THE 



POLITICAL PRINCIPLES OF MENCIUS 



BY 



FRANCIS C. M. WEI, M.A. 



SHANGHAI 

PRINTED AT THE PRESBYTERIAN MISSION PRESS 

1916 



FOREWORD 

It is with great pleasure that I undertake to write a 
Foreword to Mr. Wei s Essay. The pleasure arises first on 
personal grounds. I have watched the progress of Mr. Wei s 
education and work from the time he entered Booue Prepara 
tory School as a youth of fourteen. It is a great satisfaction 
to a missionary educator to observe the onward progress and 
development of his students, and he realizes something of 
St. John s feeling when he wrote, "Greater joy have I none 
than this, to hear of my children walking in the truth." 
Mr. Wei is a genuine son of Boone, and it is indeed a personal 
pleasure to me as President of Booue during the whole course 
of his education, to write this Foreword to his thesis. But 
my pleasure is more than personal. It is a matter of encour 
agement to see a Chinese Christian student engaged in such 
studies as are represented in this Essay. We hear a great 
deal about the need of a Christian Apologetic for China. 
Such an Apologetic will have to be written by Chinese 
students, and I think it will necessarily be by students who 
can read other books than those written in the Chinese 
language. To me it seems futile to talk for example about 
Chinese lecturing or writing on the subject of " The Compara 
tive Study of Religions" who can read only their own 
language. If we are going to compare anything we must at 
least have means of knowing the things we are to compare. 
The lack of literature dealing with such subjects in the 
Chinese language is well known and it will probably be a long 
time before this lack can be supplied. Hence arises the 
importance of our Chinese Christian young men having an 
acquaintance with Western literature, if they are to do any 
thing effectively towards supplying a Christian Apologetic. 
It has been thought by many that in order to obtain the 
necessary equipment young men must go abroad for study. 



This does not seem to me to be either necessary or the best 
way of equipping youug men to be the Origens of the Chinese 
Church. A long residence abroad seems to have the effect of 
causing young men to lose touch with the life and thought of 
their own people, and to lose interest in Chinese literature. 
A thorough knowledge of the latter is as essential for doing 
the work we have in mind as is a knowledge of Western 
literature. Mr. Wei is a competent Chinese scholar. Our 
missionary educational institutions are able to offer facilities 
for the study of Chinese which cannot be offered in foreign 
countries, while at the same time giving facilities for acquiring 
a sufficient education in Western subjects. I feel sure that 
the work Mr. Wei now sends forth to the public will meet 
with a hearty welcome. Some missonaries will recall Mr. 
Wei s previous thesis submitted for his B. A. degree and 
publised in the pages of the Chinese Missionary Recorder in 
the year 1911. We hope that further contributions will come 
from his pen which will help Chinese readers to a better 
understanding of the Christian religion, Western thought, and 
Western institutions, and which will also help foreign students 
of Chinese to realize that the Eternal Word, the candle of the 
Lord in the spirit of man has cast His bright beams of light 
upon the path of Chinese thought and civilization, thus 
preparing the way for His fuller manifestation in the rising of 
the Sun of Righteousness, when the Word was made flesh and 
tabernacled among us, giving to mankind, " the light of the 
knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ." 

JAS. JACKSON. 
BOONE UNIVERSITY, 

Trinity Season, 1916. 



PREFACE 

The treatise now presented to the public was originally 
a thesis written a year and a half ago in partial fulfilment of 
the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts at Boone 
University, Wuchang. 

Quotations from the text of Mencius as well as from other 
Chinese Classics are taken from Dr. I^egge s translation. 
As the present treatise may fall into the hands of many who 
either cannot have access to the oreginal Chinese or do not 
have sufficient time to spend on the Chinese Classics, the 
writer has thought it advisable to insert a large number of 
quotations. 

The writer wishes to acknowledge his indebtedness to 
the Rev. T. R. Ludlow, of Boone University, under whose 
direction all his work in the field of Political Science has 
been done : and to the Rev. E. Walker, who has been kind 
enough to read the manuscript and suggest improvements in 
its language. 

F. C. M. W. 

BOONE UNIVERSITY, 

Wuchang, June, 1916. 



CONTENTS 



PAGE. 
CHAPTER, I. Introduction... i 

II. L,ife of Mencius 3 

III. The Writings of Mencius 30 

IV. Mencius Teaching in General ... 35 
V. Mencius Conception of the State... 42 

VI. The Form and Organization of 

Government ... ... ... 56 

VII. The Functions of the State ... 74 

VIII. Conclusion 81 



TOPICAL ANALYSIS 



I. INTRODUCTION. 

Mencius as a classical philosopher in China. Mencius 
after the Chinese Revolution. 

II. LIFE OF MENCIUS. 

Name. Origin. Birthplace. Conflicting authorities with 
regard to the date of Mencius birth. Typical chronologies 
reviewed. Chronology adopted. Three Periods of Meucius 
life. Early years. Meucius relation to Tze Sze, Confucius 
grandson. Second Period, Period of Public Services. Political 
and moral conditions of his time. His attitude and aim. 
Mencius in the Principality of Wei. Mencius in the Princip 
ality of Ch i. Mencius return to L,u to bury his mother. In 
Ch i again. Decline of his influence with the Prince of Ch i 
and his departure. Mencius in the Principality of T ang. 
Mencius in Ch i the third time. Meacius invited to the 
Principality of Lu. His retirement. 

III. THE WRITINGS OF MENCIUS. 

Eleven Books or Seven Books. Traces of the Four 
Additional Books." Their validity. Authorship of the 
Seven Books. 

IV. MENCIUS TEACHING IN GENERAL. 

The whole system based on doctrine of man s nature. 
Process of developing man s own nature. Mencius and Bishop 
Butler. Social aspect of virtue. Relation of Ethics and 
Politics. Mencius intolerant spirit. Plan of the following 
chapters. 

V. MENCIUS CONCEPTION OF THE STATE. 

The state natural to man. Economical basis of the state. 
Three essentials of the state. Divine origin of the state. 



vin 

Divine right of the ruler. Government a trust from Heaven. 
Will of Heaven interpreted through the opinion of the people. 
Throne is hereditary only when so sanctioned by Heaven and 
approved by the people. Dethronement of bad sovereign and 
tyrannicide. Von populi vox del. Duty of a minister who is 
a relative of the sovereign. The Minister of Heaven. Men- 
cius doctrine vs. dernagogisrn. People the most important 
element in the state. Mencius democratic teachings. Men- 
cius state not a democracy. Nor a theocracy. But a monar 
chy similar to Plato s royalty. 

VI. FORM AND ORGANIZATION OF GOVERNMENT. 

Government based on economic needs. Compared with 
Plato s teaching. Meucius model government found in the 
Golden Ages of Yao, Shun, and the Three Dynasties. Men 
cius government a feudal monarchy. The nine-square 
division of land. Requisites of the " Imperial Government" 
not a large territory nor military force but a true sovereign 
assisted by true ministers. Character of the true sovereign. 
The virtuous minister. Four classes of ministers. Duties of 
the true minister. 

VII. THE FUNCTION OF THE STATE. 

Care of the people s physical well-being. Provision for 
the Four Classes of the Most Destitute. Education and its 
relation to the state. International politics. Mencius peace 
policy. National defence. 

VIII. CONCLUSION. 

Mencius logical method. Conservation but not dogmat 
ism. Confusion of morality and law. Little religion in 
Mencius teaching. Practical end of Meucius teaching. His 
great principles of permanent value. Sources of Meucius 
political ideas. Mencius influence on the history and actual 
politics of China. Applicability of Mencius political principles 
to China at the present time. The necessity of Christianity. 



CHAPTER I. 



INTRODUCTION. 

Mang-tze, better known to Europeans by his latinized 
name Mencius, occupies, in the minds of the Chinese, a posi 
tion next only to that occupied by Confucius. K ung and 
Mang are two names which always go hand in hand, and 
the expression K ung - MSng is one which signifies to the 
Chinese scholar the whole of the orthodox teaching of 
his country, and is everywhere received with the highest 
respect. 

Mencius was not a personal disciple of Confucius, but 
is always regarded as the chief expounder of his doctrines, 
and is worshipped in the Confucian Temples as one of the 
Four Assessors, being thus ranked with the two most illustri 
ous disciples and the famous grandson of the great sage of 
China. Indeed, Mencius relation to Confucius is of such 
importance that he has been aptly called the St. Paul of 
Confucianism. 

At the present time, when every thoughtful mind in 
China is more or less occupied with political questions the 
political principles of Mencius ought to receive the close 
attention which they deserve. Four years ago, when China 
had just emerged from the Revolution, and when her radical 
sons were intoxicated with the most extreme democratic ideas, 
many held the opinion that Mencius should be given the 
place of honour in place of Confucius. This was, of course, 
au~butcome of the radicalism of the time, and was never 
seriously considered by the sober-minded. But, at the same 
time, this opinion does testify to an important aspect of the 
teaching of Mencius, because his writings certainly do breathe 
a democratic spirit, and, in this respect, provide a great 
contrary to the ideas of his predecessor, Confucius. ; 



Mencius has left to the world no such systematic political 
treatise as Plato s "Republic" or Aristotle s "Politics," but 
a careful study of his works will enable us to say of his 
political opinions what Dr. L,egge says of his philosophy, 
even his great contemporaries in Greece Mencius could look 
in the face, and not need to hide a diminished head. 



CHAPTER II. 



LIFE OF MENCIUS. 

The name Mang-tze, according to Chati Ch i 1 , his first 
commentator, is composed of Mang 2 , the surname, and Tze 3 , 
the common designation of males. His personal name was 
K o 4 , but when grown up he was styled Tze-chii 5 or, accord 
ing to some authorities, Tze-yii 6 Chu and Yit being two 
characters in Chinese similar in meaning as well as in sound. 

Chau Ch i, in the preface to his commentaries, perpetuates 
the tradition that Mencius was a descendant of the Mang-sun 7 
family, one of the noble families in the principality of Lu 5 
during the Chau 9 Dynasty. This not only claims for him a 
noble origin, but makes him a descendant of kings, since the 
Mang-sun family sprang from a Duke of the Principality of 
Lu, who himself was descended from King Wen 10 , father of 
the founder of the Chau Dynasty. 

When the three powerful families of LU dwindled into 
insignificance, so continues the tradition recorded by Chau 
Ch i, their descendants were scattered among the neighbour 
ing states, and the Mang-sun family found its abode in Tsau 11 
where Mencius was born. Whether this Tsau was the Prin 
cipality of Tsau or the District Tsau in the Principality of 
Lu, is a disputed question, with learned scholars enlisted on 
both sides. The Principality of Tsau was adjacent to the 
Principality of Lu, and history records that Tsau was after 
wards absorbed by Lu. This, however, does not satisfy 
those who like to believe that Mencius was born in the same 
district as his master and prototype Confucius. To connect 
K ung and MSng by a common birthplace is an idea fondly 
cherished by many scholars, and Tsao Tze-sen s 13 argument 
upholding this view seems to be convincing and conclusive. 



tft 2 36. 3 *. 4 
. ii 12 W?f. 



As the issue of the question has more interest than real 
significance, the reader is referred to that interesting work 
of Tsao in Chinese, entitled " A Collection of Supplemental 
Observations on the Four Books. n " Suffice it to say that 
the birthplace of Mencius is generally believed to be in the 
Principality of Tsau, not the district of the Principality of 
I,u, known by the same name, and that it is now identified 
with the present District of Tsau in Shantung. 

The date of Mencius birth is also a matter of dispute. 
Different chronologies of his life are given by different scholars, 
each having his arguments to advance, and each having some 
important authorities to quote. When all of them are care 
fully examined and compared, one is almost at a loss to know 
which to follow. The Genealogical Register 11 of the Mang 
Family seems to be the authority upon which most of the 
current chronologies have been constructed. According to 
this authority, Mencius life covers a period of eighty-four 
years. The year of his death is put as the twenty-sixth year 
of the sovereign Nan 15 (288 B.C.), while the year of his birth 
is put as the thirty-seventh year of the sovereign Ting 16 (569 
B.C.). The latter date is evidently a mistake, and is aban 
doned by all scholars. The Genealogical Register is, however, 
generally taken as authoritative in regard to the fact that 
Mencius lived to the age of eighty-four years. Thus reckoning 
back eighty-four years from the twenty-sixth year of the 
sovereign Nan, the chronologers fix the fourth year of the 
sovereign Leih 17 (372 B.C.) as the date for Mencius birth. 

Of the chronologies constructed in this way, two are 
worth mentioning. One is by Hwang Bun-clii ls , a scholar of 
the Ching Dynast)-, and occurs in his book entitled " Records 
of Observations in the Laud of the Sage." 1 The other is by 
Tsao Tze-sen and is found in his work, "A Collection of 
Supplemental Observations on the Four Books." The latter 



. i5*. i63E. 17 fil 
18 



is closely followed by the celebrated translator of the Chinese 
Classics, Dr. James I*egge, in the Prolegomena to his transla 
tion of the Works of Meucius. 

According to Hwang s Chronology, Mencius came to 
Liang, the capital of the Principality of Wei, in the 33rd 
year of the sovereign Shien 20 (336 B.C.). and then had the 
conversation with King Hui 21 , the Duke of Wei, which is 
recorded in the first chapter of the Works. This date is very 
unlikely. In the 33rd year of the sovereign Shien, Mencius 
was only thirty-seven years of age, yet in the conversation 
above mentioned, he is addressed by the Duke as "Seou" 22 , 
"Venerable Sir," which is a form of expression only used 
when addressing a man of advanced age. 

There is another point in the chronology which appears 
to us to be an error. It is recorded that Mencius went to 
Wei a second time in the 44th year of the sovereign Shien 
(325 B.C.), when the new prince, known by the name of King 
Hsiang- 3 , succeeded his father, King Hui; and that he did not 
leave Wei till the 2nd year of the sovereign Shen Tsing 24 
(319 B.C.), thus making Mencius second stay in Wei extend 
over a period of several years, which is, in our opinion, far 
from being likely. We read in Book I of the Works of 
Mencius, that on coming out from an interview with King 
Hsiang, Mencius thus said to others : " When I looked at him 
from a distance, he did not appear like a sovereign ; when 
I drew near to him, I saw nothing venerable about him" 
(Bk I. Pt. I. Chap. 6.) This is too severe a criticism of the 
prince for Mencius to have made after his first interview with 
him. On the other hand, we are told by the chronology in 
question that Mencius lingered for several years in the 
country in spite of his dissatisfaction with the prince. It is 
hard to see how these facts can be reconciled with the cautious 
character of Meucius, and the chronology of the learned 



20 gj 3E. 21 , -f. . 22 ^. 23 g 3E. 24 tit HI 3E. 



author of the "Records of Observations in the Land of the 
Sage" is open to grave doubts. 

The chronology of Tsao Tze-sen also gives grounds for 
questioning its accuracy. According to this chronology, 
Meucius, at the age of forty-one, commenced his public career 
in the 37th year of the sovereign Shieu (332 B.C.) as a 
counsellor to the prince of the Principality of Ch i, with the 
rank of a minister. Thus Meucius went first to Ch i and then 
to Wei, although his conversation with King Hui of Wei is 
placed in the very first chapter of his works. The mere fact 
that his conversation with King Hui comes at the beginning 
of his works does not of course by itself amount to a disproof 
of his having gone to Ch i before Wei. Indeed, pains have 
been taken by enthusiastic scholars to show that this con 
versation was put as the first chapter, not because it was first 
in order of time, but because it was on the topic of benevolence 
and righteousness, a topic which the philosopher never failed 
to dwell upon and to emphasize in his conversations with the 
princes of his time. But it should be carefully noticed that in 
the 37th year of the sovereign Shieu, Mencius was according 
to the chronology in question only in his forty-first year, and 
yet he is said to have held the position of a minister. Consider 
ing the rigidity with which the ancient worthies in China 
tried to comply with the rules of propriety in all their actions, 
we should be surprised to find that Mencius occupied a 
position of the rank of a minister at the age of forty-one. 
The ancient rule was that a man should begin his career of 
public services in his fortieth year, but should not accept 
appointment as minister till he came to the age of fifty (The 
Book of Rites, Bk. V). It is true that Confucius took his first 
public employment as keeper of the granaries in the Princi 
pality of IvU, when he was only about twenty years old ; but 
this was an exceptional case, and the breach of the rule of 
propriety was allowed only by the pressure of poverty, when 
a low position of small importance might be taken. Thus 



Mencius himself says, "Office is not sought on account of 
poverty, yet there are times when one seeks office on that 

account He who takes office on account of his poverty 

must decline an honorable situation, and occupy a low one." 
Again, in reference of the same incident, Mencius says, 
" Confucius was once keeper of stores, and he then said, My 
calculations must all be right. That is all I have to care 
about. But even though we could show that Mencius was 
forced into public service by poverty at the age of forty, yet 
to be counsellor to a prince was certainly not a low position, 
and its duties must have been heavier than mere mechanical 
calculation of numbers. 

There is another date in the chronology of Tsao which 
cannot very well be accepted as correct. It is recorded that 
Mencius first came to Wei in the ist year of the sovereign 
Shen Tsing (320 B.C.). This disagrees with the Comparative 
Chronological Tables of the Six Principalities 25 prepared by the 
great historian Sze-ma Ch ien 20 for his " Historical Records. " 27 
According to Sze-ma Ch ien, Meucius came to the Principality 
of Wei in the 33rd year of the sovereign Shien, not the ist of 
the sovereign Shen Tsing. Now Sze-ma Ch ien based the 
statements in his Tables upon the records of the different 
principalities, which we have every reason to trust not only 
because they were taken as authoritative by such a widely 
read and scrutinizing scholar and historian as Sze-ma Ch ieu, 
but also because they were the only source of information in 
regard to the events of the period synchronous with the life of 
Mencius. 

The chronology that we propose to adopt in this essay is 
based chiefly upon the Historical Records of Sze-ma 
Ch ien. Much information is derived from the chronology of 
Meucius life prefixed to Seou s edition of the Works of 
Mencius 28 , and prepared by a scholar of the Chiug Dynasty , 
namely Peun Te Hui 2 *. Many suggestions are also taken 

2 5 /^ ^3 *P ^- 26 tj] S ^. 27 jfc. |B. 28 i$ #fc 56 : f-. 29 a ^ jt- 



from Tseng Sheou Ku s 30 "A Supplemental Commentary 
and Literary Discussions on the Four Books." al But there 
are many points for which the writer of this essay alone is 
responsible. 

Mencins was born in the iyth year of the sovereign 
Ngan 32 (385 B.C.), and died in the 25th year of the sovereign 
Nan (289 B.C.)- His life thus extended over a period of 
ninety-six years and may be divided into three portions. 
The first, from his birth to his appearance in the Principality 
of Wei in the 33rd year of the sovereign Shien (336 B.C.), 
may be called Mencius contemplative period. In this long 
period of fifty years we find Mencius a teacher in his native 
place. The second period, from his appearance in Wei to his 
retirement in the 3rd year of the sovereign Nan (312 B.C.), 
may be called the Period of Public Services. During these 
twenty-four years, Mencius travelled from one principality to 
another endeavouring to carry out his noble ideals of an 
imperial government. The last period, the Period of Retire 
ment, covered the rest of his life till his death in the 26th year 
of the sovereign Nan (289 B.C.). This period of twenty- 
three years was spent in his native place, busy with the 
editing of the ancient classics and the composition of his own 
works. 

Little is known about the first period. Tradition says 
that Mencius lost his father when he was only three years old, 
and this tradition has the support of Chau Ch i, who, in the 
preface to his commentaries on the works of Mencius, says, 
" He lost his father at an early age." It contradicts, however, 
Liu Hsiang," 1 who wrote the Memoir of Mencius mother, and 
it also contradicts the text of Mencius. Liu Hsiang says : 
When Mencius was young, he returned home one day from 
school, and found his mother weaving. She asked him how 
he WHS getting on with his studies. Just as usual, was the 
answer given in an indifferent manner. On hearing this, the 

30 m + . 31 ra $ % a m . 32 -#. 33 ft. 



dispirited mother took up a knife and cut through the web 
which she was weaving. The boy was greatly alarmed and 
asked what she meant. His mother said, Your neglecting 
your study is just like my cutting through my web. The 
superior man studies with an aim to establish a good name, 
and inquires in order to widen his knowledge. He therefore 
lives in safety when he stays at home, and is free from harm 
when he is abroad. Now, since you have neglected your 
study, it is certain that you will live only the life of a menial 
servant, and have no means of escaping from injuries. What 
difference is there from my case, when, seeing that weaving 
is my means of livelihood, I put aside my work before it is 
finished, and forget that in doing this I shall be unable to 
supply my husband and my son with clothes and shall be 
reduced to absolute poverty in the long run. " 34 Here Men 
cius mother distinctly mentions her husband, which shows 
clearly that the father was still living, while Meucius was 
attending school. 

A still stronger evidence that Mencius father did not die 
till the son reached maturity is found in Bk. I, Pt. II, Ch. 16 of 
the works, where Meucius was charged with having interred 
his mother in a more elegant manner than he had interred his 
father. Mencius would not have been held responsible for his 
father s burial if he had died while the son was a mere infant. 

Possibly the father was a man of no extraordinary parts, 
and was therefore eclipsed in history by the celebrated mother. 
Or perhaps he was seeking his livelihood far from home, and the 
sou was left to the care of the mother, who was undoubtedly 
a lady of virtue and ability, one whose way of educating her 
son has become a model of motherhood in China. The anec 
dotes embodied in the Memoir of Mencius mother in Liu 
Hsiang s "A Collection of the Memoirs of Eminent Women," 38 
especially that one popularized by the Three Character Classic, 
telling how the virtuous mother thrice changed her residence 

34 M IfiJ ? J * f. 35 W ~& f. 



TO 

for the sake of her son s education, have become so familiar 
that there in no necessity to repeat them here. It will be 
sufficient to observe that the influence of the good mother had 
a great effect upon the later life of her son, and that history 
has not failed to acknowledge its debt to her by giving her 
due credit in memoirs and records. 

