Note 59 — Chapter IV · DEMOCRACY AND IMPERIALISM

A German translation of Mei-ti (with a laudatory introduction) has recently been published by Alfred Forke. It should be noted that jên, the virtue on which the Confucian puts his final emphasis, though usually rendered by “benevolence” or some such term, is something very different from altruism. This should be plain from the uncompromising hostility of Mencius to Mei-ti. The exaltation of jên is simply the Confucian way of affirming that love is the fulfilment of the law. Inasmuch as jên manifests itself on the humanistic rather than on the religious level, the nearest Western equivalent is probably the treatment of friendship by Aristotle in the Nicomachean Ethics (Books VIII–IX).