"Those of the Eclectic school had their origin in the Councillors. They drew both from the Confucianists and the Mohists, and harmonized the School of Names and the Legalists. They knew that the nation had need of each of these, and saw that kingly government should not fail to unite all. Herein lies the strong point of this school.
"Those of the Agricultural school had their origin in the Ministry of Soil and Grain. They taught the art of sowing the various kinds of grain and urged people to plow and to cultivate the mulberry so that the clothing and food of the people would be sufficient....Herein lies the strong point of this school.
"Those of the School of Story Tellers had their origin in the Petty Offices.
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This school was created by those who picked up the talk of streets and alleys and repeated what they heard wherever they went....Even if in their teaching but a single word can be chosen, still there is some contribution." ("Treatise on Literature" in the History of the Former Han Dynasty.)
This is what Liu Hsin says about the historical origin of the ten schools. His interpretation of the significance of the schools is inadequate, and his attribution of certain of them to certain Ministries is in some cases arbi-trary. For instance, in describing the teaching of the Taoists, he touches only on the ideas of Lao Tzu, and omits those of Chuang Tzu altogether. More-over, there appears to be no similarity between the teaching of the School of Names and the functions of the Ministry of Ceremonies, save that both em-phasized the making of distinctions.
A Revision of Liu Hsin's Theory
Yet though the details of Liu Hsins s theory may be wrong, his attempt to trace the origin of the schools to certain political and social circumstances certainly represents a right point of view. I have quoted him at length be-cause his description of the various schools is itself a classic in Chinese his-toriography.
The study of Chinese history has made great progress in China in recent times, especially during the few years just before the Japanese invasion of 1937. In the light of recent research, therefore, I have formed a theory of my own in regard to the origin of the philosophic schools. In spirit this theory agrees with that of Liu Hsin, but it must be expressed in a different way. This means that things have to be seen from a new angle.
Let us imagine what China looked like politically and socially in, say, the tenth century B.C. At the top of the political and social structure, there was the King of the Chou royal house, who was the "common lord" of all the dif-ferent states. Under him were hundreds of stales, each owned and governed by its Princes. Some of them were established by the founders of the Chou dynasty, who had allotted the newly conquered territory as feudal fiefs to their relatives. Others were ruled by the former rivals of the Chou house, who now, however, acknowledged the King of Chou as their common lord.
Within each slate, under the Prince, the land was again divided into many fiefs, each with its own feudal lord, who were relatives of the Prince. At that time, political power and economic control were one and the same. Those who had the land were the political and economic masters of it, and of the people who lived on it. They were the chiln tzu, a term which literally means "sons of the Princes," but which was used as a common designation of the class of the feudal lords.
The other social class was that of the hsiao jen, meaning small men, or
O56 ' THE ORIGIN OF THE SCHOOLS
shu min, meaning common people or the mass. These were the serfs of the feudal lords, who cultivated the land for the chtin tzu in time of peace, and fought for them in time of war.
The aristocrats were not only the political rulers and landlords, but also the only persons who had a chance to receive an education. Thus the houses of the feudal lords were not only centers of political and economic power, but also centers of learning. Attached to them were officers who possessed specialized knowledge along various lines. But the common people, for their part, had no chance to become educated, so that among them there were no men of learning. This is the fact behind Liu Hsin' s theory that in the early Chou dynasty "there was no separation between officers and teachers."
This feudal system was formally abolished by the First Emperor of the Ch' in dynasty in 2.2.1 B.C. But hundreds of years before that, the system had already begun to disintegrate, whereas thousands of years later, economic remnants of feudalism still remained in the form of the power of the landlord class.
Historians of modern time are still not agreed as to what were the causes of the disintegration of the feudal system. Nor is it within the scope of this chapter to discuss these causes. For the present purpose, it is sufficient to say that in Chinese history the period between the seventh and third cen-turies B.C. was one of great social and political transformation and change.
We are not sure just when the disintegration of the feudal system began. Already as early as the seventh century there were aristocrats who through the wars of the time, or for other reasons, lost their lands and titles, and thus fell to the level of the common people. There were also common people who through skill or favoritism became high officials of the state. This illustrates the real significance of the disintegration of the Chou dynasty. It was not on-ly the disintegration of the political power of a particular royal house, but— and this is more important—of an entire social system.
With this disintegration, the former official representatives of the various branches of learning became scattered among the common people. They had either been actual nobles themselves, or had been specialists holding heredi-tary offices in the service of the aristocratic ruling families. This is the sig-nificance of a quotation made by Liu Hsin from Confucius in the course of the same "Treatise partially quoted from above: "When ceremonies become lost [at the court], it is necessary to search for them in the countryside."
Thus when these former nobles or officials scattered throughout the coun-try, they maintained a livelihood by carrying on, in a private capacity, their specialized abilities or skills. Those of them who expressed their ideas to other private individuals became professional teachers, and thus there arose the separation between the teacher and the officer.
The word "school" in this chapter is a translation of the Chinese word L
058 THE ORIGIN OF THE SCHOOLS
chia, which at the same time is used to denote a family or home. Hence it suggests something personal or private. There could be no chia of thought before there were persons who taught their own ideas in a private capacity.
Likewise there were different kinds of chia because these teachers were specialists in varying branches of learning and of the arts. Thus there were some who were specialists in the teaching of the classics and the practicing of ceremonies and music. These were known as the ju or literati. There were also specialists in the art of war. These were the hsieh or knights. There were specialists in the art of speaking, who were known as the pien—chi: or debaters. There were specialists in magic, divination, astrology, and nu-merology, who were known as the fang-shih, or practitioners of occult arts. There were also the practical politicians who could act as private advisers to ihe feudal rulers, and who were known as fa-shu chih shih or "men of methods." And finally, there were some men who possessed learning and talent, but who were so embittered by the political disorders of their lime that they retired from human .society into the world of nature. These were known as the yin—che or hermits or recluses.