The next question we raise is, was Mencius a pupil of 
Confucius grandson, Tze Sze? 80 Chau Ch i would answer 
in the affirmative ; and this view is endorsed by K uug Fu, a7 in 
a book entitled K ung Ts ung Tze, 38 Pan Koo, :(i> author of the 
Book of the Former Han Dynasty ,* and Yin Shiao, 41 author 
of the interesting book called " A Rational Explanation of 
Traditions and Legends." 42 Support is also claimed from a 
comparison between the "Doctrine of the Mean" and the Works 
of Meucius, which reveals so many points of similarity in 
teaching as to suggest the conclusion that the two philosophers 
must have stood to each other in the relation of master and 
pupil. Indeed, one eminent scholar of the Classics says: 
" Mencius gets the real spirit of the teaching of Tze Sze, and 
as this could not have been transmitted to him by any of 
Tze Sze s pupils, none of whom was a distinguished scholar, 
we must believe that Mencius learned directly from Tze Sze." 
This line of argument can easily be refuted. A careful 
examination of the Works of Mencius would rather incline one 
to the belief that Mencius had no personal connection what 
ever with Tze Sze. He mentions Tze Sze several times in 
his works, but never in any case indicates that he has been his 
pupil. Chii Hsi s 43 remark is very suggestive : " One would 
wonder why there is no record of a single conversation between 
Tze Sze and Mencius, if they were master and pupil." 

Before we dismiss this question, let us again refer briefly 
to the dates. According to the most reliable records, Con 
fucius death was in the forty-first year of the sovereign 



36 3F JR. 37 ?l 2ft. 3 8 ?L ^ ^ 39 Pan Koo. 40 fij & &. 41 
J. 42 ffi a %. 43 * ft. 



II 

Tsiu 44 (479 B.C.)- At that time Tze Sze was at least four 
years old, for his father died three years before Confucius did 
and some authorities hold that Tze Sze at the death of his 
grandfather was mature enough to manage the morning cere 
mony, being then seventeen years of age. Sze-ma Ch ien records 
that Tze Sze lived to the age of sixty-two, while other 
scholars contend that he must have lived till at least the age of 
eighty-two, in order to make his service at the court of Duke 
Muh of L,u consistent with history. The latest date, then, 
that can be assigned to Tze Sze s death is the second year of 
the sovereign Ngau (400 B.C.), which is still sixteen years 
before the birth of Mencius. Some people are born great, and 
there is no necessity to make a sage the teacher of Mencius. 
The statement of the historian Sze-rna Ch ieu that he studied 
under a disciple of Tze Sze is more probably correct. 

As we have seen, the first period of the life of Meucius 
was a comparatively long one, extending over fully half a 
century. Much the greater part of this period was spent in 
Tsau as a teacher of morals, attracting to himself multitudes of 
students from far and near. Tsao Chia come from a distant 
land to get his opinion on human nature, and Uh-lu would 
take one day s travel to see the master in order to answer 
a knotty question on practical ethics (Bk. VI, Pt. II, Ch. i 
and 2). His counsel was sought by the Duke of Tsau even 
during his years of obscurity. Thus we read in Bk. I, Pt. II, 
Ch. 12 : " There had been a brush between Tsau and IyU, 
when the Duke Muh of Tsau 45 asked Mencius, saying, Of 
my officers there were killed thirty-three men, and none of the 
people would die in their defence .... How is the exigency 
of the case to be met. " 

Mencius was diametrically different from the " wandering 
scholars " of his time, who travelled from one court to another, 
endeavouring to win the favour of the princes with their 
aggressive or defensive schemes. He lived in a period of con- 

44 $fc 3E. 45 & n . 



12 



fusion, a period generally known in Chinese History as the 
Period of the Contending States, 46 covering the last one 
hundred and fifty years of the Chau Dynasty. This dynasty 
practically came to an end some forty years after the death of 
Mencius, but the degeneration of political conditions in the 
country seems to have reached a climax in his life-time. The 
five chiefs of the princes were sinners against the three kings. 
The princes of the present day are sinners against the five 
chiefs. The great officers of the present day are sinners 
against the princes" (Bk. VI, Pt. II, Ch. 7). Those in 
authority were given up entirely to luxuries, such as " halls 
several times eight cubits, with beams projecting several cubits, 
food spread out over ten cubits square and attendant girls to 
the amount of several hundreds, pleasure and wine, and the 
dash of hunting, with thousands of chariots" (Bk. VII, Pt. II, 
Ch. 34). The ambition of the ministers of the different prin 
cipalities was " to enlarge the limits of the cultivated ground 
for their respective sovereigns, to fill their treasuries and 
arsenals, and to form alliances with other principalities so 
that their battles must be successful " (Bk. VI, Pt. II, Ch. 9). 
All these were secured at the expense of the poor people. The 
rulers of the principalities rob their people of their time, so 
that they cannot plough and weed their fields, in order to 
support their parents. Their parents suffer from cold and 
hunger. Brothers, wives, and children are separated and 
scattered abroad" (Bk. I, Pt. I, Ch. 5). Thousands, nay, 
myriads, of precious lives were sacrificed to the warlike, selfish 
ambition of the princes. " When contentions about territory 
are the ground on which they fight, they slaughter men till 
the fields are filled with them. When some struggle for a city 
is the ground on which they fight, they slaughter men till 
the city is filled with them" (Bk. IV, Pt. I, Ch. 14.) 

These were the evils of the time, and Mencius was fully 
alive to them. When we turn to the moral life of the people, 

46 m K. 



T ^ __ 

we find a picture equally dark and gloomy. The cultivation 
of virtue was neglected, and the principles of benevolence 
and righteousness set at naught. More importance, as Men- 
cius puts it, was attached to a deformed and abnormal finger 
than to an abnormal mind (Bk. VI, Pt. I, Chap. 12). _ People 
knew how to nourish a plant, but were ignorant of the right 
way of cultivating themselves (Bk. VI, Pt. I, Chap. 13). 
Honour and gain were everywhere sought, but it was forgotten 
that in men themselves was found that which was truly 
honourable and valuable (Bk. VI, Pt, I, Chap. 17). "Men 
of antiquity," said Meucius, "cultivated their nobility of 
Heaven, and the nobility of man came to them in its train. 
The men of the present day cultivate their nobility of Heaven 
in order to seek for the nobility of man, and when they have 
obtained that they throw away the other (Bk. VI, Pt. I, 
Chap. 16). In the view of the superior man as to the ways 
by which men seek for riches, honour, gain, and advance 
ment, there are few of their wives and concubines who would 
not be ashamed and weep together on account of them 
(Bk. IV, Pt. II, Chap. 33). 

Then, again, heretical teachings were prevalent. The 
faith, which had been shown in the doctrines of Prince Chau 
and Confucius for hundreds of years, was now shaken to the 
very foundations. The great Doctrine of the Mean, the creed 
of orthodox Confucianism, was severely attacked by the school 
of Mih Te 4T , while in another field the standard of " utilitari 
anism," equally formidable to orthodoxy, was raised by 
Yang Chii 4S . The problems which Socrates and his school 
faced in another part of the world were confronting simultane 
ously the philosophers in the Far East. Thus Mencius had 
a two-fold responsiblity to bear that of the Greek philosophers 
after the fall of Athens, to defend the basis of morality ; 
and that of Machiavelli in Italy iu the sixteenth century,, to 
unite a shattered empire. Meucius summed up the conditions 



14 

of his time in the following passage (Bk. Ill, Part II, 
Chap. 9) : 

" Sage emperors cease to rise, and the princes of the 
states give the reins to their lusts. Unemployed scholars 
indulged in unreasonable discussions. The .words of Yang 
Chii and Mih Te fill the empire. If you listen to people s 
discourses, you will find that throughout it they have adopted 
views either of Yang or of Mih. Now, Yang s principle is 
each one for himself, which does not acknowledge the 
claims of the sovereign. Mih s principle is to love all 
equally, which does not acknowledge the peculiar affection 
due to a father. But to acknowledge neither king nor father 
is to be in the state of a beast. Kung-ming E said, In their 
kitchens, there is fat meat. In their stables, there are fat 
horses. But their people have the look of hunger, and on 
the wilds there are those who have died of famine. This is 
leading on beasts to devour men. If the principles of Yang 
and Mih are not stopped, and the principles of Confucius 
not set forth, then those perverse speakings will delude the 
people, and stop up the path of benevolence and righteous 
ness. When benevolence and righteousness are stopped up, 
beasts will be led on to devour men, and men will devour 
one another." 

Mencius was conscious of the seriousness of the situa 
tion. He realized, indeed, his responsibility and his obliga 
tions. " The whole empire is drowning," was a simile aptly 
used by Shuu-yii Kwan 49 . Mencius was not at all blind 
to his duty of stretching out a helping hand to rescue it. "I 
am alarmed by these things," he said, "and address myself 
to the defence of the doctrine of the former ages, and to 
oppose Yang and Mih. I drive away their licentious ex 
pressions, so that such perverse speakers may not be able 
to show themselves" (Bk. Ill, Pt. II, Chap. 9). He was 
also ready to enter into active service in order to rescue 

49 S f- K- 



_ T C -- 

the drowning empire. Did he not say some years afterwards: 
" But Heaven does not yet wish that the empire should 
enjoy tranquillity and good order. If it wished this, who 
is there besides me to bring it about?" (Bk. II, Pt. II, 
Chap. 13). He was only waiting for the opportunity of 
rescuing the country with right principles, for to attain a 
good end b)- evil means was no method of his. He cherished 
no idea of spending his life entirely in contemplation. The 
aim of the great man was to obtain his desire for office in 
order to practise his principles for the good of the people." 
Mencius would never take such a selfish attitude as "to 
attend to his owu virtue in solitude." His ideal was to make 
the whole empire virtuous. 

His hesitation in entering into public service, however, 
greatly roused the curiosity of his disciples. " Did superior 
men of old time take office ? " " What is the point of right 
eousness involved in your not going to see the princes ? 
These were some of their questions. Mencius demeanour 
was so very different from the spirit of his time, that his 
disciple Ch in Tae thought that he was rather carrying his 
principles to an extreme. " Master," said the disciple Ch in, 
"you seem to me to be standing on a small point in not 
going to wait upon any of the princes. If now you were 
once to wait upon them, the result might be so great that 
you would make one of them emperor, or, if smaller, that 
you would make one of them chief of all the other princes." 
For Mencius to approach one of the princes was to his puzzled 
disciples only "bending one cubit in order to make eight 
cubits straight." It was a thing worth doing. But the 
philosopher would hold rigidly to his principle. To him, " to 
go to get office by an improper way is of a class with young 
people s boring holes to steal a sight of the loved one. A man 
who bends himself can never make others straight," he said. 

At last the opportunity seemed to come when Mencius 
was drawing nigh to his fiftieth year. King Hui of the 



16 

Principality of Wei, a prince of high ambition, was making 
an especial effort to set his principality upon a stronger basis. 
His schemes of aggrandisement had been frustrated ; his 
warriors, in whom he took so much pride, had been repeatedly 
put to rout ; the Principality of Ch i had inflicted upon his 
army a disastrous defeat ; his eldest son was taken prisoner 
and died a captive, and his famous general, Pau Chuen 50 was 
killed, while the rising principality of Ch in on the west cap 
tured another of his sons in battle, and he found himself unable 
to resist the encroachment of the Principality of Ch u on 
the south. Strong desires for renovation then took possession 
of his mind, and he invited to his court men of virtue and 
talent, among whom was Mencius. 

The predominant desire of the prince, however, was 
military success. His first question addressed to Mencius 
was, "Venerable Sir, since you have not counted it far to 
come here, a distance of a thousand //, may I presume that 
you are likewise provided with counsels to profit my prin 
cipality ?" It was profit that he was aiming at, and his 
selfish motive was a shock to the philosopher, whose only 
principle in politics was benevolence and righteousness. 
" Why must your majesty use the word profit ?" was the 
reply. 

The principles of a benevolent government were then set 
forth for the prince, but the prince considered them impractic 
able and indifferently put them aside, his warlike spirit 
seeking more satisfaction in military success than in the 
welfare of his people. Even the hope of imperial dignity 
failed to make him forego his vainglory. His selfishness 
made a lasting impression upon Mencius, who years after 
his death, still recalled the folly of the prince of Wei, 
and said, "The opposite indeed of benevolence was King 
Hui of Liang ! The benevolent, beginning with what they 
care for, proceed to what they do not care for. Those 

50 ! H ?H. 



who are the opposite of benevolent, beginning with what 
they do not care for, proceed to what they care for. The 
King Hui of Liang, for the matter of territory, tore and 
destroyed his people, leading them to battle. Sustaining a 
great defeat, he would engage again, and afraid lest they 
should not be able to secure the victory, urged his son whom 
he loved, till he sacrificed him with them." 

Mencius occupied no actual office in Wei, and remained 
there only about two years. He left the country on the 
death of the prince, having found that his successor was a 
man of but small parts. 

Some scholars hold the view that Mencius returned to 
Tsau, when he left Wei. But a close study of the text 
indicates that he proceeded from Wei directly to Ch i. In 
Bk. II, Pt. II, Chap. 12, we read of Yin Shih 61 having 
remarked in reference to Mencius journey to Ch i that "he 
came a thousand li to wait upon the king. ..." If he had 
come from Tsau, his journey could not have covered one 
thousand li, but if from Wei it would have been fully that 
distance. 

The motive which induced Mencius to come to Ch i is a 
matter of conjecture. His faithful disciple Kung-suu Ch au 
was a native of Ch i. and might it not be that he was diverted 
from his journey home by his disciple asking him to visit the 
principality which was then in the zenith of its power ? 

His arrival in Ch i created a great sensation. The then 
prince of the principality, known in history by the name of 
King Hsiian/ 8 must have heard of the venerable teacher 
whose arrival was evidently reported to him, and he sent 
persons to spy out whether the renowned teacher was really 
different from other men (Bk. IV, Pt. II, Chap. 32). But we 
may be sure that Mencius asked for no interview with the 
prince without having first received an invitation. These are 

5i 3* . 52 & JR 3L 53 5H rE. 



i8 

his words : "What was it in the forester that Confucius thus 
approved? He approved his not going to the duke when 
summoned by the article which was not appropriate to him. 
If one go to see the princes without waiting to be invited, 
what can be thought of him?" Before long the invitation 
seems to have come. The duke was certainly anxious to 
make acquaintance with the philosopher, about whom he felt 
so curious. Mencius was satisfied with the etiquette of the 
prince s invitation, obtained an audience with him, and 
became hopeful of what might be accomplished with this 
ambitious ruler. Unlike King Hui, who would sacrifice his 
people and his beloved sons, to his selfish whims, King Hsiian 
of Ch i was too compassionate to witness the death of an ox, 
which was to be killed in order to consecrate a bell with its 
blood. Mencius accepted a position as an unsalaried minister 
or counsellor. This was in the year 334 B.C. He had a 
bright prospect before him, and had evidently some desire of 
establishing himself in Ch i, for we find that before long his 
family came to join him. For the first year or two, King 
Hsiiau s attention was engrossed by an expedition against the 
principality of Yen, of which Mencius approved. " Now the 
ruler of Yen was tyrannizing over his people, and your Majesty 
went to punish him. The people supposed that you were 
going to deliver them out of the water and the fire, and 
brought baskets of rice and vessels of congee to meet your 
Majesty s host." The disposal of the conquered territory, 
however, roused the jealousy of the other princes, so an 
alliance was formed, and steps were taken to rescue the 
principality of Yen from the hands of Ch i. The march of 
the allied army seemed to have been stayed only by a timely 
turn of policy on the part of Ch i, urged by Mencius. The 
captives, old and young, were restored, the removal of the 
precious vessels from the conquered land was ordered to stop, 
and, with the consent of the people of Yen, a ruler for the 
principality was appointed. Thus Ch i was saved from the 



19 

threatened attack, much to the credit of the good counsels 
of Mencius. 

Just as Mencius was thus gaining the confidence of the 
prince, the death of his mother forced him to leave Ch i. 
According to an ancient custom of the Chau Dynasty the 
deceased must be buried at the ancestral home, and con 
sequently Mencius went to the home of his ancestors in the 
principality of Lu to bury his mother. He then returned to 
his native Tsau, where he remained throughout the period of 
mourning, which was three years. 

At the expiration of the mourning period, he started 
again for Ch i, where his great hopes seemed to lie. His 
disciples were in high spirits, and looked forward to great 
things. On their way, Kung-sun Ch au asked Mencius, 
saying, " Master, if you were to obtain the ordering of the 
government in Ch i, could you promise to accomplish anew 
such results as those realized by Kwan Chung and Yen?" 
Again, the same curious disciple asked, "Master, if you were 
to be appointed a high noble and the prime minister of Ch i, 
so as to be able to carry your principles into practice, though 
you should thereupon raise the ruler to the headship of all the 
other princes, or even to the royal dignity, it would not to be 
wondered at. In such a position would your mind be per 
turbed or not? " Mencius seemed to have shared the hopeful 
ness of his disciples, for in reply to a question why he would 
think it as easy to raise Ch i to the royal dignity as to turn 
his hand, he said, " The people of Ch i have a saying A 
man may have wisdom and discernment, but that is not like 
embracing the favourable opportunity. A man may have 
instruments of husbandry, but that is not like waiting for the 
farming seasons. The present time is one in which the royal 
dignity may be easily obtained. In the flourishing periods of 
the Hsia, Yin, and Chau dynasties, the royal domain did not 
exceed a thousand It, and Ch i embraces that much territory. 
Cocks crow and dogs bark to one another, all the way to the 



20 

four borders of the state so Ch i possesses the people. No 
change is needed for the enlarging of its territory : no change 
is needed for the collecting of a population. If its ruler will 
put in practice a benevolent government, no power will be 
able to prevent his becoming sovereign" (Bk. II, Pt. I, 
Chap. 2). And it was a benevolent government that Meucius 
tried to urge upon the prince of Ch i. Speaking on one 
occasion to the prince, he said," You wish to enlarge your 
territories, have Chiu and Ch u wait at your court, to rule 
the Middle Kingdom, and to attract to you the barbarous tribes 
that surround it. But doing what you do (by sheer brute 
force) to seek for what you desire is like climbing a tree to seek 

for fish and so it is certain that a small country cannot 

contend with a great one, that few cannot contend with many, 
that the weak cannot contend with the strong. The territory 
within the four seas embraces nine divisions, each of a thousand 
li square. All Ch i together is but one of them. If with one 
part you try to subdue the other eight, what is the difference 
between that and Tsau (a small principality) contending with 
Ch u (one of the most powerful principalities of the time) ? 
With such a desire, you must turn back to the proper course 
for its attainment." He then set forth the great principles of 
a benevolent government, and foretold what results would 
ensue. "This will cause all the officers in the kingdom to 
wish to stand in your Majesty s court, and all the farmers to 
wish to plough in your Majesty s fields, and all the merchants, 
both travelling and stationary, to wish to store their goods in 
your Majesty s market-place, and all the travelling strangers 
to wish to make their tours on your Majesty s roads, and all 
throughout the kingdom who feel aggrieved by their rulers to 
wish to come and complain to your Majesty. And when they 
are so bent, who will be able to keep them back?" Mencius 
eloquence, we read, had great effect upon the prince. " I am 
stupid," said the prince, "and not able to advance to this. 
I wish you, my Master, to assist my intentions. Teach me 



21 

clearly ; although I am deficient in intelligence and vigour, 
I will essay and try to carry your instructions into effect." 
Mencius must have tried hard to make the best of the king s 
good intentions. Strict moralists as were the great Confucian 
teachers, we see how in this case Meucius, carried away by 
his own enthusiasm, stooped to win the prince over to 
benevolent government by his very vices. He told the prince 
that the love of music, the love for parks and hunting, and 
the love of valour, nay, even the greed of wealth and the love 
of woman in short, all the vices which intoxicated the minds 
of the rulers of the time, might be made subservient to good 
government, if proper regard to the welfare and interests of 
the people were maintained. 

Notwithstanding these concessions on the part of 
Mencius, however, the prince still considered a benevolent 
government impracticable, or at least too slow in working, 
and he began to lose interest in the lectures of Mencius. He 
was aspiring indeed to the imperial dignity, which, to use his 
own words, was his great desire. But his way of attaining it 
was different from that of Mencius. After listening to a lecture 
of the philosopher on inter-state ethics, the prince said, 
Yours is a great saying. But I have an infirmity I love 
valour." Military success was so enticing to him that it 
sounded somewhat ludicrous that one should "with a great 
state serve a small one." The philosophy of the "Will to 
Power" of Friedrick Nietzche would have been more 
acceptable to him. And no wonder. He lived in a warlike 
period, and represented only the spirit of his age. Moreover, 
the censorious attitude of Mencius was more or less repulsive. 
The philosopher would tell him that he had no longer any 
intimate minister ; for those whom he had advanced yesterday 
were gone to-day, and that he knew nothing about it (Bk. II, 
Pt. II, Chap. 7). He was accustomed to flattery, and the 
way in which Mencius spoke to him was certainly not very 
flattering. Having exacted from the prince, by a kind of 



22 

Socratic dialectic, the answer that a friend unworthy of a 
trust should be deserted and that au incompetent chief 
criminal judge should be dismissed, Mencius immediately put 
the question: "If within the four borders of your princi 
pality there is no good government, what is to be done ? " This 
brought home at once to the prince his ailment, and must 
have hit him hard. We are told that he was much embar 
rassed ; he looked to the right and left, and spoke of other 
matters (Bk. II, Pt. II, Chap. 6). 

