Confucius has been called the invisible enemy of the Chinese Communists. How is it that a simple man, born more than 2,500 years ago, can strike such fear into the hearts of those who follow Mao Tse-tung?
K'ung Fu-tzu, or "Master K'ung," was not a great ruler. He never made any claim to divinity. His political career was a failure. Disciples were convinced of the rightness of his ideas but he was unable to win over those in positions of high authority. He was a wise man - a philosopher and sage - but his true greatness lay in the realm of morality. Both his life and his words have served as examples to men of goodwill since before the birth of Christ.
Most of the Communist charges against Confucius are vague. One, for example, maintains that "The reactionary ideology of Confucius still constitutes a great obstacle to social development." The why and the wherefore are rarely spelled out. This is the way of Chinese Communist propaganda. Those who are evil do not attack the essence of goodness; they hurl their weapons at its works and attributes. When the Chinese leftists first began to surface more than half a century ago, those who wanted to destroy the old raised the cry of "Beat down the Confucianist shop."
Much of the criticism consists of name calling. Confucius is described as a counterrevolutionary, idealist and revisionist. He is said to have used such beautiful words as benevolence, righteousness and morality while defending slavery and opposing feudalism, which Communists call "the newly emerging social force in his day." Confucius is only a symbol. The real target of the Communists is the human nature on which Confucianism is built. To defend their society of the anthill and their new Maoist man, the Communists must pull down all that has gone before - customs as well as beliefs.
Maoists have in fact been compelled to embrace the detested Ch'in Shih Huang, or First Emperor, and hold up the hated Legalists as the Marxists and Maoists of their day. Legalism is not the enthronement of law over men but a defense of tyranny. It was the First Emperor who buried the scholars alive and burned the books. So the Communists have said that "To rule the country with violence is an historical necessity." To Maoists, the fault of Ch'in Shih Huang was in not suppressing the counterrevolutionaries with greater severity. But who can believe that among the 800 million people of the Chinese mainland, Ch'in Shih Huang has been enthroned and Confucius thrown out as a common blackguard who was murderer as well as hypocrite?
Confucius is not fictional, although some of the stories which have grown up around him are half legendary. He was born in 551 B.C. in the small feudal state of Lu on the Shantung peninsula. He was given the name Ch'iu because his forehead had the look of a ch'iu, or mound. He was subsequently called Chung-ni, or Ni the Younger. He was only 3 years old when his father died and he was reared by his mother. The K'ung ancestors were probably members of the lesser aristocracy who had fallen on bad times. There wasn't enough money for a career of scholarship. Later, Confucius was to tell his disciples that he learned many things while young because there was so little money. He is said to have played games based on the ancient rites at the age of 6. This affection for ceremony was to remain with him through out his life. His most persuasive teachings were based on a society - largely mythical - which he believed sage kings had perfected before his time. By the age of 15, Confucius had embarked upon his lifetime search for knowledge. He was employed as a granary overseer in his home district and subsequently was placed in charge of the public fields.
At that time, sons mourned the passing of their parents for three years. In 528 B.C., he left public employment to express his grief for his mother. He studied history, literature and institutions, and began to win recognition for his teaching. In 518, the Duke of Lu sent him to Lo, the capital of Chou, to examine the relics of former imperial greatness. He came to venerate the House of Chou. Returning to his teaching, he attracted many outstanding young men as pupils.
Master K'ung was 52 when he entered the court of Lu. His rise was rapid but he was caught up in political intrigue and had to resign. For the next 14 years he wandered the civilized China of his time, visiting the capitals of feudal lords. He was followed by some of his students. Not until the age of 68 did he return to his native state. He resumed teaching and edited and recorded the ancient documents that provide the foundation of Confucianism. He died in 479 B.C. at the age of 73. Students built houses near his tomb. In time temples in his honor were built throughout China and in every land penetrated by Chinese culture. These are places of veneration rather than worship. Confucius never sought a place in the heavens.
