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Furthermore, although all men are, as a matter of necessity, compelled to follow the Way to some extent, not all can follow it to perfection. Thus no one can live in a society utterly devoid of human relationships; at the same time there are few who can meet with perfection all the requirements made by these human relationships. The function of spiritual culture is to perfect what man is, as a matter of fact, already doing to a greater or lesser degree.
Thus the Chung Yung says: The Way of the superior man is obvious and yet obscure. The ordinary man and ordinary woman in all their ignorance can yet have knowledge of it, yet in its perfection even a sage finds in it something which he does not know. The ordinary man and ordinary woman with all their stupidity can yet practice it, yet in its perfection even a sage finds in it something which he cannot practice....Thus the Way of the supe-rior man begins with the relationship between husband and wife, but in its fullest extent reaches to all that is in Heaven and Earth." (Ch. 12..) Thus though all men, even in their ignorance and stupidity, are following the Way to some extent, spiritual cultivation is nevertheless required to bring them to enlightenment and perfection.
Enlightenment and Perfection
In the Chung Yung, this perfection is described as ch eng (sincerity, real-ness) and goes together with enlightenment. The Chung Yung says: "Progress from perfection to enlightenment is called the nature. From enlightenment to perfection it is called spiritual culture. When there is perfection, there is enlightenment. When there is enlightenment, there is perfection." (Ch. ii.) That is to say, once one understands all the significance of the ordinary and common acts of daily life, such as eating, drinking, and the human relation-ships, one is already a sage. The same is true when one practices to perfec-tion what one understands. One cannot fully understand the significance of these things unless one practices them. Nor can one practice them to perfec-tion, unless one fully understands their significance.
The Chung Yung says again: "The quality of ch'eng does not simply con-sist in perfecting oneself. It is that whereby one perfects all other things. The perfection of the self lies in the quality of yen [ human-heartedness]. The perfection of other things lies in wisdom. In this is the virtue of the nature. It is the way through which comes the union between inner and outer." (Ch. 25.) The meaning of this passage seems clear, yet I wonder whether the words, human-heartedness and wisdom, should not be interchanged.
The Chung Yung says also: "it is only he who has the most ch'eng who can develop his nature to the utmost. Able to do this, he is able to do the same to the nature of other men. Able to do this, he is able to do the same to the nature of things. Able to do this, he can assist the transforming and nourishing operations of Heaven and Earth. Being able to do this, he can
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form a trinity with Heaven and Earth. (Ch. 22.)
While perfecting oneself, one must also see that others are likewise per-fected. One cannot perfect oneself while disregarding the perfection of oth-ers. The reason is that one can develop one's nature to the utmost only through the human relationships, that is, within the sphere of society. This goes back to the tradition of Confucius and Mencius, that for self-perfection one must practice chung, shu, and human-heartedness; that is, it consists in helping others. To perfect oneself is to develop to the utmost what one has received from Heaven. And to help others is to assist the transforming and nourishing operations of Heaven and Earth. By fully understanding the sig-nificance of these things, one is enabled to form a trinity with Heaven and Earth. Such understanding is what the Chung Yung calls enlightenment, and forming a trinity in this way is what it calls perfection.
Is anything extraordinary needed in order to achieve this trinity? No, nothing more is needed than to do the common and ordinary things and to do them just right, with understanding of their full significance. By so doing, one can gain the union of inner and outer, which is not only a trinity of Heaven, Earth, and man, but means a unity of man with Heaven and Earth. In this way one can achieve other-worldliness, yet at the same time not lose this-worldliness. It is with the development of this idea that the later Neo-Confucianists attacked the other—worldly philosophy of Buddhism.
Such is the Confucianist way of elevating ihe mind to a state in which the individual becomes one with the universe. It differs from the Taoist method, which is, through the negation of knowledge, to elevate the mind above the mundane distinctions between the "this and the "other.' The Confucianist method, on the other hand, is, through the extension of love, to elevate the mind above the usual distinctions between the self and other things.