Mencius soon become conscious of the growing indif 
ference of the prince toward his teaching, and one day said 
to him : "If you are going to build a large mansion, you 
will surely cause the master of the workmen to look out for 

large trees If you have a gem unwrought in the 

stone, although it may be worth 240,000 taels, you will 
surely employ a lapidary to cut and polish it. But when 
you come to the government of the state, then you say : 
For the present put aside what you have learned, and 
follow me. 

Mencius could not put aside what he had learned and 
follow the Prince of Ch i. He could not possibly yield to his 
fancies. It was impossible for him to abandon his principles, 
and so he left the principality as soon as he felt that his 
principles could not be carried out there. He took his leave 
of the country early in the year 324 B.C., the 35th year of 
the sovereign Shien. He left it with lingering steps; for, 
after all, the Prince of Ch i was the most promising ruler of 
the time. Immersed as he was in pleasures, the spark of 
nobility in him was not entirely extinguished. "How can it 
be said," he asked, "that I give up the king? The king is 
one who may still be made to do what is good. If he were to 
use me, would it be for the happiness of the people of Ch i 
only? It would be for the happiness of the people of the 
whole empire. I am hoping that the king will change. I 
am daily hoping for this." 



HIM O O ~ 

Mencius, however, hoped in vaiu. The prince was 
drawing nigh to the end of his days, and he died soon after 
Mencius departure. Mencius never saw King Hsu an of 
Ch i again. 

Whether Mencius returned to Tsau from Ch i or pro 
ceeded directly to the principality of T Sng 54 is a point which 
cannot very well be settled. There are no records in history, 
nor can any light be found in the text. All that is known is 
that about the year 334 B.C., the 45th year of the sovereign 
Shien, we find Mencius already in T &ng. If he did return to 
Tsau from Ch i, he must have stayed at home for a very short 
time a few mouths at the most. 

His coming to T Sng must have been welcome to the 
duke of that principality, who was acquainted with the 
philosopher and his teachings. Some fifteen years before, 
while the duke was still a crown prince, Mencius had two visits 
from him, and had unfolded to him his great doctrine on 
human nature and the principles of the government of the 
illustrious ancient Emperors Yaou and Shun. lyater, while 
Mencius was in Tsau during his period of mourning for his 
mother, the duke sent a special messenger to consult him 
upon the funeral service of the Duke Ting of T ang. 55 

In Bk. Ill, Pt. I, we find a long chapter in which 
Mencius expounded to the duke, known by the title of Duke 
Wen, the great principles of benevolent government. No 
where else do we find a more detailed description of the views 
of the philosopher on this topic. It seems that the duke did 
have the intention to give Mencius principles a fair trial and 
we may wonder what results would have ensued, had the 
experiment not been interfered with and put a stop to by the 
appearance in T Sng of the " physiocrats," Hsii Hsing 56 and 
his followers, who taught the strange doctrine that princes and 
peasants alike should cultivate the ground and eat the fruit of 
their own labour. Against this doctrine, Mencius maintained 



54 m. 55 a %. 56 Iff ft. 



24 

his position with great dignity and success. His subtle logic 
left the enemy absolutely helpless upon the field. He effec 
tively vindicated the principle of division of labour, and 
proved historically the necessity of a governing class. He 
enunciated exactly what his great contemporary Aristotle taught 
in Greece, that some should govern and others be governed. 
"The government of the empire cannot be carried on along 
with the practice of husbandry." " The longing for a return 
to nature, such as was embraced in the eighteenth century by 
political philosophers in Europe, appeared to Mencius to be a 
mere fancy of the doctrinaire, dangerous to good government. 
To him, the idea was contrary to nature, and practical experi 
ence he held would prove it an absurdity. The rise of the 
governing class marked a distinct step forward in the progress 
of civilization, and Mencius showed clearly the impossibility 
of going backwards in the programme of the world s advance 
ment. His disappointment with his political experiment in 
T ng was, however, not due primarily to the teaching of the 
speculators in political economy. They seem indeed to have 
been patronized by the Duke of T Sug. But this was not so 
much for their teaching as for the flattering words with 
which they addressed him, saying that they had heard of his 
benevolent government and desired to become his people. 
The real cause of Mencius disappointment lay deeper than 
this. The duke had a small territory to protect against two 
aggrandising neighbours, the Principality of Ch i and the 
Principality of Ch u, the most formidable powers of his time. 
" T &ng is a small state, and lies between Ch i and Ch u. 
Shall I serve Ch i or shall I serve Ch u?" This was his 
question. On another occasion, when international politics 
assumed a grave aspect, he asked of the philosopher, "The 
people of Ch i are going to fortify See 1 . The movement occa 
sions me great alarm. What is the proper course for me to 
take in this case? " It was a question of life and death. It 
was not sufficient for Mencius to tell the duke that if he would 



- 25 - 

do good there should be, among his descendants, one who 
would attain to imperial dignity. It was some suggestion in 
practical politics that the duke required, not any abstract 
political ethics. But Mencius, however wise and lofty he 
was as a political philosopher, lacked subtlety as a practical 
politician. Or, what might sound better, his moral principles 
did not allow him to go into the political intrigues of his time. 
He had no practical suggestions to make as to how to save the 
helpless Principality of T Sng from Ch i and Ch u. He, indeed, 
admitted that the plan was entirely beyond him (Bk. I, Ft. II, 
Ch. 13). " If you will have me counsel you," he said, " there 
is one thing I can suggest. Dig deeper your moats ; build 
higher your walls ; guard them with your people. In case of 
attack, be prepared to die in your defence, and have the people 
so that they will not leave you; this is a proper course." 
But if it should be asked how the people could be made so 
that they would not leave their ruler, Mencius answer would 
again be " by a bevevolent government," which would 
scarcely satisfy the Duke of T ang. At any rate, this course 
of acting was practical only to a state that could rely upon its 
own material strength, not to a small and weak state like T ang. 
Mencius was in T ang for about five years, and in the year 
319 B.C., the second year of the sovereign Shen Tsing, he is 
foundagain in Ch i. How and why he left T ang, and how and 
why he came to Ch i the second time, can only be conjectured, 
for we are left almost entirely in the dark. A new ruler had 
mounted the throne in Ch i. With this ruler, Mencius might 
have made acquaintance during his former stay in the prin 
cipality. Bk. II, Pt. II, Ch. 10 suggests that Mencius came 
to Ch i by the invitation of the prince, and Chap. 14 in the 
same book indicates that he had his first audience with him in 
a place by the name of Ch ung. 57 The first interview was so 
unsatisfactory that Mencius planned to make only a short 
stay in the country. Circumstances, however, prevented his 



26 

immediate departure. He eveu accepted office in Ch i, though 
as before without salary. It seems that he commanded the 
respect of the prince, since he was once sent as chief commis 
sioner on a mission of condolence to T Sug, at the death of his 
old friend, Duke Wen, Wang Hwan, 58 the governor of Ka 
and the prince s favourite, being appointed his assistant. But 
his deportment towards this new ruler of Ch i was quite 
different from that towards King Hsiian. There was absent 
the former tone of familiarity and hopefulness, and their inter 
course savoured of indifference on the part of one, and of 
suspicion on the part of the other. In Bk. II, Pt. II, except 
in two places, i.e., chapter n and chapter 12, which seem to 
find their proper places in another part of the works, all refer 
ences to "the king" of Ch i are evidently to King Min. 59 
Mencius never referred to him by his posthumous name as he 
did his predecessor, for he died several years after Mencius, 
namely in the year 284 B.C., and therefore his posthumous 
name was not known when Mencius compiled his works, or 
even when his disciples finally edited them, which appears to 
have been two or three years after the death of the master. 
Between King Min and Mencius, we find hardly a single 
lengthy conversation. Probably Meucius did not see this 
prince so frequently as he saw King Hsiian. One day 
Mencius was about to go to court to see the prince, when a 
messenger came saying that the prince was unable to call on 
the philosopher on account of illness, and that he would be 
glad to have the philosopher come to him. Mencius at once 
changed his plan of going to the prince, and undertook an 
elaborate procedure to make it understood that it was slighting 
him for a prince to summon him by a messenger. 

The gulf then separating the prince of Ch i and Mencius 
became wider in course of time, and in the year 314 B.C., the 
first year of the sovereign Nan, there happened an event which 
hastened the philosopher s departure. The neighbouring 

53 EE 5S. 59 8? 3E. 



27 

Principality of Yen was suffering from some internal trouble, 
and King Min seized the opportunity for an expedition into the 
principality. He would not consult Mencius directly for he 
knew that the philosopher would oppose the plan. But the 
opinion of the venerable philosopher was too important to be 
disregarded. A messenger was sent to him, and the question 
was so put that Mencius could not give other than the required 
answer (Bk. II, Pt. II, Ch. 8). The prince proceeded to send 
his army to Yen, and took its capital with little difficulty. 
The expedition, however, turned out to be unpopular, and 
Mencius was charged with having initiated it. But he, with 
his usual ingenuity, repudiated the accusation, saying, " Sbn 
T ung asked me whether Yen might be smitten, and I 
answered him, It may. They accordingly went and smote 
it. If he had asked me Who may smite it ? I would 
have answered him, He who is the minister of Heaven may 
smite it. .... But now with one Yen to smite another Yen: 
how should I have advised it ? " 

Meucius prediction that one Yen substituted for another 
would not satisfy the people was fulfilled, and the inhabitants 
of Yen rebelled. As a result the Prince of Ch i felt much 
ashamed before his counsellor, and drew still farther away 
from him ; till at last Mencius offered his resignation, and left 
Ch i the second time at the advanced age of 72. 

After this, the movements of the philosopher are hard to 
trace. He may have gone to Sung again, and it is believed by 
some scholars that the conversation with his disciple Wan 
Chang, recorded in Bk. Ill, Pt. II, Ch. 5, took place while 
he was in that principality. But this view is not supported 
by any historical records. The last glimpse we have of him 
is in IyU where his disciple Yo-chang K o was prime minister, 
and it is possibly by the invitation of this disciple, that he 
came to the principality. Arrangements were made for the 
duke to make his call upon the philosopher and everything 
looked as though the aged philosopher would have his final 



28 

chance to put his principles into practice. But the duke was 
diverted from his good purpose by the slander of a favourite 
named Tsang Ts ang, 60 and the last hope of Meucius was 
blighted. His disappointment must have been bitter, but he 
made no complaint, and, in a calm and dignified manner, 
accepted his fate as the will of Heaven. " A man s advance 
ment," he said, "is effected, it maybe, by others, and the 
stopping him is, it may be, by efforts of others. But to 
advance a man or to stop his advance is really beyond the 
power of other men. My not finding in the Prince of Lu 
a ruler who would confide in me, and put my counsels into 
practice, is from Heaven. How could that scion of the Tsang 
family cause me not to find the ruler that would suit me ? " 

With these words, Mencius seems to have closed his public 
career, this being probably in the year 312 B.C. Thus for a 
quarter of a century he toiled and persevered to find a ruler 
" who had no pleasure in killing men," so that through him 
his noble principles of government might be put into practice, 
and the shattered empire united, thus bringing peace and good 
order again to the "black-haired race." But the times in 
which he lived were unfavorable. A warlike spirit took 
possession of every ambitious prince. Tactical schemes and 
political intrigues gained the ears of the rulers sooner than the 
principles of benevolence and righteousness. The day belonged 
to the "wandering scholars" such as Kung-sun Yen 61 and 
Chang I, 62 " whose anger was feared by all the princes," and 
who were everywhere regarded as truly great men. Mencius 
held an idea too lofty for his time. It was: " To dwell in 
the wide house of the world, to stand in the correct seat of the 
world, and to walk in the great path of the world ; wlien he 
obtains his desire for office, to practise his principles for the 
good of the people ; and, when that desire is disappointed, to 
practise them alone ; to be above the power of riches and 
honours to make dissipated, of poverty and mean condition to 

60 & ft. 6: & & ft. 62 55 \&. 



29 

make swerve from principle, arid of power and force to bend: 
these characteristics constitute the great man." 

The rulers of his day were inclined to make the same 
complaint in the field of politics that his disciple Kung-sun 
Chau and, perhaps, many others did in the field of ethics: 
I^ofty and admirable are your principles, but to apply them in 
actual practice may well be likened to ascending the heavens, 
something which cannot be reached " (Bk. VII, Pt. I, Ch. 
41). He was as the voice of one crying in the wilderness, but 
he had not even the privilege of preparing the path for a 
greater than he to come. After him, just as for some years 
immediately before him, brute force reigned supreme. The 
Chau Dynasty was approaching its end. This was the Dark 
Age in Chinese History so far as politics and morality were 
concerned. Might was right, and Mencius yielded submis 
sively to his fate. He retired from the turmoil of the world, 
and spent the rest of his long life in the society of his disciples 
engaged in lecturing to a select few and in putting on record 
his sentiments and teachings, which have been handed down 
to us as the seven books of his famous Works. Tradition 
says, and tradition now is our only source of information, that 
the year 288 B.C., the 26th year of the sovereign Nan, the 
last sovereign of the Chau Dynasty, marked the end of the life 
of the great teacher of China. His was a life nobly lived, but 
a life, like the lives of many other great men of antiquity, of 
which we have but meager records. 



CHAPTER III. 



THE WRITINGS OF MENCIUS. 

The writings of Mencius are generally supposed to be all 
contained in the seven books now in our possession known 
as "The Works of Mencius." Various evidences are, how 
ever, found in history and in other sources suggesting the 
hypothesis that there were once four additional books of 
Mencius, besides the present seven. Ying Shao of the Han 
Dynasty, who lived in the second century of the Christian 
era, says in his book entitled " A Rational Explanation of 
Traditions and Legends," that Mencius wrote eleven books. 
Chau Ch f in the preface to his commentaries on the Works 
of Mencius makes the statement that there are also four 
additional books, entitled " On the Goodness of Man s Nature," 
; Terms Discriminated," "An Exposition of the Classic of 
Filial Piety," and "The Practice of Government." In Pau 
Koo s work, "The Book of the Former Han Dynasty," we 
find in the volume entitled " Records of Arts and Literature" 63 
this entry: "The Works of Meucius in eleven books." 
Coming to the time of the Sung Dynasty, Sun Shih (Jg fjf 
A.D. 962-1033), in his exposition of the Works of Mencius, 
upholds the view of Chau Ch i, and cites Liu Chin s " Eleven 
Books of Mencius" f4 in circulation during the Han Dynasty, 
as including the four additional books. The book on the 
Goodness of Man s Nature, one of these four additional books, 
is mentioned by Wang Ch ung 15 (A.D. 27-97) * n his great 
work, the Lun-heng. Quotations from Mencius which are 
not found in the seven extant books also occur in the writings 
of Hsun Ching 06 who lived in the third century before Christ, 
not many years after the time of Mencius, and in the writings 
of Tung Chung-shu 07 in the second century before Christ. 

63 m & 64 an f* 3& ?- * -r a. 6 5 BE as. 66 4? m. 

67 IK n ST. 



These four additional books are entirely lost to us at 
the present day. They were rejected as spurious by Ch&u 
Ch i, when he annotated the Works of Mencius. So also by 
Chai Huao Chin (HHlff ), a scholar in the early years of the 
Ching Dynast} 7 , who made a careful investigation into their 
history in his interesting work entitled "An,Examination of the 
Discrepancies connected with the Four Books;" 03 and he 
points out that in the Catalogue of Books in the History of 
the Sui Dynasty 611 , is found the entry of nine books of 
Mencius annotated by Chi Wu Sui 70 . He admits the pos 
sibility that by the time of the Sui Dynasty (A.D. 589-617) 
two of the four additional books of Mencius still remained, 
and quotes a passage from the Diary of Liu Chang She 71 , 
a scholar in the Sung Dynasty, showing that in Liu s time 
there was found a copy of Mencius book on the Goodness of 
Man s Nature. But he also observes that as the T ang 
Dynasty come in between the Liang and the Sung Dynasties, 
and as no trace of the four books is found in the copious 
writings of the T ang scholars, the authenticity of the books 
is somewhat doubtful. The truth seems to be that Mencius 
works were not much known before the notorious burning of 
the ancient books in the reign of Shih Huang Ti, the first 
emperor of the Chin D}<nasty 72 . A study of the essay on 
Human Nature by Hsun Ching shows not only that the 
author had an inadequate idea of the position of Mencius, but 
also that he probably only knew his teaching from hearsay. 
Indeed, Mencius writings were so little known that they were 
entirel) 7 overlooked when the ancient books were searched 
out and burnt by the drastic order of the tyrannical Emperor 
in the year 213 B.C. But in the early years of the Han 
Dynasty, which succeeded the short-lived Chin Dynasty, 
patrons of literature were found in the Emperor Shao Wen 73 
and in Prince Shen of Ho Ts eng 74 . " In the reign of the 



68 m n K n. 69 ft * & ft 70 $ n m ^ * a *. . 71 
i . 72 *. 73 % *. 74 m m m . 



32 

Emperor Shao Wen (178-155 B.C.)/ says Chati Ch i in his 
preface to Mencius, " doctors were appointed lo take charge 
of the classics and the writings of the ancient worthies, and 
the works of Mencius were numbered among the latter class." 
In the Book of the Former Han Dynasty, we read, that in 
the thirteenth year of the Emperor Shao Chiug (143 B.C.), 
the Prince of Ho Ts eng obtained a large number of ancient 
books which had been hidden away since the time of the 
Chin Dynasty, and the books of Mencius were among them. 
But we have seen that the Works of Mencius were known 
before this in the reign of the Emperor Shao Wen ; and the 
books of Mencius brought into light again in the time of the 
Emperor Shao Ching must have been the so-called additional 
books. 

To Chau Ch i, the spuriousness of these books was so 
evident, that he did not hesitate to say that they had been 
palmed off upon the world by persons who imitated the 
writings of Meucius. It is true that many valuable discover 
ies were made in the early part of the Han Dynasty by 
diligent scholars in their search for the literary remains of the 
writers of the ante-Chin period, the classical period of Chinese 
literature and philosophy ; but at the same time the patronage 
of the emperors and the enthusiasm of the time brought 
about many literary forgeries. Since the days of Chau Ch i, 
only the names of the four additional books of Meucius have 
been handed down by tradition, and they are known only 
to students of antiquities. In the Sui Dynasty, these four 
traditional books made their appearance again. But scholars 
found them to be merely another attempt at forgery, and they 
were soon lost in oblivion. 

Our study of the teaching of Mencius is thus confined 
to the seven books. That these seven books were the pro 
duction of Mencius himself is a view held by Sze-ma Chien, 
Chau Ch i, and Ying Shao, three important authorities ou 
the life and the writings of the philosopher. For more than 



*) *5 _ 

66 

a millennium after the death of Mencius, scholars seemed 
to be unanimous in upholding this view. Han Yu 75 in the 
eighth century of the Christian era was the first to question 
its correctness. In one of his letters we read : " The books 
of Mencius were not written by Mencius himself. They were 
merely his sayings put on record after his death by his dis 
ciples Wan Chang and Kung-sun Chau." Han gave no 
reasons for his opinion, but he was followed by Ling 
Shan-sze 76 of the T ang Dynasty and Ching K-chuen 77 of the 
Sung Dynasty. Ling Shan-sze wrote a book entitled "Con 
tinuation of Mencius," and in his preface to the book, intimates 
that the seven books did not give a full representation of 
the teachings of Meucius, as they were written by his disciples, 
and therefore a continuation was necessary. The weightiest 
argument sustaining this view is, however, that of Chaou 
Shwo-tze 78 , who pointed out that all the princes mentioned 
in the Works of Mencius were referred to by their posthumous 
names. Hence, he drew the conclusion that the books of 
Mencius could not have been written by the philosopher 
himself, as it was improbable that he survived all those 
princes. Yen Jo-chu 79 (A.D. 1636-1704) author of the 
Topography of the Four Books," and a great scholar and 
acute critic of the Classics, answered this argument by the 
hypothesis that the Works of Mencius were edited by his 
disciples after Mencius death. But we learn from the 
"Historical Records" of Sze-ma Chien that Mencius did 
outlive all the princes mentioned in his works, except 
King Min of Ch i, who is always referred to merely as 
" the king." 

More light, perhaps, will be thrown upon this question 
of authorship by a careful examination of the Works them 
selves. This has been done by several eminent scholars, 
among whom is Yen Jo-chii, who makes the statement in his 
"Examination of the Dates of the Birth and the Death of 

75 ft &. 76 flc it ,s. n m& )\\. 78 & m . 79 m % g. 



34 

Mencius " so that, "the Analects were compiled by Confucius 
disciples, therefore the manners of the master were minutely 
recorded. The seven books of Mencius were, however, writ 
ten by the philosopher himself, hence only the sayings and 
their occasions were recorded." Every student, indeed, can 
not but notice a uniformity of style throughout the seven 
books. Unlike the Confucian Analects, they give no impres 
sion of being compiled by many hands. Chii Hsi 81 , perhaps 
the greatest student of the classics and the most qualified to give 
the final word as to the authorship of the Works of Mencius, 
makes the remark in his writings : "A thorough study of the 
seven books of Mencius will show that the style is so uniform 
throughout, that the whole composition seems to be blended 
together and indicates no sign of patchwork whatever." In 
another place he says : "I am rather inclined to think that 
the Works of Mencius were written by the philosopher him 
self. There is a uniformity of style throughout the whole 
without a single blemish. If they were not written by the 
hand of Mencius, they could not have been so well com 
posed." This view of Chii Hsi is probably nearest the truth, 
if we add to it the modification of Yen Jo-chii that the Works 
were edited by his disciples after the death of the philosopher. 



CHAPTER IV. , ap a 



MENCIUS TEACHING IN GENERAL. 