Confucianism is not difficult to understand. It is based on humanism and sound human relationships. No metaphysical rewards are held out. The study of mankind is man himself. The way to morality and an ethical life lies through men who are good for the sake of goodness. To be good is to be right; to be right is to be good. The supreme virtue is jen, which has been defined as humanity, goodness, benevolence and love. The essential quality of jen is - Confucius said - courtesy, magnanimity, good faith, diligence and kindness. A world and a life style based on jen would be harmonious. Subsequent Confucians added other cardinal virtues - yi or righteousness and Ii or ritual (rule of propriety). Yet when all is said and done,jen (which combines "two" with "man") sums it all up. Jesus Christ said "God is love." Confucius said "Love men." If either were heeded, Utopia would be within man's reach.
Confucius said that the man of humanity would, when abroad, behave as an honored guest; when employing people, he would act as though officiating at the grand sacrifice. What he did not wish done to himself he would not do to others. He would be well regarded in the world, in the country and in his family. Those who live by humanity would sooner die than sacrifice jen.
How can the Chinese Communists be opposed to such virtues? How can they denigrate and persecute, as though he were living, a man so dedicated to love of mankind, to humanity and to many of the values for which the Communists themselves pretend to stand? The answer lies partly in the imperfectability of mankind The Chinese revered Confucius for 2,500 years. As an ethical system, Confucianism was more powerful in shaping Chinese lives than Buddhism or Taoism, the two great religions of China. How ever, Confucianism did not result in a perfect China. As Confucius unsuccessfully sought the sage king in his own time, those who came after searched futilely for another Confucius - or even for one man who could live up to Confucian precepts. Similarly, Christianity gave rise to saints but not to another Jesus.
Communism does not reject perfection. It merely insists that perfection can be attained only through total acceptance and submergence in the mass mind and the collective society - the dictator ship of the proletariat. The Chinese Communists try to go Confucianism one better. The Maoist man is a metaphysical Confucian. By believing in Communism, he can wave the magic wand which Confucius rejected and produce a new society of automatons. Communism is potentially perfect because the Communists say it is. There are no pragmatic tests such as those laid down by Confucius. The state of the Communists is omnipotent; it can do no wrong. The state of Confucius is human and fallible. The conscience of man is constantly required to right the wrongs of men.
Democracy as we know it did not exist in the time of Confucius. Men were ruled by kings and lesser noblemen. For Master K'ung, the best of all governments could not possibly have been the Republic; that concept had not been invented. This does not mean that Confucius glorified an elite, as the Communists pretend, and denigrated the common people. He advocated a good state that would be like the good family: paternally managed but with kindness and grace. These were the duties that he laid down for the ruler: to cultivate his own conduct, honor men of worth, love his kinsmen, respect competent ministers, show interest in the welfare of government officials, care for the people, promote useful crafts, show hospitality to strangers and extend the hand of friendship to neighboring states. The ruler had to be a man of jen and a chun-tzu, or gentleman, of good faith.
Confucius said of government:
- "To rule a state of a thousand chariots, there must be reverent attention to duties and sincerity, economy in expenditure and love for the people, working them only at the proper seasons. "
- "Govern the people by laws and regulate them by penalties, and the people will try to do no wrong, but they will lose their sense of shame. Govern the people by virtue and restrain them by rules of propriety, and the people will have a sense of shame and reform themselves."
- "The essentials (of good government) are sufficient food, sufficient arms and the confidence of the people." Asked if one of these could be given up, Confucius said arms could be yielded, and food, too. "Death has been the lot of all men since time immemorial," he said, "but a people without confidence is lost indeed."
- "If a prince himself is upright, all will go well without orders. But if he himself is not upright, even though he gives orders, they will not be obeyed."