1QO CONFUCIANIST METAPHYSICS
CHAPTER 16
WORLD POLITICS AND WORLD PHILOSOPHY
IT is said that "history never repeats itself," yet also that "there is nothing new under the sun.' Perhaps the whole truth lies in a combination of these two sayings. From a Chinese point of view, so far as international politics is concerned, the history of our world in the present and immediately preceding centuries looks like a repetition of the Chinese history of the Ch'un Ch'iu and Chan Kuo periods.
Political Conditions Preceding the Unification by Ch' in
The Ch un Ch iu period (722-479 B.C.) is so named because it is the pe-riod covered by the Ch'un Ch'iu or Spring and Autumn Annals. And the Chan Kuo period (480-220 B.C.) derives its name, which means Warring States, from the fact that it was a period of intensified warfare between the feudal states. As we have seen, men's conduct during the feudal age was governed by li (ceremonies, rituals, rules of proper conduct). Not only were there li governing the conduct of the individual, but also those for the state as well. Some of these were to be practiced in time of peace, but others were designed for use in war. These peacetime and wartime li, as observed by one state in its relations to another, were equivalent to what we now would call international law.
We see that in recent times international law has become more and more in-effective. In late years there have been many instances in which one nation has attacked another without first sending an ultimatum and declaring war, or the airplanes of one nation have bombed the hospitals of another, while pretending that they did not see the red cross. And in the periods of Chinese history men-tioned above, we see a similar decline in the effectiveness of the li.
In the Ch'un Ch'iu period, there were still people who respected the in-ternational li. The Tso Chuan reports a famous battle of Hung that took place in 638 B.C. between the states of Ch'u and Sung. The old-fashioned Duke Hsiang of Sung personally directed the Sung forces. At a certain moment, the
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Ch u army was crossing a river to form its lines, whereupon the commander under Duke Hsiang immediately asked for permission to attack the army dur-ing its crossing. To this the Duke replied, however, that he would not attack an army before it had formed its lines. The result was a disastrous defeat of the Sung army, in which the Duke himself was wounded. In spite of this, however, he defended his original decision, saying: "A superior man does not inflict a second wound on one who has already been wounded, nor does he take prisoner any one who has gray hair." This infuriated one of his commanders, who told the Duke: If it is good to refrain from inflicting a second wound, why not refrain from inflicting any wound at all? If it is good to refrain from taking prisoner any one who has gray hair, why not surrender to your enemy? (Tso Chuan, twenty—second year of Duke Hsi.) What the Duke said accorded with the traditional li, which represented the chivalrous spirit of the feudal knights. What the commander said represented the prac-tice of a changing age.
It is interesting though discouraging to note that all the known methods which statesmen of today use in an effort to keep peace among nations are much the same as those which the statesmen of these early periods of Chi-nese history attempted without success. For example, a conference for the limitation of armaments was held in 551 B.C. (Tso Chuan, twenty-seventh year of Duke Hsiang.) Some time later a proposal was made to divide the "world" of that time into two "spheres of influence"; one in the east, to be controlled by the King of Ch' i with the title of Eastern Emperor; the other in the west, to be controlled by the King of Ch in with the title of Western Em-peror. (Historical Records, ch. 46.) There were also various alliances of states with one another. During the Chan Kuo period these fell into two gen-eral patterns: the "vertical,' which ran from north to south, and the hori-zontal," which ran from west to east. At that time there were seven major states, of which Ch in was the most aggressive. The vertical type of alliance was one directed against Ch in by the other six states, and was so called because Ch'in lay in the extreme west, while the other six states were scat-tered to the east of it, ranging from north to south. The horizontal type of alliance, on the other hand, was one in which Ch'in combined with one or more of the other six states in order to attack the remainder, and therefore was extended from the west toward the east.