In the seven books of the Works of Mencius, we find 
that the philosopher dwells chiefly on four main topics: (i) 
Man s Nature ; (2) the Development of the Moral Constitu 
tion ; (3) the Principles of Benevolent Government; and (4) 
Orthodox Confucianism as opposed to the heresies of the time. 

The foundation of his whole system of philosophy is, 
however, laid in his doctrine of man s nature. _That man s 
nature is originally good is the basic principle. Nearly the 
whole of the sixth book is occupied with the exposition of 
thfs important doctrine,, and, iLLs.iu this book that we find all 
the ingenuity of Mencius as a philosopher and all of his 
subtlety as a dialectician. 

As towhat is meant by man^s_nature, Mencujs_gives us 
no formal definition. ^He seems _to_think_th_at man^s_nature is 
one oMhose things thqt ran he rj>mprphpnjjpH_jvrt_raniint be 
very well defined. It can be discerned only through 



various manifestations. "All who speak about the nature 
of things," he says, "have in fact only the phenomena to 
reason from" (Bk. IV, Pt. II, Chap. 26). But^he takes great 
care to jmakejt clear that the phenomena of life in general are V 
not to be confoun^e^d^i^hjth^e^particular^phenomena through 
which man s nature may be discerned and ascertained. As j 
the whiteness of a white feather is not like the whiteness of j 
white snow, and the whiteness of white snow not like the i. 
whiteness of white jade, so the phenomena of life, which may 
be, in some cases, the very perversions of man s nature, are 
different and must be distinguished from those phenomena of 
life which reveal the true nature (Bk. VI, Pt. I, Chap. 3). , 
e are phenomena of life appertaining to the higher self of / 
man, and there are others which the higher self would ; 
condemn. "Let a man not do what his true self would not ] 






- 36 - 

Men iud let him not desire what his true self would not desire; 
dis .b act thus is all he has to do " (Bk. VII, Pt. I, Chap. 17). 
re But difficult as it is to define man s nature, its structure 
is certain, and is by no means incomprehensible. The 
following passage is quoted by Mencius from the Book of 
Poetry : 

" Heaven in producing mankind 
Gave them their various faculties and 
relations with their specific laws." 

These laws are manifested in the feelings proper to man. 
The sight of a child about to fall into a well rouses a feeling of 
commiseration in every human mind. In the same way, we 
find inherent in man the feeling of shame and of dislike, of 
reverence and of respect, of approving and of disapproving. 
These feelings imply respectively benevolence, righteousness, 
propriety, and knowledge, and these qualities are, therefore, 
natural to man. Indeed, they are as essential to man as his 
four limbs, all men being furnished with them as an integral 
part of their moral constitution (Bk. II, Pt. I, Chap. 6; Bk. 
| VI, Pt. I, Chap. 6). 

Men being thus equally endowed with all the necessary 
moral principles, it naturally follows that they are each one 
capable of the same attainment. " The sage and all men are 
of the same kind," Mencius says, and hence, "all men may 
be Yaos and Shuns" (Bk. VI, Pt. I, Chap. 6; Bk. VI, Pt. 
II, Chap. 2). Men s failure to reach the goal is not due to a 
want of capacity, but to their own negligence in developing 
what is innate in them (Bk. VI, Pt. I, Chap. 8). "All 
things are already complete in us," he says (Bk. VII, Pt. I, 
Chap. 4). Constant effort on our part is the only requisite. 
"Seek and you will find them. Neglect and you will lose 
them" (Bk. VII, Pt. I, Chap. 3). "The course of Yao and 
Shun was simply filial piety and fraternal love" (Bk. VI, Pt. 
II, Chap. 2). But filial piety and fraternal love are man s 
intuitive abilities. Children carried in the arms all know 



") *T 

37 

what it is to love their parents, and when they grow up a 
little, they all know what it is to love their elder brothers 
(Bk. VII, Pt. I, Chap. 15). These natural virtues when 
completely developed are sufficient to set the whole empire in 
order, for " the great man is he who does not lose. bis child s 
heart" (Bk. IV, Pt. II, Chap. 12). According to Mencius, 
therefore, the complete development of one s nature is both 
the Summuru Bonum and the Categorical Imperative. "He 
who has exhausted all his mental constitution knows his 
nature. Knowing his nature, he knows Heaven. To preserve 
one s mental constitution and nourish one s nature is the 
way to serve Heaven" (Bk. VII, Pt. I, Chap. i). We 
have in this passage Mencius whole system of Ethics in a 
nutshell. 

The process of developing man s own nature is described 
by Mencius in more than one place in his Works. He teaches 
that man s moral constitution is made up of two parts, the 
will and the passion-nature, or, in the terminology of modern 
Western Ethics, the conscience and the appetites and affec 
tions. In Bk. II, we find this passage: "The will is the 
leader of the passion-nature. The passion-nature pervades 
and animates the body. The will is first and chief, and the 
passion-nature is subordinate to it. Therefore I say, 
Maintain firm the will and do no violence to the passion- 
nature " (Bk. II, Pt. I, Chap. 2). In this doctrine, Mencius 
anticipates Bishop Butler s great Sermons on Human Nature. 
The conscience is the first and chief, and the appetities 
and affections are subordinate to it. As a part of the 
moral nature of man, conscience is different from the other 
parts not only in degree but in kind. Thus : Some parts 
of the body are noble, and some ignoble ; some great, and 
some small. The great must not be injured for the small, 
nor the noble for the ignoble. He who nourishes the little 
belonging to him is a little man, and he who nourishes the 
great is a great man " (Bk. VI, Pt. I, Chap. 14). Again : 



- 38 - 

" I like life, and I also like righteousness. If I cannot keep 
the two together, I will let life go, and choose righteousness 
~"(Bk. VI, Pt. I, Chap. 10). But at the feametime Mencius 
^ emphasizes thej^^j^JLLIJ^g is no affectation. There is 
no need to do violence and injury to man s nature in order to 
fashion from it benevolence and righteousness " (Bk. VI, Pt. 
I, Chap. i). Anything contrary to nature^ not desirable. 
Virtue] does not require the suppression of the_natural appetites 
-f and affections; It only requires that the appetites and affec- 
he placed under the proger regulation of the*ruling 



principle, the conscience. To use the language of the modern 
psy^hoTogisTs7Th"e" predominating desire moves the man, and 
it is absolutely important that this predominating desire be in 
the right path. Indeed, the aim moulds the character and 
makes the man. " He who rises at cock-crow and addresses 
himself earnestly to the practice of virtue is a disciple of 
Shun. He who rises at cock-crow and addresses himself 
earnestly to the pursuit of gain, is a disciple of Chin. If you 
want to know what separates Shun from Chih, it is simply 
this the interval between the thought of gain and the 
thought of virtue" (Bk. VII, Pt. I, Chap. 25). JLQ a word, 
virtue is the destiny of man, the purpose for which he has 
been created. Swerve eve7T6~IfttTe~irom this purpose, " this 
right path," as Mencius puts it, and the goal can never be 
reached. 

But self-cultivation is not the sole aim of man. Man is 
not self-contained. He is a part of a community, a spcial 
animal, and is born not only with certain faculties, but also ^ 
with certain relationships. His virtue is therefore not complete 
without the social side, and his duty towards Heaven is not 

V fulfilled till he has responded to Heaven s call in making the , 
whole world virtuous by the influence of his own virtue. Thus._j 
Confucius begins his teaching in the Great Learning with 
)this wonderful sentence : " What the Great Learning teaches 
is to illustrate illustrious virtue ; to renovate the people and 



39 

to rest in the highest excellence." "It is Heaven s plan in 
the production of mankind," says I Yin, " that they who are 
first informed should instruct those who are later in being 
informed, and they who first apprehend principles should 
instruct those who are slower to do so " (Bk. V, Pt. I, Chap, 
i). That this is the right sentiment for the superior man, is 
also the idea of Meucius. The superior man should" feel that 
" if among the people in the country there be any who do not 
enjoy such benefits as Yao and Shun conferred, it is as if 
he himself pushed them into a ditch." Mencius agrees with 
Plato, that the philosopher should rule through the sover 
eign. Nay, it is his duty to rule, for to exert adequately his 
influence, he must unite virtue with authority. Politics is 
thus identified with .Ethics in Mencius philosophy. 

Even in politics the same moral principles implanted in 
man s nature will prove sufficient, when they are properly 
developed. To Meucms, as to Plato, the state is merely the 
individual magnified. All men are created on the same 
pattern, and therefore it follows that the state, being the 
sum total of the individuals within* it, is similarly constituted. 
Thus Mencius says: "All men have a juind jwhich cannot 
bear to see the sufferings of others. The anciei>t kings had 
this^ commiserating mind, and they, as a matter of course, ITad 
likevyise.. a commiseraliug^goverument. When with li com 
miserating mind was practised a commiserating government, 
to rule the kingdom was as easy a matter as to make anything 
go round in the palm" (Bk. II, Pt. I, Chap. 6). 

The interdependent nature of Politics and Ethics in 
Meucius system is further seen in his teaching that it is the 
function of the state to facilitatfiAheui^oral development of the 
people ; and that a good government is a requisite to the 
people in general in their cultivation of virtue. We see how 
^Meucius iii his teaching advocates-state education and urges 
the need of a benevolent government, not indeed, as prudent 
steps for the ruler to take, but as constituting the very 



40 

essentials of a -state. We shall have occasion to dwell at greater 
length on this point later on, but one or two quotations may 
/ be given here. "Scholars distinguished from the mass," he 
( says, "rouse themselves even without a King Wen, but the 
mass of men wait for a King Wen, and then they will receive 
rousing impulse" (Bk. VII, Pt. I, Chap. 10). The in- 
y fluence of the ruler is such that "if he is benevolent and 
r* k ^righteous, all will be benevolent and righteous" (Bk. IV, 
Pt. II, Chap. n). The ideal state is the state where the 
king and the philosopher are united in the same person. 
Here again we find .a counterpart of Plato s teaching in 
Mencius. 

Finall) , in Mencius there is found a very distinctly intol 
erant spirit towards any doctrine that diverges the least bit 
from the orthodox Confucianism, of which he is an avowed 
advocate. He justifies his intolerance by the necessity of the 
time. Speaking about the heretical teachings of Yang Chu 
and Mo Ti, he says, "Their delusions spring up in men s 
minds, and do injury to their practice of affairs. Shown in 
their practice of affairs, they are pernicious to their government 

In former times, Yti repressed the vast waters of the 

great inundation, and the country was reduced to order. Chau- 
Kung s achievements extended even to the barbarous tribes of 
the east and north, and he drove away all ferocious animals, 
and the people enjoyed repose. Confucius completed the 
Spring and Autumn, and the rebellious ministers and 

villainous sons were struck with terror I also wish to 

rectify men s hearts, and to put an end to these perverse 
doctrines, to oppose their one-sided actions and banish their 
licentious expressions ; and thus to carry on the work of the 
three sages" (Bk. Ill, Pt. I, Chap. 9). Even in being 
intolerant, Mencius has still his eyes fixed upon a good 
government. 

Thus the central idea of Mencius system is a benevolent 

government used as a means to facilitate the development of 
\ 



man s nature, which is originally good, so that every individ 
ual with all his faculties and relations may rest in the highest 
excellence He has, indeed, made no systematic attempt to 
formulate a system of political philosophy, or at least he has 
left the world no system. A close study of his works will 
enable us to glean a sufficient number of his sentiments, 
expressed on various occasions, so that when we put them 
together, we shall have some idea of the political ideals which 
the philosoper has held up before the eyes of the many genera 
tions of Chinese since his time. This, then, will be our next 
and our main task ; to inquire what Meucius conception of 
the state is ; how the state is constituted ; what function it has 
to fulfill. Then to show what influence Mencius has exerted 
upon Chinese life and Chinese politics ; what contribution he 
has made to Chinese thought, and last of all, how the China 
of the present day may still be benefited by Meucius teach 
ing, for his is a teaching which not only China herself but 
the world at large will not willingly let die. 



CHAPTER V. 



MENCIUS CONCEPTION OF THE STATE. 

In the last chapter it was seen that, according to Mencius 
\J;he need for political organization arises from the very nature 
of man.) We are now in a position to enter into a fuller 
discussion of this point. 

% In the first place, man is born with certain relations. 
(Throughout the Chinese Classics we find the teaching that 
man cannot live apart from the five relations, \ the five con 
stants as they are sometimes called. These five constants 
are, according to the order given in the Classics^ the relation 
of sovereign and minister, father and son, elder brother and 
younger brother, husband and wife, friend and friend. The 
second, third, and fourth represent the family ties; the 
fifth indicates social intercourse ; and the first expresses man s 
position in the state/, (The state)is, therefore, (as natural to 
man as his family relatious.y " To acknowledge neither father 
nor sovereign is to be in the state of a beast," says Mencius. 

. / It is nece 
that it is si 
these needs justifies amply its existence, j 

Moreover, man, as we have tried to make clear, has for 
his highest aim/ the development of his own moral nature. 
That is his primary duty to Heaven and to himself.) It is 
his destiny. But, Meucius says, " They are only men of 
education, who without a certain livelihood, are able to main 
tain a fixed heart. As to the people, if they have not a 
certain livelihood, it follows that they will not have a fixed 
heart. And if they have not a fixed heart, there is nothing 
which they will not do, in the way of self-abandonment, of 
moral deflection, of depravity, and of wild license. When 
they thus have been involved in crime, to follow them up 
and punish them this is to entrap the people. How can 



Indeed, the state natural to man. / It is necessitated by -man s 
moral and economic needs, and that it is sufficient to satisfy 



43 

such a thing as entrapping the people be done under the 
rule of a benevolent man?" In other words, the mass of 
people cannot talk about virtue and self-cultivation with an 
empty stomach. /Ethics and politics must rest upon arreco- 
nomical basid, It is au accepted principle of modern moralists 
and philanthropists that to improve the moral conditions of 
men reformation must begin by improving their econemical 
conditions. And this, in Mencius opinion, can best be 
brought about by the state. "Therefore," continues the 
philosopher, " au intelligent ruler will regulate the livelihood 
of the people, so as to make sure that, for those above them, 
they shall have sufficient wherewith to serve their parents, and 
for those below them, sufficient wherewith to support their 
wives and children ; that in good years they shall always be 
abundantly satisfied, and that in bad years they shall escape 
the danger of perishing. After this he may urge them, and 
they will proceed to what is good, for in this case the people 
will follow after it with ease." The philosopher then proceeds 
to explain how each family should plant mulberry-trees, keep 
its live stock, and do its farming so that it may be well 
supplied with food and clothing. This being done, education 
comes next in importance. "Let careful attention be paid to 
education in schools, the inculcation in it especially of the filial 
and fraternal duties, and grey-haired men will not be seen upon 
the roads, carrying burdejis-xxo. their backs or on their heads." 
s {Material welfare and^educatiou are, therefore, two essential 



factors in developing man s moral nature, so as to enable him 
to rest in the highest excellence.) And since the state is the 
most efficient agency to affect this, the need for it is evident. 
(Thus the state not only has its origin in human nature, but 
it is necessitated by human needs.) 

But what does Mencius understand by the state ? In 
Bk. VII, Pt. II, Chap. 28, he sums up the essential elements 
of a state in the brief statement, "The precious things 
of a prince are three ; the territory, the people, and the 



44 

It is remarkable to notice that this statement 
of Mencius is upheld by most of the modern political scientists 
such as Bhentschli in Germany, Sidgwick in England, and 
Burgess in America. That there can be no state without the 
people goes without saying. But the people alone will not 
make a state : they must occupy a definite territory. Accord 
ing to Mencius teaching a nomad tribe cannot be considered 
a state, for the people must at least have reached the agricul 
tural stage in civilization before the state is possible. Finally 
a state is not a mere assemblage of people occupying a partic 
ular portion of the earth s surface, (it must be an organized 
unit, with an organized government. There must be gover 
nors in contradistinction to the governed./ Thus Mencius says 
in one place: "With but few potters a kingdom cannot 
subsist ; how much less can it subsist without men of a 
higher rank than others" (Bk. VI, Pt. II, Chap. 10). 

To recapitulate, we have seen that the state is necessitated 
by man s nature, that it is resting upon a physical basis, and 
finally that it is completed by man s agency. But in Mencius 
philosophy, the state is not a mere accident in history. It is 
not 3. convenient means of satisfying man s needs just hit 
upon by mere chance. It is destined by Heaven, and is a 
part of God s plan in creating the universe. This idea is 
clearly shown by the following passage quote d by Mencius 
from the Book of History : " Heaven having produced the 
inferior people, made for them rulers and teachers, with the 
purpose that they should be assisting to God, and therefore 
distinguished them throughout the four quarters of the land." 

It is clear from this that in Mencius conception of the 
state there is a distinct idea of the divine right of the ruler. 
The ruler .is, the vicegerent of Heaven on eartu. This, how 
ever, does not mean that the ruler is infallible and can be 
absolute. It is true that, according to Mencius, the state is 
established by divine order, and the ruler occupies his place 
by diviiif sanction. But, at the same time, M encius equally 



45 

teaches the doctrine that the state is given to the charge of 
fhe ruler, uot as a private possession, but as a public trust"} 
In this, Mencius faithfully follows the idea of the Book or 
History, of which he was apparently a great student, and 
from which he frequently quotes in his Works. In the Book 
of History, it is said : "The decree indeed may not always 
rest on us." This means to say that the decree rests with 
the merits of the ruler, and will be cancelled so soon as the* ruler 
proves himself incompetent for its execution. Mencius once 
went to Ping-ltl and addressed the governor, saying, " If one 
of your spearsmen should lose his place in the ranks three 
times in one day, would you, Sir, put him to death or not?" 
"I would not wait for three times to do so," was the reply. 
Mencius said, "Well, then, you, Sir, have likewise lost your 
place in the ranks many times. In bad calamitous years 
and years of famine, the old and feeble of your people, who 
have been found lying in the ditches and water channels, 
and the able-bodied, who have been scattered about the four 
quarters, have amounted to several thousands" (Bk. II, Pt. 
II, Chap. 4). 

A place of authority is a post of public duty, and when 
the Tluty is not properly discharged, it is only natural "that 
the place be vacated and a new incumbent appointed. This 
principle is applied by Meucius not only to the ministers, but 
also to the sovereign himself with equal force. This is shown 
in one of his conversations with King Hiian of Ch i (Bk. I, 
Pt. II, Chap. 6), to whom he said, " Suppose that one of your 
Majesty s ministers entrusted his wife and children to the care 
of his friend, while he himself went to Ch il to travel, and 
that, on his return, he should find that the friend had let his 
wife and children suffer from cold and hunger ; how ought he 
to deal with him ? " The king said, " He should cast him off." 
Mencius proceeded, " Suppose that the chief criminal judge 
could not regulate the officers under him, how would you deal 
with him?" The king said, "Dismiss him." Mencius 




- 4 6- 

again said, " If within the four borders of your kingdom there 
is not good government, what is to be done?" The king 
looked to the right and left, and spoke of other matters. By 
the first two questions, Mencius established his major premise 
that any one who proved himself unworthy of a trust was to 
be put out of his place. The logical conclusion was then 
forced upon the king, and he averted it only by ignoring it 
altogether. 

/ It is Mencius teaching that all authority comes from.. 
God. \Vhether he be the sovereign, or a prince, or an officer 
in the government, a man has no right to rule over his fellow- 
men except in so far as it is given to him by Heaven. But the 
question naturally arises, How can the will of God be known ?_, 
In Bk. V, Pt. I, Chap. 5, we find the answer given by Meu- 
cius. Wan Chang, one of his disciples, asked him one day, 
saying, "Was it the case that Yao gave the throne to Shun? " 
The reply was, " No. The sovereign cannot give the throne 
to another," "Yes," the disciple said, "but Shun had the 
throne. Who gave it to him ? " " Heaven gave it to him," 
answered the master. " Heaven gave it to him : did 
Heaven confer its appointment on him with specific injunc 
tions ?" Mencius replied, " No, Heaven does not speak. It 
simply showed its will by his personal conduct and his conduct 
of affairs." " It showed its will by his personal conduct and 
his conduct of affairs : how was this ? " to which Mencius 
replied, " The sovereign can present a man to Heaven, but he 
cannot make Heaven give that man the throne. A prince can 
present a man to the sovereign, but he cannot cause the 
sovereign to make that man a prince. A great officer can 
present a man to his prince, but he cannot cause the prince to 
make that man a great officer. Yao presented Shun to Heaven, 
and Heaven accepted him. He presented him to the people, 
and the people accepted him. Therefore I say, Heaven does 
not speak. It simply indicated its will by his personal conduct 
and his conduct of affairs. " Chang said, " I presume to ask 



47 

how it was that Yao presented Shun to Heaven, and Heaven 
accepted him ; and that he exhibited him to the people, and the 
people accepted him." Meucius replied, " He caused him to 
preside over the sacrifices, and all the spirits were well pleased 
with them ; thus Heaven accepted him. He caused him 
to preside over the conduct of affairs, and affairs were well 
administered, so that the people reposed under him; thus the 
people accepted him. Heaven gave the throne to him. The 
people gayj_Jt to him. " Therefore"," T~smd7~ < " J Tn"e sovereigtr 



cannot give the throne to another. Shun assisted Yao in the 
government for twenty and eight years ; this was more than 
man could have done, and was from Heaven. After the death 
of Yao, when the three years mourning was completed, Shun 
withdrew from the son of Yao to the south of the south river. 
The princes of the kingdom, however, repairing to court, went 
not to the son of Yao, but they went to Shun. Litigants went 
not to the son of Yao, but they went to Shun. Singers sang 
not the son of Yao, but they sang Shun. Therefore, I said, 
Heaven gave him the throne. It was after these things that 
he went to the Middle Kingdom and occupied the seat of the 
Son of Heaven. If he had, before these things, taken up his 
residence in the palace of Yao, and had applied pressure to the 
son of Yao, it would have been an act of usurpation, and not 
the gift of Heaven. This sentiment is expressed in the words 
of the Great Declaration (in the Book of History), Heaven 
sees according as my people see ; Heaven hears according as 
my people hear. 