- Those who serve in government should honor the five merits and banish the four demerits. These are the five merits: Generosity without extravagance, exaction of work without arousing resentment, desire without covetousness, dignity without arrogance and majesty without ferocity. Generosity without extravagance would lead the gentleman to "spend on what the people find advantageous. Let him work the people during the proper seasons. Who will be resentful? Let him long for jen and become jen-minded. How can he be covetous? Whether he deals with many people or few, with the small or with the great, he never presumes to be arrogant; is this not being dignified and not arrogant? When he is properly dressed and acts in a dignified way, he will inspire the respect of onlookers; is this not being majestic without ferociousness?" The four demerits are: "To put the people to death unjustly; this is cruelty. To require accomplishments without previous warning; this is tyranny. To delay orders and hasten their execution; this is oppression. To make offers but grudge to carry them out; this is the way of petty officials."
Mencius, who lived from 372 to 289 B.C., once said he wanted to live only so he could learn to be like Confucius. He developed and popularized the Confucian way in a lifetime of teaching and writing. Two thousand years before John Locke, Master Meng advocated - in his Mandate of Heaven doctrine - the right of the people to depose a wicked ruler. This statement of the right of just revolution was implied but never bluntly stated in the governmental philosophy of Confucius. Mencius said: "The treasures of the sovereign are three - territory, people and good administration. If he treasures pearls and jade instead, calamity is sure to befall him."
Of the Mandate of Heaven, Mencius said rulers or states which lost the people would themselves be lost. They would lose the people because they had lost the people's hearts. "There is a way to win the people: Win their hearts. There is a way to win their hearts: Give them what they like; collect from them according to their means; do not impose excessive levies. The people turn to a jen-hearted sovereign as water flows downward and as wild beasts flee to the wilderness. If among the present sovereigns of the world there was one who loved jen, all the other princes would drive the people to him. Even though he wished not to attain the kingly sway, he could not avoid it."
Communists are compelled to reject Mencius' counsel that "States have been won by men without humanity, but the world, never." He said: “An overlord (the chief among the feudal princes) is he who employs force under a cloak of humanity. To be an overlord one has to be in possession of a large state. A king, on the other hand, is he who gives expression to his humanity through virtuous conduct. To be a true king, one does not have to have a large state. T'ang (the founder of Shang) had only seventy Ii and King Wen (the founder of Chou) only a hundred. When men are subdued by force, it is not that they submit from their hearts but only that their strength is unavailing. When men are won by virtue, then their hearts are gladdened and their submission is sincere, as the seventy disciples were won by the Master, Confucius. This is what is meant in the Book of Odes when it says: 'From east and west, from north and south, came none who thought of disobedience.' "
Hsun Tzu, the third great Confucian, was born at the start of the third century B.C. and the close of the Chou period. He was the teacher of Han Fei of Legalist fame and of Li Ssu, the prime minister of the First Emperor. That might make Hsun acceptable to the Communists. But aside from his contention that men were naturally evil and had to be taught how to be good, his philosophy is in accord with Confucian precepts.
Hsun Tzu summed up the way of government like this: "When the horse is afraid of the carriage, the prince is not secure in his carriage. When the common people are afraid of the government, the prince is not secure in his position. When the horse is afraid of the carriage, there is no better way than quieting it; when the common people are afraid of the government, there is no better way than treating them kindly. Choose men of worth and merit, advance those who are sincere and reverent, and encourage filial piety and brother reverence; shelter the orphan and the widow and help those who are poor and in need; then the common people will be satisfied with the government. Only when the people are satisfied with the government is the prince secure in his position. It is said: The prince is like the boat; the people like the water. Water can support the boat, but it also sinks it."
A prince who wishes to be secure will provide just government and love the people. "If he wishes to have glory, there is nothing better than exalting Ii and respecting the scholars. If he wishes to have achievements and fame, there is nothing as good as honoring men of worth and employing those who are capable. Confucius once said: 'One who is right in both major and minor matters is a prince of the superior class; one who is right in major matters but sometimes right and some times wrong in minor ones is a prince of the middle class; if one is wrong in major matters, even though one may be right in minor ones, nothing can be achieved.' "
The just ruler spreads humanity, righteousness and authority throughout the world. Consequent ly, he is loved, honored and respected. He wins without fighting. He conquers without attacking. Hsun Tzu also found that despite his inherent evil nature, man could attain sagehood. "Suppose," he said, "a man on the street pursues knowledge and devotes himself to learning, by concentration of mind and singleness of purpose, thinking, studying and investigating, day in and day out, with persistence and patience. He ac cumulates goodness without ceasing, and then may be counted among the divinities. Sagehood is a state that any man can achieve by cumulative effort. Although most men do not become sages, that does not vitiate the possibility."
