Volume 1 — CHAPTER XI. CLASSICAL LITERATURE OF THE CHINESE. (continued 2)

The will of the people is always referred to as the supreme power in the State, and Mencius warns princes that they must both please and benefit their people, observing that “if the country is not subdued in heart there will be no such thing as governing it;” and also, “He who gains the hearts of the people secures the throne, and he who loses the people’s hearts loses the throne.” A prince should “give and take what is pleasing to them, and not do that which they hate.” “Good laws,” he further remarks, “are not equal to winning the people by good instruction.” Being consulted by a sovereign, whether he ought to attempt the conquest of a neighboring territory, he answered: “If the people of Yen are delighted, then take it; but if otherwise, not.” He also countenances the dethroning of a king who does not rule his people with a regard to their happiness, and adduces the example of the founders of the Shang and Chau dynasties in proof of its propriety. “When the prince is guilty of great errors,” is his doctrine, “the minister should reprove him; if, after doing so again and again, he does not listen, he ought to dethrone him and put another in his place.”

HIS ESTIMATE OF HUMAN NATURE.

His estimate of human nature, like many of the Chinese sages, is high, believing it to be originally good, and that “all men are naturally virtuous, as all water flows downward. All men have compassionate hearts, all feel ashamed of vice.” But he says also, “Shame is of great moment to men; it is only the designing and artful that find no use for shame.” Yet human nature must be tried by suffering, and to form an energetic and virtuous character a man must endure much; “when Heaven was about to place Shun and others in important trusts, it first generally tried their minds, inured them to abstinence, exposed them to poverty and adversity; thus it moved their hearts and taught them patience.” His own character presents traits widely differing from the servility and baseness usually ascribed to Asiatics, and especially to the Chinese; and he seems to have been ready to sacrifice everything to his principles. “I love life, and I love justice,” he observes, “but if I cannot preserve both, I would give up life and hold fast justice. Although I love life, there is that which I love more than life; although I hate death, there is that which I hate more than death.” And as if referring to his own integrity, he elsewhere says: “The nature of the superior man is such that, although in a high and prosperous situation, it adds nothing to his virtue; and although in low and distressed circumstances, it impairs it in nothing.” In many points, especially in the importance he gives to filial duty, his reverence for the ancient books and princes, and his adherence to old usages, Mencius imitated and upheld Confucius; in native vigor and carelessness of the reproaches of his compatriots he exceeded him. Many translations of his work have appeared in European languages, but Legge’s[328] is in most respects the best for its comments, and the notices of Mencius’ life and times, and a fair estimate of his character and influence.

Returning to the Imperial Catalogue, its ninth section contains a list of musical works, and a few on dancing or posture-making; they hold this distinguished place in the list from the importance attached to music as employed in the State worship and domestic ceremonies.

The tenth section gives the names of philological treatises and lexicons, most of them confined to the Chinese language, though a few are in Manchu. The Chinese government has excelled in the attention it has given to the compilation of lexicons and encyclopædias. The number of works of this sort here catalogued is two hundred and eighteen, the major part issued during this dynasty, and including only works on the general language, none on the dialects. For their extent of quotation, the variety of separate disquisitions upon the form, origin, and composition of characters, and treatises upon subjects connected with the language, they indicate the careful labor native scholars have bestowed upon the elucidation of their own tongue.

KANGHÍ’S DICTIONARY.

One of them, the Pei Wăn Yun Fu, or ‘Treasury of compared Characters and Sounds,’ is so extensive and profound as to deserve a short notice, which cannot be better made than by an extract from the preface of M. Callery to his prospectus to its translation, of which he only issued one livraison. He says the Emperor Kanghí, who planned its preparation, “assembled in his palace the most distinguished literati of the Empire, and laying before them all the works that could be got, whether ancient or modern, commanded them carefully to collect all the words, allusions, forms and figures of speech of every style, of which examples might be found in the Chinese language; to class the principal articles according to the pronunciation of the words; to devote a distinct paragraph to each expression; and to give in support of every paragraph several quotations from the original works. Stimulated by the munificence, as well as the example, of the Emperor, who reviewed the performances of every day, seventy-six literati assembled at Peking, labored with such assiduity, and kept up such an active correspondence with the learned in all parts of the Empire, that at the end of eight years the work was completed (1711), and printed at the public expense, in one hundred and thirty thick volumes.” The peculiar nature of the Chinese language, in the formation of many dissyllabic compounds of two or more characters to express a third and new idea, renders such a work as this thesaurus more necessary and useful, perhaps, than it would be in any other language. Under some of the common characters as many as three hundred, four hundred, and even six hundred combinations are noticed, all of which modify its sense more or less, and form a complete monograph of the character, of the highest utility to the scholar in composing idiomatic Chinese. This magnificent monument of literary labor reflects great credit on the monarch who took so much interest in its compilation (as he remarks in his preface), as to devote the leisure hours of every day, notwithstanding his manifold occupations, for eight years, to overlooking the labors of the scholars engaged upon it.