The gist of this long and interesting chapter may be 
summed up thus / No sovereign reigns in his own right. He 
is chosen by Heaven and is installed by the consent of the 
people. His authority is entrusted to him for some end other 
than his own. It is not transferable, and, therefore, cannot be 
given by him to another person of his own accord. 

The same principle holds good with regard to succession 
to the throne. In the Golden Age of Chinese History, from 



- 48 - 

which Meucius got his inspiration for his political ideals, the 
practice was that the emperor chose his own successor. But 
the successor thus chosen was a mere candidate, and before he 
succeeded to the throne, he must secure the sanction of Heaven 
and the approval of the people. According to Mencius theory, 
then, the emperor did not succeed to the throne by the right 
of primogeniture in the male line, as a superficial study of the 
Chinese History seems to indicate ;_ he must comply with the 
will of Heaven and follow the opinion of~The people. Mencius 
did not ignore the hereditary principle in practice during the 
Chau Dynasty under which he lived. He only endeavoured 
to show that the emperor had no absolute claim to anyhered- 
itary right in the thrcme. The throne became hereditary and 
continued to be so just so long as it was the will of Heaven-arid 
the desire of the people. In a word, no one is born a king. 
Wan Chang one day asked the philosopher, saying, " People 
say, When the disposal of the kingdom, came to Yii, his 
virtue was inferior to that of Yao and Shun, and he trans 
mitted it not to the worthiest, but to his son. Was it so?" 
Mencius replied, " No. It was not so. When Heaven gave 
the kingdom to the worthiest, it was given to the worthiest. 
When Heaven gave it to the sou of the preceding sovereign, it 
was given to him. Shun presented Yii to Heaven. Seventeen 
years elapsed, and Shun died. When the three years mourn 
ing was expired, Yii withdrew from the sou of Shun to Yang- 
ch ang. The people of the kingdom followed him, just as 
after the death of Yao, instead of following his son, they had 
followed Shun. Yii presented Yi to Heaven. Seven years 
elapsed, and Yii died. When the three years mourning was 
expired, Yi withdrew from the son of Yii to the north of 
Mount Ch i. The princes, repairing to court, went not to Yi, 
but they went to Ch i (Yti s sou). Litigants did not go to Yi, 
but they went to Ch i, saying, He is the son of our sover 
eign ; the singers did not sing Yi, but they sang Ch i, saying, 
He is the son of our sovereign. 



49 ~ 

Following this principle, Mencius naturally sanctions the 
dethronement of a bad sovereign. Nay, he even considers 
tyrannicide in" some cases justifiable. Once the King Htian 
of Chi asked him, saying, "Was it so that T ang banished 
Chieh, and that King Wu smote Ch&u ? " The philosopher 
replied, "It is so in the records." The king said, "May a 
minister then put his sovereign to death ?" Mencius said, 
" He who outrages the benevolence proper to his nature, is /? i 
called a robber ; he who outrages righteousness, is called a 
ruffian. The robber and ruffian we call a mere fellow. I 
have heard of cutting off of the fellow Chau, but I have not 
heard of the putting a sovereign to death in his case." 

This is a clear statement not only of the right of revolu 
tion, but of the justifiable nature of tyrannicide. The sole 
end for which kingship is created is the welfare of the people, 
and when kingship is not conducive to this end, it forfeits 
its existenceT" 

According to Mencius, then, the judgment whether a 
sovereign, at a given time, is or is not sustaining his right to 
royalty rests entirely with the opinion of the people. Vox 
populi vox del is his principle. To the question of King Hiian 
as to whether he should take possession of the principality of 
Yen, which he had conquered, Mencius gave the reply : "If 
the people of Yen will be pleased with your taking possession 
of it, then do so. Among the ancients there was one who 
acted on this principle, namely, King Wu. If the people of 
Yen will not be pleased with your taking possession of it, then 
do not do so. Among the ancients there was one who 
acted on this principle, namely, King Wen (Bk. I, Pt. II, 
Chap. 10). 

But the people, when understood as the masses, are incap 
able of concerted action. "The monster of many heads," as 
some political thinkers in Europe have called popular govern 
ment, cannot carry into effect the will of Heaven, though it is 
expressed through the public opinion of the country. Who, 



50 

then, is to carry it into effect? Given an abominable tyrant 
having forfeited his right to royalty, the problem as to who is 
to remove him from the throne, is a difficult one. Mencius 
seems to think that the duty devolves first upon those 
ministers who are also relatives of the ruler. With Mencius 
the patriarchal idea of the state is still very strong. He 
follows faithfully the Confucian teaching set forth in the 
Doctrine of the Mean that one of the nine standard rules of 
government is to show affection to the members of the royal 
family, so that among the relatives of the ruler there may be 
no grumbling nor resentment (Doctrine of the Mean, Chap. 
20). But these relatives of the sovereign besides > being 
entitled to special favours, they are also under special obliga 
tions, one of which is the duty of seeing that the^ruler is 
following the right principles, to remonstrate with him, when 
he goes astray, and to dethrone him as a last resort, when the 
state is endangered by his faults. Thus, when King Hsiian 
Ch i asked about the office of the high minister, Mencius said, 
" Which high minister is your Majesty asking about? " "Are 
there differences among them ?" inquired the king. "There 
are," was reply. "There are the high ministers who are 
nobles and relatives of the prince, and there are those who are 
of a different surname." The king said, "I beg to ask 
about the ministers who are nobles and relatives of the prince." 
Mencius answered, If the prince have great faults, they 
ought to remonstrate with him, and if he does not listen to 
them after they have done so again and again, they ought to 
dethrone him." Mencius here seems to think that the 
ministers who are members of the royal family naturally have 
the greatest interests in the welfare of the House, and it js only 
right for them to take the summary measure of dethroning an 
unworthy prince when it is the only means to save the House 
from ruin. It means, of course, that a good deal of states 
manship and nothing short of a strong will and a commanding 
personality will be able to handle the situation, 



111 default of such a minister, that is, a minister who is 
also a relative of the prince, a minister of a different surname 
may also take upon himself the important responsibility of 
deposing an incompetent prince, when the situation becomes 
so critical as to necessitate such a drastic step. Kung-sun 
Chau, a disciple of the philosopher, asked this question : "I 
Yin said, I cannot be near and see him so disobedient to 
reason , and therewith he banished Tai-chia to Tung. The 
people were much pleased, when T ai-chia became virtuous, 
he brought him back, and the people were again much 
pleased. When worthies are ministers, may they indeed 
banish their sovereigns in this way, when they are not 
virtuous? " Mencius answered in the affirmative. 

There are many who dispute this doctrine of Mencius. 
King-makers such as I Yin in China and the Earl of Warwick 
in England are considered by some as dangerous figures. The 
sovereign may be deposed and set up again at the caprice of 
some powerful minister under the cloak of acting as the 
people s champion. At any rate, so the objection runs, 
demagogism is not to be encouraged. The people can be as 
easily pleased as they can be deceived. But Meucius makes 
no such headlong statement as to justify the deposition of a 
sovereign by his minister under any circumstances. In his 
reply to Kung-sun Chau in Bk. VII, Pt. I, Chap. 31, he 
takes special care to add that a minister may depose his sover 
eign, provided he has the same purpose as I Yin ; otherwise 
his action will be no less than usurpation, which is never 
justifiable. What Mencius means by the purpose of I Yin is 
clearly the promotion of the welfare of the country and* the 
interests of the people. That should be the overruling con 
sideration in politics. That alone justifies an extra-legal 
means being resorted, to in an extraordinary case. Accord 
ing to Meucius, the state is a means whereas the welfare of 
the people is the end, and the sovereign is only the person 
entrusted with the control of the means in order to best secure 



52 

the realization of the end. Borrowing the language of Plato, 
we may say that to Meucius the sovereign is to the state as 
the state is to the welfare of the people. Thus Mencius says, 
in Bk. VII, Pt. II, Chap. 14: "The people are the most 
important element in a nation ; the spirits of the land and 
grain (an expression often used to indicate the state) are the 
next; the sovereign is the slightest." The logical outcome 
ul this principle is that the sovereign may be sacrificed lor the 
welfare of the state, and the state may be sacrificed for the 
interests of the people. In reply to a question of Duke Wen of 
T jing on international politics, Mencius said, "Formerly, 
when King T ai dwelt in Pin, the barbarians of the north 
were constantly making incursions upon it. He served them 
with skins and silks, and still he suffered from them. He served 
them with dogs and horses, and still he suffered from them. He 
served them with pearls and gems, and still he suffered from 
them. Seeing this, he assembled the old men, and announced 
to them, saying, What the barbarians want is my territory. 
I have heard this, that a ruler does not injure his people 
with that wherewith he nourishes them. My children, why 
should you be troubled about having no prince? I will leave 
this land. Accordingly, he left Pin, crossed the mountain 
Iviang, built a town at the foot of Mount Ch i, and dwelt 
there" (Bk. I, Pt. II, Chap. 15). This case cited by 
Mencius was a plain instance of the state being sacrified for 
interests of the people. The ruler must not injure the people 
with that wherewith he nourishes them. This is what 
Mencius wants to emphasize. 

From what has been said, it is clear that according to 
Mencius philosophy, the people constitute the most important 
element in the state. Nay, it is the channel through which the 
will of Heaven expresses itself, as is shown in Bk. VII, Pt. II, 
f Chap. 14. In that chapter, Mencius says, "To gain the 
peasantry is the way to become sovereign ; to gain the 
sovereign is the way to become a prince of a state ; to gain the 



53 

prince of a state is the way to become a great officer. This is 
very democratic teaching. But we should place ourselves on 
very uncertain ground if we jump to the conclusion that the state 
as conceived by Mencius is a democracy in the modern sense of 
the word. It is true, indeed, that in Mencius philosophy the 
democratic element stands out in bold relief. Men , as we 
have seen, are all created equal. They are equally endowed, 
"and are capable of equal attainments. To Mencius, the Con 
fucian saying that all men within the four seas are brethren has 
greater significance than to most of the followers of the great 
sage. Equality and fraternity mean nothing less to Meucius 
than to the French apostle of democracy, Jean Jacques 
Rousseau. Not only all men can be Yaos and Shuns, but all 
men, before they become equal in their moral and intellectual 
attainments, are already equal before the law of the country. 
T ao Yin once asked~~ttie~philosop~rier7 saying, "Shun being 
sovereign, and Kan Yao chief minister of justice, if Ku-sau 
(Shun s father) had murdered a man, what would have been 
done in the case?" Meucius said, " Kan Yao would simply 
have apprehended him." "But would not Shun have 
forbidden such a thing?" "Indeed, how could Shun have 
forbidden it ? Kan Yao had received the law from a proper 
source." "In that case what would Shun have done?" 
"Shun would have regarded abandoning the kingdom as 
throwing away a worn-out sandal. He would privately have 
taken his father on his back, and retired into concealment, 
living somewhere along the sea coast. There he would have 
been all his life, cheerful and happy, forgetting the kingdom." 
Even the father of the sovereign is subject to the same law as 
the humblest citizen in the state, Mencius knows no 
privileged class. 

Notwithstanding these democratic teachings, the state of 
Mencius is yet a long way removed from the democracy of 
our own time. We must bear in mind what Henry Sidgwick 
points out that the distinction between power that is uncon- 



54 - 

sciously possessed and power consciously possessed should be 
carefully noticed. The political experience of every country 
shows that no government is possible without the consent of 
the governed, in whatever form and through whatever channel 
that consent may be given. The fear of possible disorder is 
always a retraiut to governmental power. The most absolute 
despot in India, says Henry Maine, will not dare to alter a tittle 
of the customs of the Indian tribes, although he has practically 
in his own hand the life and death of the people under his rule. 
But it would sound ridiculous to call the state of Runjeet 
Singh a democracy. In determining a democracy, the ques 
tion is not how much the consent of the people is consulted by 
the ruler, but to what extent the "active consent" of the 
people influences the operations of government. Indeed, in 
Mencius philosophy, popular consent plays such an important 
part in politics that it almost amounts to popular sovereignty. 
Still he conceives popular consent as merely passive, and with 
no definite means of being expressed. " If the people of Yen 
will be pleased with your taking possession of it, " said the 

philosopher to King Hsiian, then do so If the people 

of Yen will not be pleased with your " taking possession of it, 
then do not do so." The people have no organ to express 
their will, and have to wait to have it interpreted by some 
minister of the sovereign who feels his responsibility and re- 
montrates with the sovereign, or by some benevolent prince 
in the kingdom who responds to Heaven s call and comes 
forth as "the minister of Heaven" and the champion of the 
oppressed. In Meucius teaching, we find more than enough 
to build up a democracy, but democracy as such was probably 
never actually in his mind. 

There is more to be said ; n favour of classifying the state 
of Mencius as a theocracy. We have seen how the state has 
for its basis a divine sanction, and how the ruler is regarded 
as the vicegerent of Heaven. But leaving aside the disputed 
question as to whether theocracy is a form of ?tate, it is at 



55 

least true to Mencius teaching that the divine will is always 
interpreted by some human being or revealed by the opinion 
of the people. Mencius knows no original direct revelation, 
which is essential to a theocracy. 

The state as conceived by Mencins is a monarchy in 
form, although its principle is virtue, which, according to 
Montesquieu, will entitle it to the name of democracy. In 
the last analysis, however, it is nearer to Plato s monarchy, 
or royal government, than any other form described by 
western political thinkers. Mencius ideal of the state is a 
sage king who rules in perfect accordance with the principles 
of benevolence and righteousness, so as to be pleasing in the 
sight of God and to sustain the love of the people. 




CHAPTER VI. 

FORM AND ORGANIZATION OF GOVERNMENT. 

Following the distinction made by modern political scien 
tists between the state and the government, it is proposed 
to treat in the present chapter the form and the organization 
of government as taught by Mencius in his Works. 

Government, according to Mencius, is based on the 
necessary division of labour in a civilized natron. In Bk. Ill, 
Pt. I, Chap. 4, he says, " Great men have their proper busi 
ness, and little men have their proper business. Moreover, 
in the case of any single individual, whatever articles he 
can require are ready to his hand, being produced by the 
various handicraftsmen : if he must first make them for his 
own use, this way of doing would keep all the people running 
about upon the roads. Hence, there is the saying, Some 
labour with their minds, and some labour with their strength. 
Those who labour with their minds govern others ; those 
who labour with their strength are governed by others. Those 
who are governed by others support them ; those who govern 
others are supported by them. This is a principle uinversally 
recognized." 

This passage reads very like the philosophy of Plato in 
the "Republic." As with Plato there must be in a state 
an intelligent class, who shall govern the state, and a pro 
ducing class, whose function is to supply the materials neces 
sary for the subsistence of the state ; so with Mencius there 
must be men of a superior grade and country-men, for, "if 
there were not men of a superior grade, there would be none 
to rule the country-men, and if there were not country-men, 
there would be none to support the men of superior grade" 
(Bk. Ill, Pt. I, Chap. 3). But there are certain differences 
between the teachings of the two philosophers, which are 
worthy of note. In the first place, Plato is an aristocrat, 



57 

while Meucius is a democrat. Class demarcation finds no 
footing in the political philosophy of the Chinese sage. It is 
the division of labour, necessitated by nature, which alone 
makes difference among men. Men are not made of different 
stuff such as gold and brass and iron, as Plato wants us to 
believe. All are created on the same pattern, endowed with 
the same moral nature and the same mental constitution, and 
placed in this world for the same grand purpose. Then, in 
the second place, Mencius does not consider it necessary to 
make the warriors a special class. While Plato s republic is 
to a great extent the idealization of the warlike Sparta, 
Mencius, on the other hand, draws his inspiration for his 
political ideals from the most peaceful period iu the history 
of the most peace-loving peaple, the period of Yao and Shun. 
Mencius, indeed, is not blind to the importance of national 
defence. But he holds that when the hearts of the people \ 
are won over by the benevolence of the ruler, men are ready 
enough to fight or to die for their country (Bk. I, Pt. II, / 
Chap. 12.) "Opportunities of time vouchsafed by Heaved 
are not equal to advantages of situation afforded by the 
Earth, and advantages of situation afforded by the Earth 
are not equal to union arising from the accord of men (Bk. 
II, Pt. II, Chap. i). When men are moved by the cause 
of righteousness, they prove themselves the best fighters. 
This is being proved by the present European War, and we 
may feel sure which side Meucius would take in the heated 
debate of our own time as to the advantages and disadvantages 
of general conscription. 

We turn next to inquire more particularly into the form 
of government. Meucius finds his model in the Golden Ages 
of Yao and Shun and the prosperous periods of the Three 
Dynasties. It is in the past that we should look for the 
best and the model for the future. "To raise a thing high," 
he says, "we must begin from the top of a mount or a hill ; 
to dig a great depth, we must commence in the low ground 



of a stream or a marsh. Can he be pronounced wise, who, 
in the exercise of government, does not proceed according to 
the ways of the former kings ?" (Bk. IV, Ft. I. Chap. i). 

Of the form of government in the time of Yao and Shun 
Mencius leaves us no description. He merely intimates in 
different places that the government of Yao and Shun was 
a benevolent one and that it had for its sole object the welfare 
of the people. 

A good deal, however, may be learned from Mencius 
concerning the ancient political institutions of the .Chau 
Dynasty, although even these were known to him only 
in fragments. Pei-kung I asked the philosopher one day, 
saying, " What was the arrangement of dignities and 
emoluments determined by the House of Chau?" Mencius 
replied, " The particulars of that arrangement cannot be 
learned, for the princes, disliking them as injurious to them 
selves, have all made away with the records of them. Still 
I have learned the general outline" (Bk. V, Pt. II. Chap. 2). 
From what Mencius then described for Pei-kung I and from 
what is found in other places in the Works, it is possible to 
get a fair idea of the important features of the government 
under the Chau Dynasty. 

The empire was organized on the feudal system . At the 
top of the elaborate system was the emperor, the Sou ,of 
Heaven, under whose direct rule was a territory of a thousand 
// square, which was called the Imperial Domain. Immediate 
ly under him were his own ministers^ the Ching, or the 
Chief Ministers, the Tai-fu, or the Great Officers, and tbe 
Yuen Sze, or the Scholars of the First Class. He had alsp 
his vassal-princes, who were graded in a series of five^j^nks 
or dignities, and through whom he ruled the empire .in 
directly. The highest of the dignitaries was the ^Cung, or 
the Duke, and next to him w&s the Hau, or the Marquis. 
Each of these received from the imperial suzerain, the Sou 
of Heaven, a fief of a hundred // square. Thfe Pai, or the 



59 

Earl, wfco was next to the Hau in rank, was given a fief of 
seventy // square, while the Tsz, or the Viscount, and the 
Nan, or the Baron, received each from the emperor a feudal 
estate of fifty // square. 

The government in each feudal state was similar* in 
organization to the imperial government within the imperial 
domain. 

Chapter 2 in Book III, Part II, gives a fairly clear 
description of the different officials in the feudal states and 
their respective emoluments: "A state which embraced a 
territory of a hundred li square, was a great state. In such a 
state, the ruler had ten times as much income as his chief minis 
ter; a chief minister four times as much as a great officer; 
a great officer twice as much as a scholar of the first class ; a 
scholar of the first class twice as much as one of the middle 
class ; a scholar of the middle class twice as much as one of 
the lowest class ; the scholar of the lowest class, and such of 
the common people as were employed about the government 
offices, had for their emolument as much as was equal to 
what they would have made by tilling the fields. 

" In a state of the next order, where the territory was 
seventy li square, the ruler had ten times as much revenue 
as his chief minister ; a chief minister three times as much 
as a great officer ; a great officer twice as much as a scholar 
of the first class ; a scholar of the first class twice as much 
as one of the middle class ; a scholar of the middle class 
twice as much as one of the lowest class ; the scholar of 
the lowest class, and such of the common people as were 
employed about the government offices, had for their emolu 
ment as much as was equal to what they would have made 
by tilling the fields. 

" In a small state, where the territory was fifty li square, 
the ruler had ten times as much revenue as his chief minister ; 
a chief minister three times as much as a great officer ; a 
great officer twice as much as a scholar of the first class ; 



60 

a scholar of the first class twice as tnuch as one of the middle 
class ; a scholar of the middle class twice as much as one 
of the lowest class ; the scholars of the lowest class, and 
such of the common people as were employed about the 
government offices, had for their emolument as much as was 
equal to what they would have made by tilling the fields. 

"As to those who tilled the fields, each husbandman 
received a hundred man. When those man were manured, 
the best husbandmen of the highest class supported nine 
individuals, and those ranking next to them supported eight. 
The best husbandmen of the second class supported seven 
individuals, and those ranking next to them supported six ; 
while husbandmen of the lowest class supported only five. 
The salaries of the common people who were employed about 
government offices were regulated according to these dif 
ferences." 

The organization of government described by Mencius 
in -this long chapter was evidently a feudal monarchy resting 
on an agricultural basis. We shall see next how the land in 
each feudal principality was allotted to the people according 
to the famous system of the "nine square division," so en 
thusiastically advocated by Meucius as the very foundation of 
a benevolent government. A description of the system is 
found in Bk. Ill, Pt. I, Chap. 3. Besides the hundred mau 
allotted to each male who had the support of a family, each 
one, from the highest officers down to the lowest, must have 
his holy field consisting of fifty mau, the produce of which 
was intended to supply the means of sacrifice. The super 
numerary males, who did not have the care of a family, had 
their twenty-five man. "A square // covers nine squares of 
land, which nine squares contain nine hundred man. The 
central square is the public field, and eight families, each 
having its private hundred man, cultivate in common the 
public field. Not till the public work is finished, may they 
presume to attend to their private affairs." 