Communists must reject Confucius and the Confucians. Their preference is for Shih Huang ti, the First Emperor, and the Legalists who supported and sought to justify him. Shang Yang brought about the centralization of the state of Ch'in (from which China derives) in the years from 361 to 338 B.C. His contributions included a strict system of rewards and punishments, compulsory "productive" labor for everyone, and a system of mutual responsibility and mutual spying among the people. The old hereditary families were replaced by cadres whose rank and rewards depended mostly on military exploits. Centralization was the key to control. By 350, Ch'in was divided into 31 prefectures under officials of the central government.
The First Emperor came to the Ch'in throne as a youth in 246 B.C. By 221, Shih Huang-ti had created what he expected to be a universal and everlasting empire. Weapons were taken from the people. Only the soldiers of the First Emperor could bear arms. The hereditary aristocracy was collected at the capital. The centralized system of Ch'in was applied to the entire country with 36 (later 42) commanderies subdivided into pre fectures. Each commandery had a civil governor and a military governor plus an overseer who represented the central government and provided a balance wheel between the other two.
Thought control was exercised throughout the empire. In 213 B.C., Li Ssu set out to destroy the "old," as the Communists would say. The books were burned, except for those on medicine, divination, agriculture and the history of Ch'in. The Confucians and their philosophy were regarded as subversive - even as today in the China usurped by Communism. Scholars were gagged, banished and buried alive. The 'genuine contributions of the First Emperor to administrative centralization and efficiency were overshadowed by the destructiveness of his tyranny and the authoritarian teachings of the Legalists. The empire that was supposed to last for ten thousand generations survived the First Emperor by less than four years. It remained for the Communists to revive a system and a philosophy which the Chinese people have hated for more than 2,000 years.
Shang Yang and then the Legalists rejected the Confucian virtues of humanity and righteous ness. They were the precursors of the Communist pragmatists. Ideals had no place in practical life and politics, they maintained. War was openly advocated to strengthen the power of the ruler, enlarge the state and create a strong, disciplined and submissive people. Only a few years ago, Mao Tse-tung was urging nuclear war because main land China's large population would assure the most survivors. One of the most widely and frequently quoted of Mao's sayings is that power comes from the gun barrel. Legalists conceived of an authoritarian state little different from the Germany and Japan of yesterday and the Soviet Union and Red China of today. The central administration was to be all-powerful and individual freedom nonexistent. Agriculture was to be the basis of the economy, even as on the Chinese mainland of today, while commerce and intellectual pursuits were restricted. The living standard was to be at the subsistence level now prescribed by the Communists.
Han Fei Tzu sought to tear down Confucianism and make inhumane, self-seeking chattels of the people. Supposing that the poor and destitute were to be helped, he wrote: "It is the extravagant and lazy people who have become poor; it is the diligent and frugal people who have become rich. Now the sovereign would tax the rich to give to the poor. This amounts to robbing the diligent and frugal and rewarding the extravagant and lazy. It would be quite impossible then to expect the people to increase their exertion and reduce their expenditures."
Han Fei Tzu continued: "Now suppose there is someone who on principle would neither enter any city that is in danger nor join the army, and would not give a hair from his skin even to make a major contribution to the -world. The ruler of the time will respect him for this, honoring his wisdom, exalting his conduct and regarding him as a scholar who despises things but esteems life. The reason that the sovereign offers good fields and large pools, and establishes ranks and bounties, is to induce the people to be loyal unto death. But as long as the sovereign honors the scholars who despise things and esteem life, it will be impossible to expect the people to sacrifice their lives and be loyal to their sovereign to the death.