Ch'in's policy was "to make alliance with distant states, but attack the ones that were near." In this way it always eventually succeeded in breaking up the vertical alliances that opposed it. By its superiority in 'agriculture and war" and extensive use of "fifth column' techniques among the other states, Ch'in, after a series of bloody campaigns, succeeded in conquering the other six stales one by one, and finally unified the whole of China in 2.2.1 B.C. Thereupon the King of Ch in gave to himself the grandiose title of First Emperor of Ch in (Ch in Shih—huang—ti) by which he is known to history. At the same time he abolished feudalism and thus for the first time in histo-
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ry created a centralized Chinese empire under the Ch in dynasty. The Unification of China
Though the First Emperor was thus the first to achieve actual unity, the desire for such unity had been cherished by all people for a long time previ-ous. In the Mencius we are told that King Hui of Liang asked: How may the world be at peace? To which Meneius replied: "When there is unity, there will be peace." "But who can unify the world?" asked the King. "He who does not delight in killing men can unify it, answered Mencius. (la, 6.) This statement clearly expresses the aspiration of the time.
The word "world" used here is a translation of the Chinese term t'ien-hsia, which literally means "all beneath the sky." Some translators render it as empire, because, so they maintain, what the Chinese in ancient times called the t ien-hsia was confined to the limits of the Chinese feudal states. This is (juite true. But we should not confuse the intension of a term with its extension as it was understood by the people of a particular time. The latter usage is limited by the knowledge of facts possessed by these people, but the former is a matter of definition. For instance, we cannot say that the word jen (persons) should be translated as "Chinese, simply because in ancient times what the Chinese meant by the word was confined to people of Chinese blood. When the ancient Chinese spoke about yen, what they meant was re-ally human beings, even though at that time their knowledge of human be-ings was limited to those of China. In the same way, when they spoke about the t ien -hsia, they meant the world, even though in early times their knowledge of the world did not extend beyond the Chinese states.
From the age of Confucius onward, the Chinese people in general and their political thinkers in particular began to think about political matters in terms of the world. Hence the unification of China by Ch'in seemed, to the people of that time, very much as the unification of the whole world would seem to us today. Since the unification of 2.2.1 B.C., for more than two thou-sand years, with the exception of certain periods which the Chinese have con-sidered as abnormal, they have lived under one government in one world. They have thus been accustomed to a centralized organization that would op-erate for world peace. But in recent times they have been plunged into a world with international political conditions similar to those of the remote pe-riods of the Ch un Ch iu and Chan Kuo. In the process they have been com-pelled to change their habits of thinking and acting. In this respect, in the eyes of the Chinese, there has been a repetition of history, which has con-tributed much to their present suffering. (See note at the end of the chapter.)
The Great Learning
To illustrate the internationalistic character of Chinese philosophy, let us 296 WORLD POLITICS AND WORLD PHILOSOPHY
turn now to some of the ideas of the Ta Hsiieh, or Great Learning. The Ta Hsiieh, like the Chung Yung, is a chapter in the Li Chi (Book of Rites), and like the Chung Yung, it was, during the Sung dynasty (960-1279), grouped by the Neo-Confucianists with the Confucian Analects and the Mencius, to form the Four Books which comprised the primary texts for Neo-Confucian philosophy.
The Great Learning was attributed by the Neo-Confucianists, though with no real proof, to Tseng Tzu, one of the chief disciples of Confucius. It was considered by them to be an important manual for the learning of Too. Its opening section reads:
"The teaching of the Great Learning is to manifest one' s illustrious virtue, love the people, and rest in the highest good....The ancients who wished to manifest illustrious virtue throughout the world, first ordered well their own states. Wishing to order well their own states, they first regulated their own families. Wishing to regulate their own families, they first cultivated their own selves. Wishing to cultivate their own selves, they first rectified their own minds. Wishing to rectify their own minds, they first sought for absolute sincerity in their thoughts. Wishing for absolute sincerity in their thoughts, they first extended their knowledge. This extension of knowledge consists in the investigation of things.