61 

Tto^Matt^MAfia^iifiMM^^i!^aiid~ is, in the opinion of 
Meucius, uoL ouly Lhe best system of land-tenure considered 
from the economical point ot view, but the social benefit- 
resulting from it are conducive to the very end of the state. 
"On occasion of death, or removal from one dwelling to 
another, there will be no quitting the district. In the fields 
of a district, those who belong to the same nine squares 
rendered all friendly offices to one another in their going out 
and coming in, aid one another in keeping watch and ward, 
and sustain one another in sickness. Thus the people are 
brought to live in affection and harmony" (Bk. Ill, Pt. I, 
Chap. 3). 

In short, Mencius believes that under such a feudal 
system everyone will live in perfect contentment. The ruling 
class have their emoluments properly regulated, and the 
common people all feel that their means of livelihood is secure 
to them. The goodness of man s nature has then its full play 
and virtue prevails throughout the country. In Bk. VII, 
Pt. I, Chap. 13, Mencius pictures to us his Utopia. "Under 
a true sovereign," he says, "the people have an air of deep 
contentment. Though he slay them, they do not murmur. 
When he benefits them, they do not think of his merit. From 
day to day, they make progress towards what is good, with 
out knowing who makes them do so." 

Such, then, is what Mencius means by the Imperial 
Government,, and such are its effects. 

But how is the imperial government to be brought about? 
What are its requisites? These were some of the questions 
asked by the princes of Mencius time and it will be interest 
ing to note his answer. Diametrically different from the 
views of his contemporaries, Mencius holds that an extetfsive 
territory is not essential to the practice of the imperial 
government. "He who, using force, makes a pretence to 
benevolence is the leader of the princes. A leader of the 
princes requires a large kingdom. He who, using virtue, 



practises benevolence is sovereign of the kingdom. To be 
come the sovereign of the kingdom, a prince needs not 
wait for a large territory. T ang did it with only seventy 
// , and King Wen with only a hundred // " (Bk. II, Pt. I, 
Chap. 3). 

Nor is military force a requisite. One day Wan Chang 
asked the philosopher, saying, "Sung is a small state. Its 
ruler is now setting about to practise the true royal govern 
ment, and Ch i and Ch u hate and attack him. What in this 
case is to be done?" (Bk. Ill, Pt. II, Chap. 5). Mencius 
told him that the prince who practises benevolence with 
sincerity has none to fear, for a benevolent government is 
mightier than any military force. " Sung is not," he said in 
conclusion, "practising true royal government as you say. 
If it were practising royal government, all within the four 
seas would be lifting up their heads, and looking for its 
prince, wishing to have him for their sovereign. Great as 
Ch i and Ch u are, what would there be to fear from them?" 
In a conversation with King Hui of Ljang, he said, " If your 
Majesty will indeed dispense a benevolent government to the 
people, being sparing in the use of punishments and fines, 
and making the taxes and levies light, so causing that the 
fields shall be ploughed deep, and the weeding of them be 
carefully attended to, and that the strong- bodied, during their 
days of leisure, shall cultivate their filial piety, fraternal 
respectfulness, sincerity, and truthfulness, serving thereby, 
at home, their fathers and elder brothers, and abroad, their 
elders and superiors, you will then have a people who can 
be employed, with sticks which they have prepared, to oppose 
the strong mail and sharp weapons of the troops of Ch i and 
Ch u" (Bk. I, Pt. I, Chap. 5). Relying on this principle, 
the philosopher questioned the validity of the Book of History. 
" It would be better to be without the Book of History," he 
said in one place, "than to give entire credit to it. In the 
Completion of the War, I select two or three passages only, 



_ 63 - 

which I believe. The benevolent man has no enemy under 
heaven. When the prince the most benevolent was engaged 
against him who was the most the opposite, how could the 
blood of the people have flowed till it floated the pestles of 
the mortars?" (Bk. VII, Pt. II, Chap. 3). 

In holding these views, Mencius set himself in diametrical 
opposition to his time. With all his might, he endeavoured 
to stem the tide of brute force then in ascendancy. He 
condemned mercilessly the spirit of militarism and aggrandise 
ment which reigned supreme in his days. "Those who are 
skilful to fight," he said, "should suffer the highest punish 
ment. Next to them should be punished those who unite the 
princes in leagues ; and next to them, those who take in 
grassy commons, imposing the cultivation of ground on the 
people" (Bk. IV, Pt. I, Chap. 14). The imperial govern 
ment requires no such material strength as an extensive 
territory or a strong army. Its foundation rests upon a better 
and nobler basis. A virtuous sovereign assisted by virtuous 
ministers will be all that is necessary. With Mencius, th 
sovereign is the centre of gravity in the state. Thus he says, 
" The root of the empire is in the state. The root of the state 
is in the family The root of the family is in the person of its 
head" (Bk. IV, Pt. I, Chap. 5). What the sovereign does 
is followed by the people, and what he is tells effectively upon 
the whole nation. " If the sovereign be benevolent, all will 
be benevolent. If the sovereign be righteous, all will be 
righteous" (Bk. IV, Pt. II, Chap. 5). Indeed, to Meucius 
mind, the sovereign occupies such an important position in 
the state, and exerts such an extensive influence upon the 
people, that he seems almost to embrace all and embody all. 
Thus, as Dr. Faber points out, the notorious saying of I/ouis 
XIV, "I/etat c est moi," has some truth in it, only its 
meaning must be understood in the spirit of Meucius. 

Let us now turn our attention to the character of a true 
sovereign as depicted by Mencius. 



First of all, the true sovereign must have a peace-loving 
- spirit. This question was once put to Mencius by King 
Hsiang of Liang: "How can the empire be settled?" 
Mencius replied, "It will be settled when it is united under 
one sway." "Who can so unite it?" asked the king again. 
Mencius answer was, VHe^vj^_h^sjno^leasure_in .JuUifl- 
men-can so unite ft." In making this statement, Menem* 
struck the right chord. The age in which he lived was a 
warlike age. Union was what the country needed and tfeeded 
badly. Incessant war harassed the land throughout its length 
and breadth, and to satisfy the insatiable ambitions* of the 
princes thousands of precious lives were sacrificed, cities 
desolated, crops destroyed, and peace banished from the 
country. The people were thirsting for order, and they would 
hail as their saviour and sovereign any prince who should 
come forth as the champion of humanity and put into practice 
.the principles of a benevolent government. 

In other words, the sovereign must make benevolence the 
^controlling principle of his life aud conduct. Military force 
may conquer a country, but it cannot succeed in the Idng run 
in holding the power gained by such a conquest. When one 
by force subdues men, they do not submit to him in heart," 
says Mencius. They submit, because their strength is 
not adequate to resist" (Bk. II, Pt. I. Chap. 3). "To 
yield to force," says Rousseau, "is an act of necessity, 

not of will As soon as men can disobey with 

impunity, they may do so legitimately." To.be sovereign 
is, according to Mencius, completely to win the hearts of the 
people. " He who practises benevolence in the spirit of real 

virtue is the sovereign When one subdues men by 

virtue, they are pleased in their hearts core, and sincerely 
submit, as was the case with the seventy disciples in their 
submission to Confucius." Hence the philosopher says, 
There are instances of individuals who got possession of a 
single state without practising benevolence, but there has 



- 65 - 

been no instance of the whole empire s being got possession 
of by one without benevolence" (Bk. VII, Pt. II, Chap. 13). 
The empire, Meucius seems to think, is too extensive to be 
ruled by sheer military -despotism. It can be ruled only with 
the consent of the ruled, when their hearts are won. 

But benevolence is not conceived by Meucius as a passive 
virtue. It must be shown in the various actions of the 
sovereign and the many activities of the government. Mere 
intention, however good, amounts to little. <( Virtue alone is 
not sufficient for the exercise of government ; laws alone can 
not carry themselves into practice When the sages had 

used the vigour of their eyes, the} called in to their aid the 
compasses, the square, the level, and the line, to make things 
round, square, level, and straight : the use of the instruments 
is inexhaustible. When they had used the power of hearing 
to the utmost, they called in the pitch-tubes to their aid to 
determine the five notes : the use of these tubes is inexhaus 
tible. When they had exerted to the utmost the thoughts 
of their hearts, they called in to their aid a government that 
could not endure to witness the sufferings of men ; and their 
benevolence overspread their empire. Hence we have the 
saying : To raise a thing high, we must begin from the top 
of a mount or a hill ; to dig a great depth, we must commence 
in the low ground of a stream or a marsh. Can he be pro 
nounced wise, who, in the exercise of government, does not 
proceed according to the ways of the former kings? " (Bk. IV, 
Pt. I, Chap. i). Elsewhere he says, " He who as a sovereign 
would perfectly discharge the duties of a sovereign, and he 
who as a minister would perfectly discharge the duties of a 
minister, have only to imitate the one Yao and the other Shun. 
He who does not serve his sovereign as Shun served Yao does 
not respect his sovereign, and he who does not rule his people 
as Yao ruled his, injures his people " (Bk. IV, Pt. I, Chap. 2). 
In a word, the true sovereign must needs give expression to 
his benevolence, and the best way is to imitate Yao and Shun> 



x*^ 



66 

This sounds very conservative, but it contains in it a great 
deal of truth, and shows much political insight, when it is 
interpreted in the right spirit. Speculation in politics is to be 
feared. The doctrinaire is dangerous and should be guarded 
against. We are on firm ground only when we rest upon 
history. The whole stock of experience gained in the past 
ages by our predecessors is not to be despised and wantonly set 
aside. The present cannot be cut off from the past, because 
history works out certain principles which must be handed 
r down as valuable heritage to the succeeding generations. 
What is good should be followed, but followed in such a 
manner as to be compatible with the existing circumstances. 
It is only important that the past be followed not because-it is 
past but because it has proved to be good. Experience- and 
reason cannot be separated. The two must join hands in order 
to be of value. 

Especially natural was it in Mencius case, that he shoirld 
turn his eyes fondly to the past. He must have read of the 
iuuocent happiness and the smiling prosperity of the country 
in the days of Yao and Shun. Contrasting these with the 
deplorable conditions of his own time, how the oppressed 
groaned under the tyrannical ruler, how crime multiplied and 
virtue decayed, he could not but wish that among the rulers 
of the age there might be found one who would lend him his 
ears, -carry into effect the principles of Yao and Shun, and, 
bring to life again the Golden Ages long buried in liistory. 
He made it, therefore, the pursuit of his life to seek for a 
virtuous sovereign who would imitate the sage rulers of the 
past. 

As we have seen, the sovereign is the vicegerent of Heaven 
on earth. Nay, more than this, he is the parent of the people. 
He should therefore ever keep in his mind the welfare of .the 
country, and always aim at the interests of the people. He 
should be so much engaged in the business of the government, 
that he has no time to give to any other pursuit. Hsu Hsing 



- 67 - 

aud his school maintained the communistic view that "wise 
and able princes should cultivate the ground equally and along 
with the people, and eat the fruit of their labour, and that 
they should prepare their own meals, morning and evening, 
while at the same time they carry on their government." 
Mencius proved the absurdity of such a view, and showed that 
the sage sovereigns of the past had been so absorbed in their 
solicitude for the people that it had been impossible for them to 
find leisure for cultivating the ground. 

This does not mean, however, that the true sovereign is 
one who lives an ascetic life, monotonous and melancholy. 
He may have all his enjoyments, he may keep his royal parks, 
build his summer palaces, amuse himself with hunting a^id 
music, satisfy his own innocent love for woman, satiate his 
desire for wealth, and cherish his own ambition ; say, he 
may enjoy all the pleasures and privileges appropriate 
to the sovereign without interfering in any way with the 
practice of a benevolent government. It is only required 
that amidst his pleasures and enjoyments he be still in hea.rty 
sympathy with those under his rule, considerate of the aged 
and destitute, and kind to the poor aud suffering. He should 
set his inind ever upon the welfare of the country ; for at is 
with this that he has been entrusted by the will of Heaven and 
the consent of the people. It is his duty to see that agricul 
ture, the main source of subsistence in the country, is not 
interfered with, that education is promoted aud carried on in 
the right way, that justice is equitably administered, and that 
punishment is properly awarded so as to be fair to all. He can 
discharge all his multitudinous and important duties only by 
careful study aud constant effort. The art of government, 
Meucius holds, is to be acquired just as any other great art. 
When throughout the kingdom," says this philosopher, 
there is leisure and rest from external troubles, let the ruler 
take advantage of such a season, and clearly digest the principles 
of his government with its legal sanctions, and then even great 



68 

kingdoms will be constrained to stand in awe of him" (Bk. 
II, Ft. I, Chap. 4). But above all other things the sovereign 
should live a virtuous life. The end of the imperial govern 
ment is to bring about such a condition that every one in the 
country should cultivate virtue and live a right life) for, as 
has already been quoted, "if the sovereign be benevolent all 
will be benevolent, and if the sovereign be righteous, all will 
be righteous." "What the superior man loves," Mencius 
says in another place, "his inferiors will be found to love 
exceedingly. The relation between superiors and inferiors is 
like that between the wind and grass. The grass must bend 
, jdien the blows upon it" (Bk. Ill, Pt. I, Chap. 2). 

But the government is not to be carried on by the sover 
eign alone. Even Yao, entitled the highly meritorious , and 
called great by Confucius, found himself inefficient to admin 
ister the state single-handed. "In the time of Yao, when 
the world had not yet been perfectly reduced to order, the 
vast waters, flowing out of their channels, made a universal 
inundation. Vegetation was luxuriant, and birds and beasts 
swarmed. The various kinds of grain could not be grown. 
The birds and beasts pressed upon men. The paths marked 
by the feet of beasts and prints of birds crossed one another 
throughout the Middle Kingdom. To Yao alone this caused 
anxious sorrow. He raised Shun to office : and measures to 
regulate the disorder were set forth. Shun committed to Yi 
the direction of the fire to be employed, and Yi set fire to, and 
consumed, the forests and vegetation on the mountains and in 
the marshes, so that the birds and beasts fled away to hide 
themselves. Yii separated the nine streams, cleared the courses 

of the Tsi and T a and led them all to the sea The 

Minister of Agriculture taught the people to sow and reap, 

cultivating the five kinds of grain The Minister of 

Instruction was appointed to teach the relations of humanity. 
.... What Yao felt giving him anxiety was the not getting 
Shun. What Shun felt giving him anxiety was the not getting 



- 69 - 

Yii and Kao Yao Hence to give the throne to another 

man would be easy ; to find a man who shall benefit the 
kingdom is difficult" (Bk. Ill, Pt. I, Chap. 4). 

Difficult as it is to secure the best talents of the country 
and employ them in the service of the government, it is a duty 
of vital importance devolving upon the sovereign. With the 
performance of this duty is bound up the very existence of the 
^tate and the efficiency of the goverment. Mencius says, " If 
men of virtue and ability be not confided in, a state will 
become empty and void" (Bk. VII, Pt. II, Chap. 12). 
Again : " If a prince hates disgrace, the best course for him 
to pursue is to esteem virtue and honour virtuous scholars, 
giving the worthiest among them places of dignity, and the 
able, offices of trust" (Bk. II, Pt. I Chap. 4). 

To secure the services of men of virtue and ability, the 
sovereign must pay them due respect and extend to them in 
vitations in a humble and courteous spirit. " A prince who is 
to accomplish great deeds," says Mencius, " will certainly have 
ministers whom he does not call to go to him. When he 
wishes to consult with them, he goes to them. The prince 
who does not honour the virtuous, and delight in their way of 
doing, to this extent, is not worth having to do with. Accord 
ingly, there was the behaviour of T ang to I Yin ; he first 
learned of him, and then employed him as his minister ; and so 
without difficulty he became emperor. There was the behaviour 
of the Duke Hwan to Kwan Chung; he first learned of 
him, and then employed him as his minister ; and so without 
difficulty he became chief of all the princes " (Bk. II, Pt. II, 
Chap. 2). 

But to pay the many officials employed in the government 
and to meet the various expenditures of the state, a regular 
revenue is necessary ; hence taxation must be resorted to. 
Throughout the Works of Mencius, we find the philosopher 
constantly urging the princes of his time to make the taxes 
and levies light. This was, of course, due to the circumstances 



of the age. The extravagant luxuries and the warlike ambition 
of the rulers led to heavy taxation. " After the whole year s 
toil, the people are not able to nourish their parents, so that 
they proceed to borrowing to increase their means, till the old 
people and children are found lying in the ditches and water 
channels " (Bk. I, Pt. I, Chap. 7). These words of Mencius 
are enough to show the oppressive nature of the taxes in his 
days. For this reason, he repeatedly called the attention of the 
princes to the sufferings of the people under their rule, and 
tried to bring home to them the importance of a properly 
regulated system of taxation. There are the exactions of 
hemper-cloth and silk, of grain, and of personal service," he 
said. The prince requires but one of them at once, deferring 
the other two. If he should require two of them at once, then 
the people would die of hunger. If he should require the 
three at once, then fathers and sons are separated " (Bk. VII, 
Pt. II, Chap. 27) . But there is a minimum below which taxation 
cannot go. Once Pai Kwei said to Mencius, " I want to take 
a twentieth of the produce only as the tax. What do you 
think of it?" Mencius said, "Your way would be that of 
Mo (a barbarous tribe on the north of China). In a country 
of ten thousand families, would it do to have only one potter? " 
Kwei replied, " No. The vessels would not be enough to 
use." Mencius went on, " In Mo all the five kinds of grain are 
not grown ; it only produces the millet. There are no fortified 
cities, no edifices, no ancestral temples, no ceremonies of 
sacrifice ; there are no princes requiring presents and entertain 
ments ; there is no system of officers with their subordinates. 
On these accounts a tax of one-twentieth of the produce is 
sufficient there. But now it is in the Middle Kingdom that we 
live. To banish the relationships of men, tp have no superior 
men ; how can such a state of things be thought of ? With 
but few potters a kingdom cannot subsist ; horo much less can 
it subsist without men of a higher rank than others ? If we 
wish to make the taxation lighter than the system of Yao and 



Shun, we shall just have a great Mo and a small Mo. If we 
wish to make it heavier, we shall just have the great Chieh 
and the small Chieh " (Bk. VI, Pt. II, Chap. 12). 

This passage shows plainly that, while taxation. should 
not exceed what the people can afford to pay, still it must be 
adequate to keep the machinery of the government going and 
to maintain the pomp and dignity of the state. One-tenth, 
the rate adopted by the Three Dynasties, is proposed by 
Mencius as the most reasonable and equitable rate of taxation. 

Before we close the present chapter, a few remarks must 
be made with regard to the character and duties of the 
ministers who should assist the true sovereign and to whom 
Mencius attaches so much importance in bringing about a 
benevolent government. 

According to Mencius there are four different classes 
of ministers (Bk. VII, Pt. I, Chap. 19). First, there are 
persons who serve the prince in order to court his favour. 
These he would spurn as abject, servile characters, unworthy 
of their positions. When raised to dignity, Mencius says, 
they will only disseminate their wickedness among all below 
them (Bk. IV, Pt. I, Chap. I). But, alas! he found only 
too many of these ministers in his own time, and they, too, 
were those who enjoyed popularity and success everywhere. 
" Such persons are now called good ministers, " he observed, 
" but anciently they were called robbers of the people. 
Indeed, Meucius did not deign to call them by the honorable 
name of ministers, but spoke of them simply as " those who 
served the prince." 

Secondly, "there are ministers who seek the tranquillity 
of the state, and find their pleasure in securing that tran 
quillity." These do not yet attain the ideal, but they deserve 
respect and honour. Mencius seems to require of them two 
qualifications: to be virtuous and maintain due self-respect 
in intercourse with princes, and to possess a high ideal with 
which they should inspire their princes. No intellectual 



72 

qualification is expressly mentioned, but it is presupposed 
when the governance of a country is considered to require 
the knowledge of a specialist. But it is essential that such 
a minister should love what is good. "The love of what is 
good," says Mencius, " is more than a sufficient qualification 
for the government of the empire. ... If a minister loves 
what is good, all within the four seas will count a thousand 
// but a small distance, and will come and lay their good 
thoughts before him" (Bk. VI, Pt. II, Chap. 13). 

Thirdly, " there are those who are the people of Heaven. 
They, judging that, if they were in office, they could carry 
out their principles throughout the empire, proceed so to 
carry them out." I Yin, minister of the Emperor T ang, and 
Tai-kung, minister of Wii Wang, were examples. They felt 
that they had been sent by Heaven with a special mission, 
and therefore owed special obligations to their fellow-men. 
Amidst the cries of the suffering and the groans of the oppressed, 
they heard their call and proceeded to labour for their delivery. 

Fourthly, "there are those who are great men. They 
rectify themselves, and others are rectified." These are the 
ideal ministers. It is they who make real what the Great 
Learning says "to illustrate illustrious virtue, to renovate 
the people, and to rest in the highest excellence." Their 
influence is such that the renovation of the people follows 
as a natural consequence of their imposing personality. Only 
the sages, the holy, ideal men, are equal to this attainment. 

Turning next to the duties of the true minister, we find 
that they are many and various. The most important, how 
ever, is to rectify the sovereign and direct him to virtue. 
The sovereign, as we have seen, is the radiant of the body 
politic and the fountain of the governmental system. Thus 
Mencius says : " It is not enough to remonstrate with a 
sovereign on account of the mal-employment of ministers, nor 
to blame him for errors of government. It is only the great 
man who can rectify what is wrong in the sovereign s mind. 



73 

Let the prince be benevolent, and all his actions will be 
benevolent. Let the prince be righteous, and all his actions 
will be righteous. Let the prince be correct, and everything 
will be correct. Once rectify the prince, and the kingdom 
will be settled" (Bk. IV, Pt. I, Chap. 20). It is therefore 
important that the minister should hold constantly before 
his prince the examples of Yao and Shun, and inspire him 
with noble ideals. "To urge one s sovereign to difficult 
achievements may be called showing respect to him. To set 
before him what is good and repress his perversities may be 
called showing reverence for him. He who does not do these 
things, saying to himself, my sovereign is incompetent to do 
this , may be said to play the thief with him" (Bk. IV, Pt. I, 
Chap. i). Again: "He who does not serve his sovereign 
as Shun served Yao, does not respect his sovereign." 

