At the end of this period, he returned to his native country, where he henceforth only concerned himself with the education of youths and the writing of classical books, before passing away in 479 BC.
Some authors, especially Hans F.K. Günther (Die nordische Rasse bei den Indogermanen Asiens.922 J.F. Lehmanns, Munich, 1924), and Paul Neubert (Indogermanentum im fernen China? Konfuzius und seine Lehre vom Edlen Menschen923 ), have perceived Confucius as a descendant of one of the Indo-European invader families who contributed to the establishment of the first Chinese Kingdoms. Although this fact is obviously impossible to prove, it does acquire a certain plausibility when one notices the surprising similarity between the first Confucianist mindset and the most ancient European ethics.
The supreme being of Confucianism is the Sky (Tiān): ‘The Sky, the designer of beings, treats the latter in accordance with their actions. It supports those who stand upright and strikes down those that bow’. The ‘Sky’s decree’ (Ming) corresponds either to the Latin fatum or to fortuna — either to chance or to accident. The world order (Dao) is not a static one, but one of perpetual movement: ‘Upon reaching its own end, time undergoes a transformation. By transforming itself, time flows, and by flowing, it lasts’. The very meaning of this universal becoming lies in producing life.
The purpose of a rite (Li) is to update and re-create ancestral values. Due to its connection to institutions, it has both social and moral value.
Confucius, however, was not a formalist. He writes:
With more naïve virtues than manners, what you are is a lout. With more manners than naïve virtues, what you are is a prig. For it is a balance of manners and virtues that makes one a man of quality.
Into the heart of man, the Sky has instilled a natural sense for things that is intimately tied to man’s reason:
The best means to preserve the spirit is for one to temper and control one’s passions.
According to Master Kong, the basis of moral behaviour thus lies in one’s seeking of the golden mean. It is this very equilibrium, this ‘unvarying middle’ that allows man to attain the prevalence of what is best and to establish sovereignty within himself; for those that are neither masters nor sovereigns of their own accord are not subjects but, instead, objects, meaning ‘tools’ (k’i). It is, likewise, this equilibrium that teaches man to take responsibility for his own actions:
The archer shares a common aspect with the man of quality. When his arrow does not strike the centre of the target, it is within his own self that he seeks out the cause.
The Confucianist human model (Sheng-jen) is that of a man of quality rather than wisdom. His virtue (Te) corresponds to the Roman virtus, as well as to the virtù of the Renaissance. He displays courtesy, benevolence, self-mastery and loyalty and honours his commitments.
Confucius also contrasts the ‘noble’ man (Junzi) with the commoner (Hsiao-jen) — in this regard, aristocracy is given a moral definition. Mr Daniel Leslie924 writes:
There is a striking resemblance between the Chinese Junzi and the British gentleman. Both are of noble birth and must always engage in noble actions and social attitudes. Just as today the word “gentleman” no longer signifies a man that is born an aristocrat but rather one whose actions are noble and who is aware of the rules of politeness and property, so does the Chinese term “Junzi” depict a noble and cultivated man in The Analects.
Confucius’ line of thought is thus a purely aristocratic one. Mr Leslie explains:
In the context of the Analects (XII, 5), the phrase “within the four seas, all men are brothers” means that “all noble men are brethren”.
The Man of Quality
What matters to the superior man — the noble one, the gentleman, the man of quality — is, above all else, his magnitudo animi, his inner energy, his will:
One can rob an army of its general, but never a man of his own will.
Indeed, energy is what determines a man’s character and thus matters more than intelligence or strength:
It is not a horse’s strength which one appreciates, but its breed. (XIV, 35)
The one that reigns through character is akin to the North Star. While he remains in place, all the other stars revolve around him. (II, 1)
The behaviour of any man of character is instantly recognisable:
A noble man is proud, yet not arrogant. On his part, the common man is arrogant, but not proud. (XIII, 26)
The noble man is calm and serene; the inferior man is ever agitated and worried. (VII, 36)
The noble man holds himself accountable:
He suffers for not having the qualities that he lacks, and not as a result of other men’s inability to recognise the ones that he does. … [He] never surrenders to any preconceptions. (IV, 10)
He surpasses others through his generosity and sense of responsibility:
The noble man cannot be recognised on the basis of the smallest things; yet he is able to bear the greatest responsibilities, unlike the inferior man, who cannot bear the latter, yet is readily recognisable on account of the smallest things. (XV, 33)
It is only a man of quality that can genuinely love and hate others. (IV, 3)
Morality is founded upon jen, a term which designates what a man of quality preserves in an unalterable state, regardless of the situation. Confucius defines it as the very essence of generosity (the humanitas of the Ancients), honour and sincerity (XVII, 6; in this respect, one thinks of the second book of the Bhagavad Gita, where Krishna speaks to Arhuna from within the inner core of his being, purusha, which, despite all the tragedies and outer erring ways, remains ever identical to itself).