"Suppose there again is someone who collects books, practices the art of speaking, gathers a band of pupils, wears an appearance of culture and learning, and discusses the principles of things. The ruler of the time will respect him for this saying: 'To show respect to worthy scholars is the way of the ancient kings.' Now those who are taxed by the magistrates are the farmers, while those who are maintained by the sovereign are the learned gentlemen. As long as heavy taxes are collected from the farmers while rich rewards are given to the learned gentlemen, it will be impossible to expect the people to work hard and talk little.
"Again, suppose there is someone who holds fast to his principles and his reputation, and conducts himself so that none dares encroach upon his person. Whenever any reproachful word reaches his ear, he will draw his sword. The ruler of the time will respect him for this, regarding him as a self-respecting gentleman. But as long as the merits of beheading the enemy in war is not rewarded, while bravery in family quarrels is celebrated with honors, it will be impossible to expect the people to fight hard against the enemy but refrain from having private feuds.
"In time of peace the literati and the cavaliers are patronized; in time of war uniformed warriors are employed. Thus neither are the ones patronized the ones used, nor are the ones used the ones patronized. This is the reason why there is disorder.
"Furthermore, in listening to a learned man, if the ruler approves his words, he should officially adopt them in his administration and appoint the man to office; and if he disapproves his words, he should get rid of the person and put an end to his heretical doctrine. Actually, however, what is regarded as right is not officially adopted in the administration, and what is regarded as wrong is not stamped out as heretical doctrine. Thus what is right is not employed and what is wrong is not eliminated. This the way to chaos and ruin.
"When the sage rules the state, he does not count on people doing good of themselves, but employs such measures as will keep them from doing evil. If he counts on people doing good of themselves, there will not be enough such people to be numbered by the tens in the whole country. But if he employs such measures as will keep them from doing evil, then the entire state can be brought up to a uniform standard. Inasmuch as the administrator has to consider the many but disregard the few, he does not busy himself with morals but with laws."
Concluding that the ruler would have to look for wise, well-informed officials because "the intelligence of the people is not to be respected or relied on, Han Fei Tzu said: "The enlightened sovereign therefore employs a man's energies but does not heed his words, rewards men with meritorious services but without fail bans the useless. Accordingly, the people exert themselves to the utmost in obeying their superiors. Farming is hard toil indeed. Yet people attend to it because they think this is the way to riches. Similarly, warfare is a risky business. Yet people carry it on because they think this is the road to honor. Now if one could just cultivate refinement and learning and practice persuasion and speech, and thereby obtain the fruits of wealth without the toil of farming and receive ranks of honor without the risk of warfare, then who would not do the same? Naturally a hundred men will be attending to learning where one will apply his physical energies. When many attend to learning, the law will come to naught; when few apply their physical energies, the state will fall into poverty. That is the reason the world is in chaos."
In the disorderly state, he summed up, the learned will exalt the ways of early kings and make a show of humanity and righteousness (Confucianism). They will adorn their manners and clothes and embroider their arguments and speeches so as to scatter doubts on the law of the age and beguile the mind of the sovereign. The itinerant speakers will advocate deceptive theories and utilize foreign influence to accomplish their selfish purposes, being unmindful of the benefit of the state. The courtiers will congregate in the powerful houses, use all kinds of bribes and exploit their contacts with influential men in order to escape the burden of military service. The trades men and craftsmen will produce inferior wares and collect cheap articles, and wait for good opportunities to exploit the farmers. Should the ruler fail to eliminate such people, and should he not uphold men of firm integrity and strong character, then he can hardly be surprised if within the seas there should be states that decline and fall and dynasties that wane and perish."
