal enlightenment. (e.) Music. Its Philosophic Conception. 469. Its nature is joy. 470. Its influence perfects the national life-social harmony. 471. By his music one learns the virtue of the sovereign. 476. Ancient and modern music are equal. 477. Discussion concerning the old bell. CHAP. III.-THE NATIONAL DEFENCES. (a.) Firmness at Home. 478. Party strife is the ruin of the state. 479. Not fortified towns but law-abiding moral order affords protection. 480. A government which is active in doing good has nothing to fear. 481. The state must in every way receive teaching. (b.) Defences against External Foes. 482. External foes and calamities serve to vivify the state. 483. In danger the sovereign must either flee immediately or make a firm stand, even to death. 484. Defensive measures. (c.) War. 485. Lust of conquest will not prosper. 486. War hinders the increase of population. 487. A war of conquest is really manslaughter. 488. It disturbs the balance of power between states. 489. Annexation should only be when the inhabitants are favourable. 490. Even a war of punishment may be avoided. 491. War is generally to be deprecated. CHAP. IV.-HOME POLITICS. (a.) Identity of Interest of both Government and People. 492. The governing and the laws are for the welfare of the people. ᎪᎡᎢ. 493. The people the chief consideration in the state. 494. Therefore the destitute must be cared for. 495. The old to be nourished. 496. Help to be distributed to the people when necessary. 497. General sympathy. 498. Reciprocity on part of the people. 499. Means by which the government may win the people's love. 500. Service to individuals is to be deprecated. 501. The use to be made of the people. 502. Prosperity shared with the people. 503. Rejoicing with the people. 504. The contrast to this when the pleasure of the monarch is treated as a crime in the people. 505. Sympathy in joy and sorrow. 506. Enjoyment of beauty with the people. (b.) The Political Factors. 507. The state organisation in its constituent parts. The individual forms its basis. 508. Great families. 509. Conservative elements. 510. Faithful officials. 511. Harmonious interaction of upper and lower classes. 514. Alternations of order and discord are unavoidable. THE MIND OF MENCIUS. Book I. THE ELEMENTS OF MORAL SCIENCE. PART I.-CONCERNING PROPERTIES. CHAPTER I. MAN'S ESSENTIAL NATURE. (a.) The Idea Defined. 1 1. "IT is only from phenomena that the world draws its conclusions;" it fails to apprehend their causes or fundamental realities 1 (p. 207). But, unfortunately, it often happens that delusive inferences are drawn from the facts observed, and thus false conclusions are arrived at instead of the truth.2 2. Kaou, one of the philosophers of that day, maintained that man's essential nature consisted in life. Mencius replied, "Is life, then, to be called the essential nature, just as white is called white?' Being answered in the affirmative, he continued, 'Is, then, the white of a white 1 The numbers in brackets throughout refer to the page in Dr. Legge's Chinese Classics-"Mencius." 2 Dr. Whewell has pointed out the difference between the ultimate causes of the facts themselves and the laws which govern the occurrence of phenomena generally in his "Philosophy of Inductive Sciences," ii. 260.-TR. feather like the white of snow, and this again as that of a gem?' Kaou again replied, 'It is.' Then, verily,' said Mencius, the nature of the dog is the same as that of the ox, and the nature of the ox the same as that of man (p. 272). It is well shown by the illustration that "life" as a definition is too universal, i.e., it is too comprehensive, and fails in the determination of characteristic differences. 3. Upon the same philosopher, Kaou, affirming that "the appetite for food and the sexual appetite constitute man's nature" (p. 273), Mencius vouchsafed no answer, for he did not consider the lower sensualism worthy of his attention. It was, indeed, already confuted by the simple fact that the sensual appetites and enjoyments are not the highest of which human nature is susceptible. The capacity for higher things is the characteristic of humanity.1 4. Mencius maintained, on the contrary (p. 348), "Form and beauty constitute our heaven-imparted nature; but one must first be a holy man, then can he manifest the (true) form." The external corresponds to the internal, at least in its main features. Man is no dualism of body and soul, but as man he possesses an essential unity of nature, even if his origin be dualistic. In Europe this fact has long been overlooked, that every organ of the body corresponds to some peculiar attribute of the soul, or, in other words, the body and the soul mutually condition each other. But in saying this we do not affirm the one to be the cause of the other. They are neither opposites nor are they identical, and neither are they the internal and the external of the same things. The Chinese fall into this latter mistake when avoiding the former. 5. Men have not various natures, but the nature of all |