Should the man of quality abandon jen, how could he fulfil the requirements of that name? A man of quality does not, even for the space of a single meal, act contrary to virtue. In times of anger and irritation, and in the face of perils and tempests, he remains steadfast, never wavering. (IV, 5)
Another major Confucian virtue is sincerity. It is not, however, connected to the notion of an abstract sort of truth, as is the case in the West. As remarked by Marcel Granet, what it designates is rather ‘the soul’s complete adhesion to the accomplishment of conventional gestures through which the individual collaborates with universal order’. There is, additionally, no conflict between justice and charity. Master Kong was once asked, ‘What is your view of returning good for evil?’; to which he replied:
And how would you respond to a good deed, then? No, one must return justice for evil and good for good. (XIV, 36)
One must simultaneously remain faithful to the principles of nature (zhong) and see to it that these very same principles are benevolently applied to others (shu):
Loyalty towards oneself and humaneness towards others — that is all. (IV, 15)
A pronounced conception of duty crowns this edifice:
Tsze-lû said, “Does the superior man esteem valour most?” To which the Master responded, “The superior man holds duty to be of highest importance”.
It is towards oneself that one has duties:
What the man of quality demands, he demands of himself. What the common man demands only concerns others. (XV, 20)
These qualities bear no connection to any sort of renouncement. To Confucius, jen is not the trademark of a ‘wise man’ seeking to withdraw from the world, but that of the man of quality who plays a creative role. A man of quality is, first and foremost, a man of action. Master Kong describes him as being ‘slow in his speech, quick in his action’ (IV, 24), as someone who dreads the dishonour of having his words reach further than his actions (V, 4 and 24; XIV, 29) and ‘dislikes the thought of leaving this world without having distinguished himself’ (XV, 19).
Duty as the very foundation of existence, elegance in one’s actions, modesty in speech, loyalty in one’s behaviour — verily, that is what makes a man superior. (XV, 17)
The Confucian thought keeps all jargon at bay. In it, we encounter the Chinese taste for parables, precise symbo
ls, and specific examples. What Confucius cultivates is a sort of ‘piety of vital transcendence’, a ‘religion of reality’ (H. Mandel). Dismissing all dogmatic speculation, what he proposes is an ideal that is clearly part of this world. This is how he defines wisdom: ‘To dedicate oneself to one’s duties towards men and to honour both demons and gods while keeping one’s distance from them’. When Tsze-lû asks him, ‘Do I have the right to wonder about the nature of death and immortality?’, he gives the following answer:
When one does not even know life, how is one then to know death?
This morality is not deduced from any kind of revelation. The Chinese, incidentally, have never managed to believe in the existence of a unique, personal God. They find the notion of a deity that differs completely from man difficult to conceive of. In their eyes, man is, in his relation to the Sky, more of a partner and an associate than a mere creature.
Joseph Needham925 writes:
The Confucians were interested in human society and what the West termed the “natural law”, meaning a rule of conduct in keeping with the real nature of man, to which the latter must thus conform. In Confucianism, ethical behaviour pertains to the very nature of the sacred, yet it is not divine nor bears any connection to divinity, since the presence of a creator God is completely unnecessary within this system. […] In it, the harmonious cooperation of all beings does not stem from the commandments of a superior authority (an authority that is external to the beings themselves) but from the fact that these beings are all part of a hierarchy of wholes that give shape to a cosmic and organic model and thus only abide by the (inner) commandments of their own respective natures. (La science chinoise et l’Occident. Le grand titrage.926 Seuil, 1973)
Rectifying the Denominations
In the Chinese tradition, man is a microcosm within a macrocosm — each of his actions has repercussions upon the entire universe. This explains why society must strive to attain the harmony that the cosmos seems to display and why the establishment of orderly social relations (Luen) requires a ‘rectification’ of everyday language. Hence the following principle: ‘To render denominations correct’.
What this doctrine of ‘denominational rectification’ implies is that all things must mirror the name that they bear. Indeed, names comprise a specific meaning that plays a normative role — it is because things are actually different that they bear different names. Men are, likewise, different from one another. They must therefore strive to carry out to the best of their abilities the duties implied by their own names and those of the ‘categories’ to which they belong. By behaving in such a manner, they justify those names, and it is only when the latter are ‘justified’ that the relations between men themselves, which thus find themselves clearly differentiated, can be regarded as corresponding to the universal harmony that acts as the world’s immanent law, namely the Tao.
Mr Etiemble927 explains:
If a father acts like a father, and a son like a son, all is well; should the son, however, swap denominations with his father and behave in a fatherly manner, just as the son of princess Nan-zi (Nan-tzu) did with his own mother, the result is incest, disorder, and crime.
The family is the basic cell of society: ‘Principalities are the foundation of the Empire, families the foundation of principalities and individuals the foundation of families’. Marriage is the result of natural inclination, allowing to ‘produce a descendance that remains in touch with the past’. Those who do not fulfil their familial duties, says the Shu King, are as criminal as any thief or rebel. The first of these duties is filial piety. It is exercised ‘in accordance with the principle of reason’ and requires one to espouse the cult of one’s ancestors, the glorification of one’s parents and the imitation of their virtues.
On the political level, ‘to govern is to rectify’, meaning to create a favourable atmosphere that would allow the people (Min) to ‘follow the right path’.