The First Emperor's prime minister, Li Ssu, was involved in the machinations that got rid of Han Fei Tzu. This is Li's infamous Memorial on the Burning of Books: "In earlier times the empire disintegrated and fell into disorder, and no one was capable of unifying it. Thereupon the various feudal lords rose to power. In their discourses they all praised the past in order to disparage the present and embellished empty words to confuse the truth. Everyone cherished his own favorite school of learning and criticized what had been instituted by the authorities. But at present Your Majesty possesses a unified empire, has regulated the distinctions between black and white and has firmly established a position of sole supremacy. And yet these independent schools, joining with each other, criticize the codes of laws and instructions. Hearing of the promulgation of a decree, they criticize it, each from the standpoint of his own school. At home they disapprove of it in their hearts; going out they criticize it in the streets. They seek a reputation by discrediting their sovereign. They appear superior by expressing contrary views, and they lead the lowly multitude in the spreading of slander. If such license is not prohibited, the sovereign power will decline above and partisan factions will form below. It would be well to prohibit this.
"Your servant suggests that all books in the imperial archives, save the memoirs of Ch'in, be burned. All persons in the empire, except members of the Academy of Learned Scholars, in possession of the Book of Odes, the Book of History and discourses of the hundred philosophers should take them to the local governors and have them indiscriminately burned. Those who dare to talk to each other about the Book of Odes and the Book of History should be executed and their bodies exposed in the marketplace. Anyone referring to the past to criticize the present should, together with all members of his family, be put to death. Officials who fail to report cases that have come under their attention are equally guilty. After thirty days from the time of issuing the decree, those who have not destroyed their books are to be branded and sent to build the Great Wall. Books not to be destroyed will be those on medicine and pharmacy, divination by the tortoise and milfoil, and agriculture and arboriculture. People wishing to pursue learning should take the officials as their teachers."
Maoist linking of attacks on Confucius with those on Lin Piao (p'i-lin p'i-k'ung) has never been satisfactorily explained. The most logical reason is that Confucianism still lives on, basically undisturbed by Communism, in the hearts of the Chinese people of the mainland as well as among those who are free to admit the inspiration for their way of life. Lin Piao is dead and gone. He never represented anything except the ambition of one tyrant to overthrow and supplant another. He tried unsuccessfully to create a personality cult and so left followers only in the sense that some Communists might prefer anyone else to Mao and might wish to paper over differences with the Soviet Union. But in the Maoist view, Lin committed the supreme crime. He failed, and so becomes the only major contemporary target of hatred and abuse available to the Communists. Through the attack on Lin, it might be possible to get at Confucius.
Although Mao recognized Confucius as an arch enemy many years ago, he could never decide how to go about eliminating him. In 1945, he said that the Soviet Union was the Chinese Communist model but that not all of Chinese culture need be rejected. What was useful could be admitted to the new culture. It soon became obvious that Confucianism was not included. But no sooner was Confucius denigrated than he crept back into the culture of the Chinese mainland. At the start of the 1960s, daring holdover Confucianists dared to suggest that the Chinese history of philosophy indicated Marxism might be replaced by idealism (as materialistic philosophy was re placed by the Confucianism of Tung Chung-shu in the Han dynasty). That was enough for Mao. Scholars were told not to add Confucianisms onto the thought of Mao.
To the Chinese people, the Communist sanctification of Shih Huang-ti is in some ways more shocking and incomprehensible than the denigration of Confucius who, after all, has been subjected to unsuccessful attacks for some 2,500 years. Never before has the First Emperor's tyranny been defended. How can it be said that it was right to burn the books and bury the scholars? Shih Huang-ti has sometimes been given credit for his measures of unification and his attempts to eliminate the regional and provincial differences that stood in the way of China becoming one country. The Chinese people are proud of having a single written language. But they have never been proud of the Great Wall, which was built by slave labor and on the bodies of countless thou sands of the Chinese people. The Communists' motives are clear. Li Ssu, the First Emperor's first minister, said, "Times have changed" - words borrowed by Mao in demanding the destruction of the old to make way for the new. The burning of the books was to make sure that the people would no longer "oppose the present by invoking the old." This phrase of Li Ssu also has currency in the Chinese Communist phrasemaking of today.