But the question remains, What is to be done when the 
prince cannot be rectified in spite of all efforts on the part 
of the minister ? Two ways are open to the minister : to 
resign, or to depose the prince and set up another in his 
place. Which course should be followed is determined by 
the relation of the minister to the reigning house as well as 
by the nature of the situation, which points have already 
been considered. 



CHAPTER VII. 



THE FUNCTIONS OF THE STATE. 

The functions of the state follow naturally from the end 
of the state. The end of the state, as we have seen, is con 
ceived by Mencius as the development of man s moral nature. 
But it must not be understood by this that Mencius advocates 
state interference in general so as to allow the state to en 
croach upon every department of life. What he maintains 
is that the state is under obligation to facilitate the develop- 
menLof morality by making conditions favourable. 

V First and foremost, the state should secure for the people 
their physical well-being ; for upon this depends their moral 
development, and it should therefore be promoted in every 
possible way. "The people cannot live without water and 
fire," says Mencius, "yet if you knock at a man s door in 
the dusk of the evening, and ask for water and fire, there 
is no man who will not give them, such is the abundance of 
these things. A sage governs the empire so as to cause pulse 
and grain to be as abundant as water and fire. When pulse 
and grain are as abundant as water and fire, how shall the 
people be other than virtuous" (Bk. VII, Pt. I, Chap. 23). 
To bring this about, waste land must be reclaimed and the 
habitable area increased by removing the thickets and marshes, 
by driving away the wild birds and beasts which are injurious 
to men, and by confining within their proper limits the 
streams and rivers so that flood and inundation may not 
occur (Bk. Ill, Pt. I, Chap. 4; Bk. Ill, Pt. II, Chap. 9). 
Then the nine-square system of land division should be carried 
into effect, that every family may have its means of living. 
Regulations of fishing and forestr}- should be proclaimed in 
order to prevent scarcity of fish and fuel. Cultivation of the 
mulberry-tree and rearing of cattle should be encouraged, 
so as to provide every family with cloth and meat. In time 



75 

of famine and scarcity, relief measures should be under 
taken. But it is more important to attend to the economic 
conditions of the people in ordinary times so as to make 
famine and scarcity practically impossible. Thus Mencius 
says, " If the seasons of husbandry be not interfered with, the 
grain will be more than can be eaten. If close nets are not 
allowed to enter the pools and ponds, the fishes and turtles will 
be more than can be consumed. If the axes and bills enter the 
hills and forests only at the proper time, the wood will be more 
than can be used. When the grain and fish and turtles are 
more than can be eaten, and there is more wood than can 
be used, this enables the people to nourish their living and 
bury their dead, without any feeling against any. This 
condition, in which the people nourish their living and bury 
their dead without any feeling against any, is the first step 
of Royal Government." Mencius also adds: " Let mulberry 
trees be planted about the homesteads with their five man, 
and persons of fifty years old may be clothed with silk. In 
keeping fowls, pigs, dogs, and swine, let not their times of 
breeding be neglected, and persons of seventy years may eat 
flesh. Let there not be taken awaj r the time that is proper 
for the cultivation of the farm with its hundred mau, and 
the family of several mouths that is supported shall not suffer 
from hunger" (Bk. I, Pt. I, Chap. 3). 

In this way, the material welfare of the great majority 
is secured. There are, however, the unfortunate few who are 
poor and destitute and for whom the state should make 
adequate provision. "There are the old and wifeless, or 
widowers;" says Mencius, "the old and husbandless, or 
widows ; the old and childless, or solitaries ; the young and 
fatherless, or orphans : these four classes are the most des 
titute of the people, and have none to whom they can tell 
their wants, and King We ll, in the institution of his govern 
ment with its benevolent action, made them the first objects 
of his regard" (Bk. I, Pt. II, Chap. 5). 



But " men possess a moral nature," observes the philoso 
pher ;" if they are well fed, warmly clad, and comfortably 
lodged, without being taught at the same time, they become 
almost like the beasts" (Bk. Ill, Pt. I, Chap. 3). Education is 
therefore necessary. Indeed, with Meuctus, education is that 
upon which the existence of the state depends. In Bk. IV, 
Pt. I, Chap I, we find these words : "When the prince has 
no principle by which he examines his administration, and 
his ministers have no laws by which they keep themselves in 
the discharge of their duties, then in the court obedience is 
not paid to the principle, and in the office obedience is not 
paid to rule. Superiors violate the laws of righteousness, 
and inferiors violate the penal laws. It is only by a fortunate 
chance that a kingdom in such a case is preserved. There 
fore it is said, It is not the exterior and interior walls being 
incomplete, and the supply of weapons offensive and defen 
sive being not large, which constitute the calamity of a 
kingdom. It is not the cultivated area not being extended, 
and stores and wealth not being accumulated, which occasions 
the ruin of a kingdom. When superiors do not observe 
the rules of propriety, and inferiors do not learn, then sedi 
tious people spring up, and the kingdom will perish in no 
time" (Bk. IV, Pt. I. Chap. i). Mencius agrees entirely 
with Plato that education is the highest concern of the state. 
Without education, all legislation will be futile, while with 
education laws are unnecessary. It is perhaps for this reason 
that Meucius says so little about law and lays his greatest 
emphasis on inculcating the principles of propriety and right 
eousness. A nation of brutes can make no stand in the world. 
The uneducated are not qualified to do even the most brutal 
work, that of war. "To employ an uuiustructed people in 
war," says the philosopher, "may be said to be destroying 
the people" (Bk. VI, Pt. II, Chap. 8). Government, in 
short, should always be founded on the basis of education, 
not only because education enhances the work of government, 



77 

but also because it produces upon the people an influence 
different in kind, which the government itself is not capable 
of exerting. Thus says Meucius, "Good government does 
not lay hold of the people so much as good instructions. 
Good government is feared by the people, while good instruc 
tions are loved by them. Good government gets the people s 
wealth, while good instructions get their hearts" (Bk. VII, 
Pt. I, Chap. 14). On this account, Shun, as soon as the 
physical welfare of the country had been secured, turned his 
attention at once to the great work of education. "He 
appointed See" to be the Minister of Instructions, to teach 
the people the relations of humanity : how, between father 
and son, there should be affection ; between sovereign and 
minister, righteousness ; between husband and wife, attention 
to their separate functions ; between old and young, a proper 
order; and between friends, fidelity" (Bk. Ill, Pt. I, 
Chap. 4) . 

Education received no less attention from the Three 
Dynasties. The Hsia dynasty had its hsiao, the Yin its hsii, 
and the Chau its /isia?ig^. All of them established their 
hsiao. " The common aim was," says Mencius, " to illustrate 
the human relations" (Bk. Ill, Pt. I, Chap. 3). 

It is evident from these citations that Mencius is a strong 
advocate of state education. The question of the methods 
of state education may be left to the educationist. But it should 
be noted here that while Mencius regards education as an 
essential function of the state, he does not mean to exclude 
it entirely from the sphere of individual activity. On the 
contrary, he holds that the virtuous and talented owe to the 
young and ignorant the moral obligation of instruction. 
"Those who keep the Mean," he says, "train up those who 
do not, and those who have abilities train up those who 
have not, and hence men rejoice in having fathers and elder 
brothers who are possessed of virture and talent" (Bk. IV, 



82 " Hsiao," "hsii," and " hsiang," all mean " schools." 



- 78 - 

Pt. II, Chap. 7). Furthermore, preachers of the principles 
of benevolence and righteousness are entitled to the support 
and honour of the community ; for, although apparently they 
merely wander from one place to another doing nothing 
substantial, their labour has transforming influence upon the 
people. In the opinion of Mencius, their labour is as equally 
effective in increasing the welfare of the community as any 
other form of labour, and should be remunerated accordingly. 
In a conversation with one of his disciples, he said, " If you 
do not have intercommunication of the productions of labour, 
and an interchange of men s services, so that one from his 
overplus may supply the deficiency of another, then husband 
men will have a superfluity of grain, and women will have 
a superfluity of cloth. If you have such an interchange, 
carpenters and carriage-wrights may all get their food from 
you. Here now is a man, who, at home, is filial, and, 
abroad, respectful to his elders ; who watches over the prin 
ciples of the ancient kings, awaiting the rise of future learn 
ers ; and yet you will refuse to support him. How is it 
that you give honour to the carpenter and carriage-wright, 
and slight him who practises benevolence and righteousness," 
(Bk. Ill, Pt. II, Chap. 4). This much we are entitled to 
say. Mencius fails to realize the importance of individual 
initiative. Very little is said in his works on this point. 
But when we bear in mind that even in modern Europe 
people have been but very recently awakened to the impor 
tance of such initiative, the Chinese philosopher, who lived 
two thousand years ago, and upon whom the patriarchal idea 
of the state was exerting such a strong influence, must not 
be too severely criticised for not having brought out adequate 
ly the value and importance of individual initiative in edu 
cational enterprises. 

L,et us now turn to Mencius teaching in regard to inter 
national politics. In this field the philosopher advocates in 
the most energetic manner the policy of peace. Offensive war 



79 

is never justifiable with Meucius. He says, " In the Spring 
aud Autumn there are no righteous wars. Instances indeed 
there are of one war better than another. Correction is 
where the supreme authority punishes its subjects by force 
of arms. Hostile states do not correct one another" (Bk. 
VII, Pt. II, Chap. 2). Here Mencius expressly condemns 
the policy of self-aggrandisement under the cloak of seeking 
for the good of humanity which is often upheld with much 
pride even by the nations of to-day. Prof. Burgess may be 
expressing a great truth, when he says that the Teutonic 
nations are justified by their political genius in assuming the 
leadership in the work of establishing and administering lesser 
states, for by so doing they help forward the economy of the 
world. But when this position is carried to such an extreme 
as to furnish a pretext for unprovoked intervention hi the 
affair of nations which are not prepared for war, then it 
will become a great curse to the world s civilization. Mencius 
teaches, indeed, that a state has a right to deliver the op 
pressed people from their tyrannical yoke in a neighbouring 
state. But the means employed must not lead to unnecessary 
shedding of blood nor to a protracted war so that havoc is 
wrought among the lives and properties of the people. 
There are men who say I am skilful in marshalling 
troops, I am skilful in conducting a battle ! They are great 
criminals. If the ruler of a state loves benevolence, he will 
have no enemy in the world " (Bk. VII, Pt. II, Chap. 4). 
Moreover, this right of intervention belongs only to him who 
is the minister of Heaven, with qualifications acknowledged 
by the people, whose deliverance the war aims at. Other 
wise, it will be a mere instance, as Mencius would say, of 
" one Yen smiting another Yen." 

Pursuing this policy of peace, Mencius gave the follow 
ing reply to King Hsuan of Ch i, who asked him whether 
there was any fixed principle to regulate one s maintenance 
of intercourse with a neighbouring state: "It requires a 



So 

perfectly virtuous prince to be able with a great state to 
serve a small one, as, for instance, T aug served Ko and 
King WSn served the Kwn barbarians. And it requires 
a wise prince to be able, with a small state, to serve 
a large one, as, for instance, the King Tai served the 
Hsiin-yu, and Kau-chieu served Wu. He who with a great 
state served a small one, delights in Heaven. He who 
with a small state serves a large one, stands in awe of 
Heaven. He who delights in Heaven will affect with his 
love and protection the whole empire. He who stands in 
awe of Heaven will affect with his love and protection his 
own state (Bk. I, Ft. II, Chap. 3). When the well-being 
of the people requires, territorj may be conceded, as when 
King Tai left the laud of Pin to save his people from the 
inroads of the northern barbarians. But at certain crises, 
when concession would not remedy the situation, heroic re 
sistance should then be preferred. " Dig deeper your moats, 
said Mencius to Duke Wen of Tang, who was threatened by 
his aggressive neighbours, "and build higher your walls; 
guard them along with your people. In case of attack, be 
prepared to die in your defence and have the people so that 
they will not leave you" (Bk. I, Ft. II, Chap. 13). Thus 
in pleading for the noble cause of international peace, Men 
cius has not failed to see the necessity of national defence. 



CHAPTER VIIL 



CONCLUSION. 

Students in the East who are privileged to read European 
languages often come across sweeping statements and general 
remarks concerning the Eastern countries which are not at all 
complimentary to their national pride, and which they are 
impelled to refute when opportunity permits, however high 
their respect may otherwise be for the author of such general 
izations. The following is an instance from the pen of a 
great authority in Political Science : 

" Now it was this appeal to dogma rather than to reason, 
to faith rather than to logically grounded belief, that was and 
has continued to be the one characteristic of Oriental civiliza 
tion. To the early Eastern mind the fact that a thing existed 
was sufficient of itself to show its right to be. Thus was 
effectually excluded all possibility of inquiries as to the 
relative perfection or justification for the existence of dc facto 
social and political institutions. All social customs, all political 
obligations, thus become stereotyped in fixed customs of 
immemorial usage, customs either of an unquestioned bind 
ing force, or, if questioned at all, answered by the predication 
of an original divine fiat. Thus fixity of the rules governing 
conduct became the chief characteristic of Asiatic civilization . 
In every particular of life, social, political, and religious, 
tradition and usage reigned supreme. So absolute, so imper 
ishable was their import to the Oriental mind, that the mere 
suggestion of their invalidity was in itself conceived as an 
impiety. Unthinking submission to them and to the powers 
that were, summed up the whole duty of the individual." 8 " 

Enough has been set forth in the foregoing pages to show 
that what is affirmed of the Orientals in general, in the 
passage above quoted, cannot justly be applied to the philos- 



83 Willoughby s " Political Theories of the Ancient World," p. 14. 



82 

l^-opher we have been studying. Throughout the writings of 
Mencius, we are face to face with an inquisitive spirit, a 
spirit that seeks for a justification for every institution, social 
or political, and that is fond of digging down to the very 
root in order to reach the reason of things. In certain cases 
we must admit that the views displayed are rather short 
sighted and the reasoning rather feeble when they are 
brought under the search-light of the modern mind. But 
Mencius lived two thousand years ago, and his experience 
and knowledge were confined to the history and institutions 
of a single nation. It is therefore not surprising that what 
seemed quite natural* to him may seem to be ridiculous to us. 
This much however is clear : in Mencius, there was a constant 

\ and sincere effort to dig down to the bottom of truth, and 
to question everything which appeared contradictory to his 
reasoning. j~ 

Meems _plnlosj0phy savours.,. _it2de_ed, of conservatism, 
but dogmatism has no place in his mind. He shows great 
revereuce for the jpast, for the principles of Yao, Shun, and 
other sage rulers, who shine in the pages of the Early History 
of the Chinese race. But it would be misrepresenting him to 
account for his reverence for the ancient sages by simply 
imputing to him an attitude of "unthinking submission" to 
what is past, rather than by interpreting his position the 
medium of his keen realization of the political degeneration of \ 
his time and of his deep conviction of the necessity of falling 
back upon the more fortunate experiences of the race. What 
characterizes Mencius is not blind worship of the past, but an 
intelligent appreciation of the lessons of history. He was a 
great student of the Book of History and of the Book of 
Poetry, two classics which embody the spirit of the Golden 
Ages of Chinese history. But he was a student who was not 
afraid to face the facts squarely and to criticise wherever 
criticism was needed. In Bk. VII, Pt. II, Chap. 3, occurs 
the striking passage : "It would be better to be without the 



- 8 3 - 

Book of History than to give entire credit to it. In the Com 
pletion of the War, I select two or three passages only, which 
I believe." It was with such a critical spirit that he studied 
history, and it was with such a critical spirit also, not 
tinctured by any unthinking submission whatever, that he 
admired the past and cried out aloud for a return to the 
Golden Ages. 

On the other hand, Meucius shares with all the other 
ancient political thinkers the characteristic of confusing 



morality and law. To him moral and legal are interchange* 
"able terms^ As we have seen, he conceives the state to exists 
for the sake of morality, and it follows naturally that whatever 
is against morality is against the state and is punishable by / 
the state, and whatever is conducive to morality is within the 
scope of state action and should be legally enforced. The 
starting-point of his moral philosophy, moreover, is the belief 
that man s nature is originally good. He proceeds thence to 
reason that in man there is no want of a will to do what is 
good, so long as the conditions are favourable. To govern 
the state, therefore, needs no elaborate system of law. Its / 
only secret is to lead the people to cultivate virtue by develop- [ 
ing the moral nature implanted in them. Where there is any 1 

necessity of law, the moral sense of the ruler will dictate > 

ij 

plenty of it. Indeed* with Mencius, there are equity and / 

justice, but no law.^, 



One thing, however, distinguishes Meucius from other 
ancient political philosophers. In his philosophy there is 
found very little religion. His is not a religious mind. His 
teachings reveal a vague idea of the Supreme Deity, but he 
lails to follow up those lofty ideas of God which are so out 
standing in the Book of History and the Book of Poetry, with 
which his^ philosophy has a very close relation in other 
respects. Moral obligations express not any external will 
but an internal one, springing out of the moral nature 
inherent in man. To serve Heaven is to develp one s own 



-84 

moral constitution. Finally, all of Mencius political teach 
ings have a practical end in view. He was not one of those 
library-chair philosophers who sit down deliberately to com 
pose a scientific treatise intended to rouse the admiration of 
posterity rather than to satisfy a crying need. He lived and 
taught with his eyes constantly fixed upon the conditions of 
his own time. Aside from being a moral teacher and a 
political philosopher, he was above all an enthusiastic 
reformer. He was really one who had a mind which could 
not bear to see the sufferings of others." He was fully alive 
to the fact that the country needed union and peace. He wa* 
more than conscious of the situation of the times, social, 
political, and moral. China in the time of Mencius was in a 
case similiar to that of Italy in the time of Machiavelli. Yet 
Machiavellianism was just what the Chinese philosopher 
denounced. His aim was not the mere union of the nation. 
That was to him only a means to an end. It was the welfare 
and happiness of the people that he was seeking. "To* 
deliver the people from the midst of water and fire" was his 
watchword. It was his consciousness of the needs of the 
time that made his attitude towards the House of Chau, the 
then reigning house, so very different from that of Confucius. 
Confucius did his utmost to uphold the authority and diguity 
of the Emperor. When it came to the days of Meucius the 
influence of the Emperor had become so insignificant that he 
gave up the hope so fondly cherished by the former sage the 
hope of strengthening the House of Chau and thus giving the 
country peace and order by holding up before the people a 
common supreme head. Mencius was ready enough to see the 
emperor displaced by a prince who should be better qualified 
to sit at the helm of the state. According to his idea, blind 
allegiance to a declining imperial house, regardless of the 
welfare of the people, was no virtue. For this Mencius may 
be ranked with the greatest statesmen and patriots the world 
has ever seen. 



In spite of the fact that Mencius intended his political 
teachings to be for his own day, still there are among the 
principles he enunciated many which are of lasting value. 
The most modern political philosophy endorses his great 
principle that the government exists for the welfare of the 
governed, that it has a divine origin in the sense that its idea 
exists in germ in man s nature, and finally that its existence j 
rests at any moment upon the consent of the people, expressed 
or implied. Political thinkers since his time have repeatedly 
confirmed his teaching that it is the function of the state to 
secure the physical well-being of the people and to provide 
means for their education and intellectual uplift. The state- 
ment that selfishness is a curse in politics holds good to-day 
as in the days of Mencius, and the need of righteousness is as 
urgent now as it was two thousand years ago, when the 
philosopher was pleading its cause from court to court. 
Centuries of political experience have proved it only too true 
that good laws are but futile, where there are no good officials 
to execute them and give them life and force. The great 
movement of international peace and the cry for disarmament 
were anticipated by Mencius in China long before the modern 
nations in Europe emerged upon the stage of history, and 
even the present European War, with all its evils and terrors, 
shows only more clearly the keen insight of the Chinese sage. 

At the same time it must be admitted here that very 
little originality can be claimed for Mencius. He owed his 
democratic ideas chiefly to the Book of History, with which he 
was very familiar. In that classic we find brought out, in a 
very explicit manner, the ideas concerning the origin of the 
state, the nature of the government, the duty of the ruler, 
and the importance of the people. A few quotations will be 
sufficient to show the general spirit of that classic, of which he 
proved himself a great exponent. 

In " the Great Declaration" is found this passage quoted 
by Mencius himself : " Heaven, to protect the inferior people, 



86 

made for them rulers and made for them instructors, that they 
might be able to be aiding to God, and secure the tranquillity 
of the four quarters of the empire." 

In the same book, we read : " Heaven and Earth is the 
parent of all creatures ; and of all creatures man is the most 
highly endowed. The sincere, intelligent, and perspicacious 
among men becomes the great sovereign ; and the great 
sovereign is the parent of the people." 

Then in " The Counsels of the Great Yu," the Emperor 
Shun is represented to speak thus to Yu : " Come, Yu. The 
inundating waters filled me with dread, when you realized all 
that you represented, and accomplished your task, thus 
showing your superiority to other men. Full of toilsome 
earnestness in the service of the state, and sparing in your 
expenditure on your family ; and this without being full of 
yourself or elated ; you again showed your superiority to other 
men. Without any prideful presumption, there is no one in 
the empire to contest with you the palm of ability ; without 
any boasting, there is no one in the empire to contest with 
you the claim of merit. I see how great is your virtue, how 
admirable your vast achievements. The determinate appoint 
ment of Heaven rests on your person ; you must eventually 
ascend the throne of the great sovereign." 