Master Kong’s fundamental idea is that the state is a natural form of communal life and that society, which is comprised of different and, therefore, unequal men, also constitutes a differentiated and hierarchised organism. This conception is part of a harmonious cosmic representation of the world.
The role of the prince is equally fundamental. To Confucius, the confidence which the people must have in their prince matters even more than the presence of food and the existence of an army (XII, 7):
The virtue of a sovereign is akin to the wind, and that of little people to grass — the grass must bow to the passing wind. “The firmament revolves around the North Star, which remains fixed. Thus must the Empire revolve around the sovereign, driven by his influence”. “What the heart is to the body, the prince must be to the people”.
Yet it is not sheer despotism that we are referring to. So as to justify his own ‘name’, the prince must prove that he is endowed with more jen than his subjects. His authority is, above all else, exercised through example, and it is upon this example that the people’s good or bad behaviour depends:
To govern through punishment and decrees is to render the people evasive and devoid of any sense of shame. To rule through strength of character and found order upon ethics is to render people conscientious and to drive them upon the path of righteousness. (II, 3)
Wise men fulfil a critical function of their own. Whenever necessary, a wise man will call his prince to order, no matter the price:
If you (the prince) did not covet things yourself, people would not surrender to theft.
Throughout Chinese history, many an educated person has declared himself ‘ready to die in order to exercise the privilege of reminding the powerful that they must govern for the good of the lesser lords, the Xiao Ren’ (Etiemble).
The Rival Beliefs of Mohism, Taoism and Legalism
As Master Kong’s lay dying, his disciples suggested that sacrifices be celebrated in his honour; to which he proudly responded, ‘Long has my prayer been said’.
Following his death, they mourned him for three whole years, as though he were their father. Next, they went on to create the very first ‘disciples of disciples’ schools, which were to produce countless generations of lettered men.
During the last few centuries that preceded the founding of the Chinese Empire per se, Confucius’ doctrine only represented a school among many others, one that had to compete with, and even defend itself against, several rival beliefs.
First, Confucianism had to cross swords with Mohism. The latter school’s founder, Mo Ti (also known as Mo-tzu, Master Mo), lived in the 5th century BC. The leader of a sort of warrior phalanstery, he was hostile to the feudal system and supported a purely utilitarian morality, rising up against the doctrine of virtues (considered ‘discriminatory’) and criticising the significance which Confucius attached to both fine arts and individual happiness.
Looking favourably upon the establishment of an egalitarian, pacifistic, yet highly militarised republic under the authority of a tyrant, what he preached was universal love (kien ngai) and equality in property repartition (kien li), a fact that has led many to regard him as a precursor of both socialism and Christian egalitarianism.
Unlike the Mohists, the Taoists reproached the Confucians for their excessive commitment to mundane affairs, proposing that one passively submit instead to nature’s dialectic, in accordance with the ‘every man for himself’ formula.
Disuniting man’s own environment so as to contrast the two terms that refer to it, namely nature and society, Taoism advocates a sort of spiritual nihilism, one that entails the dissolution of social ties and a joyous submission to a fate which man could never be in a position to influence. Man thus becomes pure nature — society is bad, and the notion of Tao (‘the path of nature’) replaces divinity. There is a certain universalistic, anti-cultural and anti-statist ideal connected to this belief, an ideal which demands that good be returned for evil, that the differences between men be abolished and that one merges into all that exists by depersonalis
ing themselves.
This doctrine, which has often degenerated into superstitious practice, found its mystic and metaphysical expression in Lao Tzu’s Tao Te Ching (‘The Way and Virtue’) and is sometimes reminiscent of a Rousseauian type of philosophy.
On its part, legalism appears to be rather a mixture of Machiavellian theses and the theories of the Prussian state. Just like Mohism, it aspires to replace familial morality and tradition with the laws of royalty and the feudal regime with a centralised system of virtually limitless power. In no way does it, however, draw inspiration from a concern to establish equality. Its principal representatives are Wei Yang Gongsun (Wei Yang)928 and Yen Wen Tzu,929 both of whom lived in the 4th century BC, as well as Han Fei Zi,930 who was born around 280 BC and died in 233 BC.
Mencius and Qin Shi Huang
The Analects only mention the names of approximately twenty of Confucius’ disciples. These names were subsequently engraved inside Chinese temples and arranged in an order that was decided on once and for all during the 12th century of our era. The four most important ones are Yan Hui, Confucius’ favourite disciple, who died at the height of his youth; Zeng Shen, also known as Zengzi; Kong Ji, the Master’s grandson; and Meng Ke or Mengzi, whose name was Latinised as Mencius.
Originally from Shandong (Zi prefecture), the philosopher and writer Mencius (372 BC–289 BC) applied himself most specifically to the renewal and completion of Master Kong’s work. He insisted on the significance of political economy, proposing, in particular, a rather judicious system of both individual and collective tenure. He also stressed the Confucian belief in man’s good nature, directing it towards Taoism to some extent and considering it to be the distinctive mark of our species compared to other living beings.
Controversies and Viewpoints Page 39