Legalists have not been universally denounced in modem China. Some non-Communist scholars have gone back to Legalism as a source of the idea that laws should be placed above men. In the Republic of China today, the written law is important. The Constitution is a document of great dignity which binds all men. But there is a vast difference between the view of Legalism presented by those who believe in Chinese freedom and that of those who agree with Han Fei that "Power is the rule; to it nothing is forbidden." The Legalism of the First Emperor was a facade and excuse for total tyranny. The true rule of law must be tempered by equity - in other words, by the Confucian virtues. The Communists, whose legal system is whatever may be proclaimed at the moment, have admitted that their Legalism is intended to destroy Confucian culture. The new Chinese culture will be defined by Mao-unilaterally. The Communists showed where they really stand by comparing Shih Huang-ti to Robespierre, who also "ushered in a new period." The French later described that period as one of cruelty and terror. "Only Marxist-Leninists judge the period correctly," Red Flag declared.
The anti-Confucius movement is quieting down as 1975 draws to a close. Maoists are preoccupied with struggle for power, with the approaching deaths of Mao Tse-tung and Chou En-lai, with the resistance of workers and peasants to the termination of incentives, and with flare-ups of violence which trumpet the growing strength of anti-Communist forces. The Maoists have been discouraged by the failure of a campaign involving trillions of people-hours to dispose Confucius. For most Chinese, Confucianism is part of the flesh and bones and bloodstream. If Confucius were denigrated for a thousand years, the Chinese people would still reach out for a life based on his teachings.
The Chinese believe in combining the old with the new. Realistically, there isn't any other possibility. Things change; yet existence is not possible without the past as well as the future. Wang Fu chili (1619-1692), a neo-Confucian scholar who was loyal to the Ming but did most of his writing in seclusion under the Manchus of the Ch'ing dynasty, recognized the continuity of history and culture. "The most effective way of governing," he said, "is to examine the Book of History and temper its pronouncements with the words of Confucius. Surely nothing could be better than this. But the crucial point is whether the ruler's heart is reverent or dissolute, and whether his statutes are too lax or too harsh. Those who fall short are lazy, those who go too far do so from a desire to proceed too rapidly. The principal function of government is to make use of worthy men and promote moral instruction, and in dealing with the people to bestow on them the greatest humanity and love. Examining and selecting men according to principle, apportioning taxes and corvees with fairness, keeping order with arms, restraining with punishments, bringing order with statutes and precedents - these are the means by which all governments have achieved success."
Wang Fu-ehih went on to admit that neither the Book of History nor Confucius could provide all the necessary details. He noted that the wise man does not try to hand down laws for posterity, and that Confucius did not do so. The Confucian system provides the framework. Each age must fill it in with attention to what is right for today. The danger, Wang said, resided in those who would "try to upset all the established ways of the world and throw everything into panic by putting into effect some private theory derived from their reading." He could have been describing Marxism Leninism-Maoism.
The great truths of Confucianism cannot be destroyed by the Communists any more than by the First Emperor and his Legalists or the other tyrants who have come since. These are truths succinctly expressed in such teachings as these:
- "By nature men are pretty much like; it is learning and practice that set them apart."
- "Learning without thinking is labor lost; thinking without learning is dangerous."
- One word may serve as principle for the conduct of life: reciprocity. "Do not do to others what you would not want others to do to you."
- "It is man that can make the Way (of life) great, not the Way that can make man great."
- "Is there anyone who exerts himself even for a single day to achieve humanity? I have not seen any who had not the strength to achieve it."
- "The way of the good man is threefold.
Being humane, he has no anxieties; being wise, he has no perplexities; being brave, he has no fear."
- "You may be able to carry off from a whole army its commander-in-chief, but you cannot deprive the humblest individual of his will."
- "To govern is to set things right. If you begin by setting yourself right, who will dare to deviate from the right."
- "If a ruler is upright, all will go well without orders. But if he is not upright, even though he gives orders, they will not be obeyed."
- "Government is good when those nearby are happy and those far away are attracted."
Confucius is 2525 years old, yet his guidance is as fresh as tomorrow's dawn. He taught for all time because he imparted the eternal verities of a civilized humankind. His Great Commonwealth will grow and flourish long after Communism, which fears him more than any living enemy, has vanished from the earth.