In a speech addressed to the Emperor, E Yin said, "Oh! 
Heaven has no affections; only to those who are reverent 
does it show affection. The people are not constant to those 
whom they cherish ; the} cherish only him who is benev 
olent." Also, about the time of his retirement, he made this 
admonition to the emperor: "Oh! it is difficult to rely on 
Heaven ; its appointments are not constant. But if the 
sovereign sees to it that his virtue be constant, he will 
preserve his throne; if his virtue be not constant, the nine 

provinces will be lost to him It was not that Heaven 

had any partiality for the ruler of Shang ; Heaven simply 
gave its favour to pure virtue. It was not that Shang sought 



the allegiance of the lower people ; the people simply turned 
to pure virtue. When the sovereign s virtue is pure his 
movements are all fortunate ; when his virtue is wavering and 
uncertain, his movements are all unfortunate. Good and evil 
do not wrongly befall men, because Heaven sends down 
misery and happiness according to their conduct." 

To show the revolutionary spirit in the Book of History, 
it is necessary only to cite the speech of T ang. He said, 
" Come, ye multitudes of the people, listen all to my words. 
It is not I, the little child, who dare to undertake what may 
seem a rebellious enterprise ; but for the many crimes of the 
sovereign of Hsia, Heaven has given the charge to destroy 
him. Now, ye multitudes, you are saying, Our prince doe* 
not compassionate us, but is calling us away from our 
husbandry to attack and punish the ruler of Hsia. I have 
indeed heard these words of you all : but the sovereign of 
Hsia is an offender, as I fear God, I dare not but punish 
him." 

The idea that the people are the most important element in 
the state and that they are Heaven s objects of special care is 
exhibited in the first of " The Songs of the Five Sons : " 

" It was the lessons of our great ancestors : 
The people should be cherished ; 
They should not be down-trodden : 
The people are the root of a country ; 
The root firm, the country is tranquil." 

In " The Counsels of Kao Yao," we read : " Heaven hears 
and sees as our people hear and see ; Heaven brightly 
approves and displays its terrors, as our people brightly 
approve and would awe : such connection there is between 
the upper and lower worlds. How reverent ought the masters 
of the earth to be ! " 

In "The Great Declaration," these sentences are found: 
" Heaven loves the people, and the sovereign should reverence 
the mind of Heaven." Also: "Heaven compassionates the 



88 

people. What the people desire, Heaven will be found to give 
effect to. 

Mencius idea of the functions of the state and the organ 
ization of the government can also be traced to the Book of 
History. Yu is represented as speaking to the Emperor 
Shun: "Oh! think of these things, O emperor. Virtue is 
seen in the goodness of the government, and the government 
is tested by its nourishing of the people. There are water, 
fire, metal, wood, earth, and grain, these must be duly 
regulated ; there are the rectification of the peoples virtue, 
the conveniences of life, and the securing abundant means of 
sustentation; these must be harmoniously attended to. When 
the nine services thus indicated have been orderly accom 
plished, let that accomplishment be celebrated by songs. 
Caution the people with gentle words ; correct them with the 
majesty of law; stimulate them with the songs on those nine 
subjects, in order that your success may never suffer diminu 
tion." 

The following is quoted from the Book of Chan: " He 
(King Wu) arranged the orders of nobility into five, assign 
ing the territories to them on a threefold scale. He gave 
offices only to the worthy, and employments only to the able. 
He attached great importance to the people s being taught the 
duties of the five relations of society, and to take care for 
food, for funeral ceremonies, and for sacrifices. He showed 
the reality of his truthfulness, and proved clearly his 
righteousness. He honoured virtue, and rewarded merit. 
Then he had only to let his robes fall down, and fold his 
hands, and the empire was orderly ruled." 

Even the doctrine of the goodness of man s nature, for 
which Mencius stands so high among the moral teachers of 
the world, has its germ in the Book of History. In a speech 
of King T ang, are found these words : " Ah, ye multitudes 
of the myriad regions, listen clearly to the announcement of 
me, the one man. The great God has conferred even on the 



- 8 9 - 

inferior people a moral sense, compliance with which would 
show their nature invariably right. But to cause them 
tranquilly to pursue the course which it would indicate, is the 
work of the sovereign." 

To Confucius, Tseng-tze, and Tze-sze, Mencius was 
greatly indebted, especially for the idea that politics and 
morality are identical in scope and application. It is not too 
much to say that the whole of Mencius philosophy is simply 
an exposition of the classical text of Confucius in the Great 
Learning, commencing with the wonderful sentence : " What 
the Great Learning teaches is to illustrate illustrious virtue ; 
to renovate the people ; and to rest in the highest excellence. 
He holds fast to the doctrine that to cultivate virtue in the 
individual, to regulate the family, to govern the state, and 
to rule the empire, mean eventually the same process, and 
need no harder task than the rectification of the heart by being 
sincere in one s thoughts, by extending one s knowledge, and 
by investigating into the principles of things. Over and over 
again, Mencius emphasizes in his writings the teachings of 
the Great Learning set forth in passages such as the following: 
"The ruler, without going beyond his family, completes the 
lessons for the state. There is filial piety ; therewith the 
sovereign should be served. There is fraternal submission : 
therewith elders and superiors should be served. There is 
kindness ; therewith the multitude should be treated." 

Mencius teaching as regards the influence of the sover 
eign, so conspicuous in his political philosophy, reflects only 
the same sentiment expressed in the Great Learning. In that 
classic, we read : " From the loving example of one family 
a whole state becomes loving, and from its courtesies the 
whole state becomes courteous, while from the ambition and 
perverseness of the One Man, the whole state may be led to 
rebellious disorder ; such is the nature of the influence. 
This verifies the saying, Affairs may be ruined by a single 
sentence ; a kingdom may be settled by its One Man. Y&o 



90 

and Slum led on the kingdom with benevolence, and the 
people followed them. Chieh and Chau led on the kingdom 
with violence, and the people followed them. The orders 
which these issued were contrary to the practices which they 
loved, and so the people did not follow them. On this ac 
count, the ruler must himself be possessed of the good 
qualities, and then he may require them in the people. He 
must not have the bad qualities in himself, and then he may 
require that they should not be in the people. Never has 
there been a man, who, not having reference to his own 
character and wishes in dealing with others, was able effect 
ually to instruct them. Thus we see how the government of 
the state depends on the regulation of the family." Further 
on in the same classic, we read: "When the sovereign 
behaves to his aged, as the aged should be behaved to, the 
people become filial ; when the sovereign behaves to his elders 
as the elders should be behaved to, the people learn brotherly 
submission ; when the sovereign treats compassionately the 
young and helpless, the people do the same." Again: 
"Never has there been a case of the sovereign loving 
benevolence, and the people not loving righteousness. Never 
has there been a case where the people have loved righteous 
ness, and the affairs of the sovereign have not been carried 
to completion. And never has there been a case where the 
wealth in such a state, collected in the treasuries and arsenals, 
did not continue in the sovereign s possession." 

One more coincidence between the teaching of the Great 
Learning and that of Mencius we must notice. Readers of 
the Works of Meucius will remember how, in the first chapter, 
the philosopher endeavoured to bring home to the King of Wei 
that it was benevolence and righteousness, not gain, at which 
he should aim. This very idea is the conclusion of the tenth 
chapter of the commentary on the Text of Confucius that " in 
a state gain is not to be considered prosperity, but its 
prosperity will be found in righteousness." 



9 i 

The Doctrine of the Mean, generally believed to be from 
the pen of Confucius grandson, Tze Sze, influenced our 
philosopher more or less. There we find these words of Con 
fucius : "The government of Wen and Wti is displayed in 
the records, the tablets of wood and bamboo. Let there be 
the men, and the government will flourish ; but without the 
men, their government decays and ceases. With the right 
men the growth of government is rapid, just as vegetation is 
rapid in the earth, and moreover their government might be 
called an easily-growing rush. Therefore the administration 
of government lies in getting proper men. Such men are to 
be got by means of the ruler s own character. That character 
is to be cultivated by his treading in the ways of duty. And 
the treading those ways of duty is to be cultivated by the 
cherishing of benevolence." Similar words are recorded in 
another place in the Doctrine of the Mean ; " All who have 
the government of the kingdom, with its states and families, 
have nine standard rules to follow ; via., the cultivation of 
their own characters ; the honouring of men of virtue and 
talents ; affection towards their relatives ; respect towards the 
great ministers ; kind and considerate treatment of the whole 
body of officers ; dealing with the mass of people as children; 
encouraging the resort of all classes of artisans ; indulgent 
treatment of men from a distance ; and the kindly cherishing 
of the princes of the States." 

But Mencius is indebted to the Doctrine of the Mean 
especially for his doctrine of the goodness of man s nature. 
The opening sentence of that book is : "What Heaven has 
conferred is called the nature ; an accordance with this nature 
is called the path of duty ; the regulation of this path is called 
instruction." Hence, the Classic goes on to say, " the path is 
not far from man," which is echoed emphatically by Mencius. 

From the Book of Poetry, Mencius must have derived 
many of his ideas. That Classic was a source of his inspira 
tion next in importance only to those we have mentioned. He 



92 

frequently quoted from it, and made reference to it constantly 
to illustrate his own principles. Space does not permit many 
citations to show the connection between the ideas of the 
book and the philosophy of Mencius, but one or two specimens 
only will answer our present purpose. 

That those in power exert great influence upon the people 
is seen in the following lines : 

" Lofty is that southern hill, 

With its rugged masses of rocks ! 

Greatly distinguished are you, O, grand-teacher of Yin, 

The people all look up to you." 

The divine sanction of government is clear in this Classic 
as in the Book of History, as the following lines indicate : 

" Before the sovereigns of the Yin dynasty had lost the 

hearts of the people, 
They could appear before God. 
Take warning from the house of Yin. 
The great decree is not easily preserved." 

From these various sources Mencius gathered his ideas. 
The borrowed doctrines, however, were not simply reproduced 
as they were found but were presented in a new spirit. He 
received the heritage of the ancient Classics and breathed into 
it a new life. In this way the ideas which had been handed 
down from the classical ages were inspired with new force and 
vigour by the subtle logic and matchless style of a master of 
the art of eloquence, and were given a power to produce effects, 
greater than they would have done if they had been allowed 
to remain buried in their ancient tombs. 

But when we turn to trace the real effects of Mencius 
teachings upon the history of China, we do not find what 
might be expected. We have seen how the philosopher 
retired from public life in disappointment, with all his hopes 
frustrated and his endeavours apparently wasted. After his 
death the social and political conditions of the country became 



93 

still worse. Nothing but incessant war was the order of the 
day. His writings do not seem to have received much atten 
tion till several hundred years had elapsed, and we are at 
least sure that the first commentaries on them were written 
some five hundred years after his death ; and that they were 
not admitted to the rank of Classics till the Sung Dynasty 
more than a thousand years from the time they were written. 

Mencius directed all his efforts to have benevolence and 
righteousness put into practice. He travelled from state to 
state in hopes of finding a prince who should be willing enough 
to come forth as the saviour of the oppressed, and effect the 
deliverance of the people from the evils of a bad government. 
The true sovereign, in short, was what he was seeking for. 
Such a sovereign did not make his appearance during Meucius 
life time, nor has he ever become known to China. It was 
true that whenever the existing government became unbear 
able, there was always some one ready enough to start a 
revolution, resting on the authority of Mencius as sanction for 
his action. But no sooner was a new dynasty founded than 
Mencius was again set aside, and selfishness allowed to reign 
as supreme as ever. Mencius, however, has, by his writings, 
so established and popularized the principle that government 
exists for the welfare of the governed and forfeits its right of 
existence as soon as it fails to perform its proper functions, 
that revolution has come to be considered in China as a 
sacred right, nay, a moral duty, to those who feel that they 
are able to carry it to a successful end. It was the fear of 
revolution that served as a restraint to the absolutism of 
government and mitigated the sharpness of autocratic rule in 
this land. Indirectly, therefore, Mencius makes his influence 
tell in a negative manner. To a certain extent, it was also 
due to his influence that, at the beginning of each new dynasty 
there were, as a rule, some measures taken, in a half-hearted 
way it is true, to promote the well-being of the people. Some 
times certain taxes were remitted, and sometimes criminals 



94 

were pardoned, to show the benevolence of the government ; 
but nothing more substantial was ever done. To do justice to 
Mencius, we must say that his teachings have not been given 
a fair test as yet. 

At the present time, when China is reaching out for 
every new idea that may help her in the stupendous work of 
reconstruction, it behoves her to make a close study of the 
national literature, and avail herself of the valuable teaching 
of her own sages and philosophers. For the basis of a sound 
government, the teachings of Mencius will serve as well as 
any political doctrine we can learn from the West. China of 
the twentieth century cannot, of course, be advised to adopt 
the feudal form of government taken as the model by Mencius 
two thousand years ago. Nor is it possible to put into 
practice, in the present da} , the nine-square system of land 
division believed by him to be the sine qua non of a good 
government. But in an age when the atmosphere is filled with 
political speculations, it will be of value to keep constantly in 
mind the teaching of the philosopher that government is a 
necessity to human nature, that men are born with the idea of 
the state implanted in their very nature. We should guard 
ourselves with the greatest circumspection when we are told 
that the state is merely something conventional, that govern 
ment is at the best a necessary evil, and that man is born free 
and therefore should aim at a happy return to the state of 
nature, where no state, no government, will rob him of his 
natural rights. Meucius, if he were to come to this world 
again, and listen to the talk of some who are fond of display 
ing the few archaic political ideas which they have picked up 
in some haphazard way, would certainly be filled with indig 
nation. He would denounce the anarchism and nihilism of 
the present age, as energetically as he denounced the Mih-ism 
and Yang-ism of his own time. He would cry out aloud 
once more that " their delusions, springing up in men s 
minds, do injury to their practice of affairs, and, being 



95 

shown in their practice of affairs, they are pernicious to 
their government." 

On the other hand, we find a great deal in the philosophy 
of Mencius which can be embodied in the new form of 
government recently adopted. The power of the people, the 
functions of the government, the responsibilities of the sover 
eign, and the duties of the officials all these ideas can take 
effect with the help of modern political institutions. By thus 
falling back upon the democratic ideas of Mencius, we shall 
be in a position to realize that the great political experiment 
which is being now undertaken is not entirely alien in theory 
to the Chinese mind. Its fundamental principles were 
conceived by our philosophers centuries ago. The political 
experience of the nation in which they were encrusted was 
simply too hard for them to break through and get into the 
daylight of actual politics. It is now high time for them to 
have a fair trial and find their full expression. 

Moreover, it is important to remember that the greatest 
object of a state is always to secure peace, order, and union. 
All the disintegrating forces should be counteracted, and all 
the rebellious tendencies should be kept down, not by effec 
tive administration merely, which, as Mencius points out, 
is only feared by the people, but by good instruction, which 
will win their affections. Externally, international friendship 
should be cultivated, and war avoided as much as possible. 
It may be objected here that Mencius policy of peace is out 
of place in China to-day. The problem confronting the young 
Republic at present, so the objection runs, is that of national 
defence, that of self-preservation. She must prepare herself 
for war at any moment for war may be forced upon her 
unexpectedly with or without her consent. But Mencius 
wants us to understand that the best way to prepare for war 
is not for a nation to spend all its energy in building dread 
noughts and in drilling a large standing army, however 
necessary some attention to these things may be, but to win 



- 9 6- 

the hearts of the people by education and good government, 
so that they may be ready always to give tip their lives, if 
need be, for the defence of their country. It holds good to 
day as ever that "there has never been a man trained to 
righteousness who made his sovereign an after consideration." 
When the duties of citizenship are well inculcated into the 
minds of the people, dreadnoughts and armies will spring 
up of themselves, and will prove more effective when their 
services are needed than those built by oppressive taxes. It 
was this very idea that Mencius was expressing, when he 
told King Htti of Wei that "he would have a people who 
could be employed, with sticks which they had prepared, to 
oppose the strong mail and sharp weapons of the troops of 
Ch iu and Ch u." 

Furthermore, what greater lesson can China of to-day 
learn from Mencius than that the first duty of the government 
is to promote the well-being of the people? How often China 
needs to be reminded that measures should be taken to extend 
the habitable area of the country by making use of the fertile 
lands which have hitherto never been brought under culti 
vation ! How necessary it is to spur her on to undertake the 
proper embankment of her rivers which periodically inundate 
large territories, doing greater injury to the lives and prop 
erties of the people than the wild birds and beasts in the 
time of Yao and Shun so frequently referred to by Mencius. 
A great deal remains to be done by way of preventing the 
plagues and famines which sweep away from this fair land 
thousands upon thousands of human lives every year, and 
cause an enormous amount of misery. Hospitals, asylums, 
workhouses, and other charitable institutions should be built 
by the state, so that " the four classes of the most destitute " 
described to King Wn by Mencius, regarded as the first 
objects of care, may be provided for, and sufferings in the 
country may be mitigated. Schools, indeed, have been es 
tablished in many places in the republic, but the best has 



97 

not been done as yet. More attention should be directed to 
the moral education of the people on which JMencius laid so 
much emphasis. They should be taught how to develop 
their moral natures as well as how to equip themselves for 
a profession. It is essential to hold before their eyes the 
importance of cultivating the "nobility of heaven," and not 
the " nobility of man"; to learn how to serve others, not to 
serve just themselves ; to prepare themselves, in other words, 
for the arena of life, not merely for an office in the government. 
The last, but not the least, point is that China must 
needs place the greatest stress upon the moral character of 
her officials ; must put moral qualification before intellectual 
and technical equipment in her governmental appointments. 
Herein lies the greatest hope for the salvation of the country. 
We must see that the offices in the government are not filled 
by "people who serve the head of the government," but by 
true ministers who are great men and who seek the tran 
quillity of the state. We do not want to raise to power those 
who throw away their " nobility of Heaven" when they have 
secured the " nobility of man." A new form of government 
may be tried, a new code may be enforced, new ideas may 
be imported, and new institutions may be introduced, yet 
China will remain as weak and helpless as ever ; her politics 
will prove as corrupt as ever, and her general outlook as 
gloomy as ever, so long as the men in authority still regard 
their positions, not as responsibilities entrusted to them for 
the welfare and interests of the people, but as opportunities 
to amass a fortune or to fulfill in some way or other their 
own selfish ends. 

But how are all these results to be brought about? 
Laws, we have seen, are futile. Institutions are impotent. 
According to Meucius, we must wait for the appearance of 
the true sovereign whose example he calculated would work 
wonders, and whose influence he counted on to transform 
everything. He himself spent his life in waiting, and China 



- 98 - 

since his time has waited for more thaii two thousand years. 
But still the true sovereign has not yet appeared in the arena 
of Chinese politics. Mencius was disappointed; for, however 7 
near his doctrine on man s nature is to the truth, he had too j 
much faith in the inherent power of men to do good. China \ 
has been disappointed; for man has had a fall, and is in \ 
need of some external force for his reinstatement. Mencius \ 
failure to see this is his greatest shortcoming as a moral j 
teacher and a political philosopher. Not every man will devel- ! 
op his moral nature and follow the dictates of his higher N _ 
self so as to be able to rest in the highest excellence, even 
though the state has made every condition favourable for 
that development, so far as the physical well-being and en 
vironment are concerned. " And, indeed, the state is unaBIe 
to do more, for morality lies beyond the scope of state action 
which is essentially backed up by force. Nor is it true to 
human experience that the influence of a single man, as man, 
can have such miraculous effects as were expected by Men 
cius from the true sovereign, unless by the true sovereign 
he meant some being higher than man./ We cannot, there 
fore, lay the whole blame at the door of our predecessors, 
when we find that they honoured Mencius more than they 
followed his teachings, and that they praised his doctrines 
more than they practised them. 

Who can help admiring Mencius ? Even a superficial 
study of his writings will reveal the grandeur of his principles 
and the loftiness of his ideas. It is only when we come to 
the actual practice of them, that we begin to know that they 
are not any less incomplete than all other rules of conduct 
and all the fine maxims and precepts in Ethics and Philoso 
phy. We are in full sympathy with Kung-sun Ch&u, when 
he spoke to the master in these words : " Lofty and admir 
able are your principles, but to put them into practice may 
well be likened to ascending the heavens, something which 
cannot be reached. Why not adapt your teachings so as to 



99 

cause others to consider them attainable, and so daily exert 
themselves." This is a sincere expressieu of the weakness 
and dependence of man. Mencius seems to have entirely failed 
to realize it, or, if he did realize it, he found himself absolutely 
unable to do anything to help it. "The superior man draws 
the bow," he said in reply to the disciple, " but does not dis 
charge the arrow. The whole thing seems to leap before the 
learner. Such is his standing exactly in the middle of the 
right path. Those who are able, follow him." But he had 
nothing to say to those who felt that they were insufficient in 
themselves and were in need of help. He said elsewhere, 
" A carpenter or a carriage-maker may give a man the circle 
and square, but cannot make him skilful in the use of them." 
But he failed to see that a moral teacher or a political philoso 
pher was not any more powerful in this respect than a 
carpenter or a carriage-maker. Mencius has given China 
noble ideas and magnificent principles of politics. But he 
can give China no power to put them into practice. The 
application of the teachings of Mencius to actual politics in 
this country is what all Chinese and all well-wishers of this 
new Republic would like to see. But it cannot be effected 
until we have received a supernatural power, and for that 
supernatural power we have to turn to Him who gives men 
authority to tread upon serpents and scorpions and over all 
the power of the enemy, to Him who is speaking to every 
one of us in these words of comfort: "Come unto me, all 
ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. 
Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me ; for I am meek 
and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls. 
For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light." In a word, n | 
China needs a religion that will endow the teachings of her/ 
sages with life ; and she finds that religion only in Chrisy 
tianity, founded by the Only Son of God, Jesus Christ. Hej, 
being both God and man, is the true sovereign, whom Menciujs 
declared must come, and for whom Meucius waited in vain. \ 



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