According to my theory, it is from these six different kinds of people that the six schools of thought as listed by Ssu—ma T an originated. Paraphrasing Liu Hsin, therefore, I would say:
Members of the Ju school had their origin in the literati.
Members of the Mohist school had their origin in the knights.
Members of the Taoist school had their origin in the hermits.
Members of the School of Names had their origin in the debaters.
Members of the Yin-Yang school had their origin in the practitioners of occult arts.
Members of the Legalist school had their origin in the "men of methods."
The explanations of these statements will be found in the chapters that follow.
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CHAPTER 4
CONFUCIUS, THE FIRST TEACHER
CONFUCIUS is the latinized name of the person who has been known in Chi-na as K'ung Tzu or Master K'ung.* His family name was K'ung and his personal name Ch'iu. He was born in 551 B.C. in the state of Lu, in the southern part of the present Shantung province in eastern China. His ances-tors had been members of the ducal house of the state of Sung, which was descended from the royal house of Shang, the dynasty that had preceded the Chou. Because of political troubles, the family, before the birth of Confucius, had lost its noble position and migrated to Lu.
The most detailed account of Confucius' life is the biography which comprises the forty-seventh chapter of the Shih Chi or Historical Records (China s first dynastic history, completed ca. 86 B.C.). From this we learn that Confucius was poor in his youth, but entered the government of Lu and by the time he was fifty had reached high official rank. As a result of political intrigue, however, he was soon forced to resign his post and go into exile. For the next thirteen years he traveled from one state to another, always hoping to find an opportunity to realize his ideal of political and social reform. Nowhere, however, did he succeed, and finally as an old man he returned to Lu, where he died three years later in 479 B.C.
Confucius and the Six Classics
In the last chapter I said that the rise of the philosophic schools began with the practice of private teaching. So far as modern scholarship can de-termine, Confucius was the first person in Chinese history thus to teach large numbers of students in a private capacity, by whom he was accompanied during his travels in different states. According to tradition, he had several thousand students, of whom several tens became famous thinkers and schol-
*The word Tzu or "Master' is a polite suffix added to names of most philosophers of the Chou Dynasty, such as Chuang Tzu, HsUn Tzu, elc, and meaning Master Chuang, Master Hsiin, etc.
O6l CONFUCIUS, THE FIRST TEACHER
ars. The former number is undoubtedly a gross exaggeration, but there is no question that he was a very influential teacher, and what is more important and unique, China's first private teacher. His ideas are best known through the Lun Yil or Confucian Analects, a collection of his scattered sayings which was compiled by some of his disciples.
Confucius was a ju and the founder of the Ju school, which has been known in the West as the Confucian school. In the last chapter we saw how Liu Hsin wrote regarding this school that it "delighted in the study of the Liu Yi and emphasized matters concerning human-heartedness and righ-teousness. The term Liu Yi means the "six arts," i.e., the six liberal arts, but it is more commonly translated as the "Six Classics." These are the Yi or Book of Changes, the Shih or Book of Odes (or Poetry), the Shu or Book of History, the Li or Rituals or Rites, the Yiieh or Music (no longer pre-served as a separate work), and the Ch un Ch iu or Spring and A utumn A n— nals, a chronicle history of Confucius state of Lu extending from 72.2. to 479 B.C., the year of Confucius' death. The nature of these classics is clear from their titles, with the exception of the Book of Changes. This work was in lat-er times interpreted by the Confucianists as a treatise on metaphysics, but originally it was a book of divination.
Concerning the relation of Confucius with the Six Classics, there are two schools of traditional scholarship. One maintains that Confucius was the au-thor of all these works, while the other maintains that Confucius was the au-thor of the Spring and Autumn Annals, the commentator of the Book of Changes, the reformer of the Rituals and Music, and the editor of the Book of History and Book of Odes.
As a matter of fact, however, Confucius was neither the author, commen-tator, nor even editor of any of the classics. In some respects, to be sure, he was a conservative who upheld tradition. Thus in the rites and music he did try to rectify any deviations from the traditional practices or standards, and instances of so doing are reported in the Lun Yii or Analects. Judging from what is said of him in the Analects, however, Confucius never had any in-tention of writing anything himself for future generations. The writing of books in a private rather than official capacity was an as yet unheard of practice which developed only after the time of Confucius. He was China's first private teacher, but not its first private writer.
The Six Classics had existed before the time of Confucius, and they con-stituted the cultural legacy of the past. They had been the basis of education for the aristocrats during the early centuries of feudalism of the Chou dy-nasty. As feudalism began to disintegrate, however, roughly from the seventh century B.C. onward, the tutors of the aristocrats, or even some of the aristo-crats themselves—men who had lost their positions and titles but were well versed in the Classics—began to scatter among the people. They made their living, as we have seen in the last chapter, by teaching the Classics or by acting as skilled "assistants, well versed in the rituals, on the occasion of
064 CONKUC1US, THE FIRST TEACHER
funeral, sacrifice, wedding, and other ceremonies. This class of men was known as the ju or literati.
Confucius as an Educator
Confucius, however, was more than aju in the common sense of the word. It is true that in the Analects we find him, from one point of view, being portrayed merely as an educator. He wanted his disciples to be "rounded men who would be useful to state and society, and therefore he taught them various branches of knowledge based upon the different classics. His primary function as a teacher, he felt, was to interpret to his disciples the ancient cultural heritage. That is why, in his own words as recorded in the Analects, he was "a transmitter and not an originator." (Analects, VII, I.) But this is only one aspect of Confucius, and there is another one as well. This is that, while transmitting the traditional institutions and ideas, Confucius gave them interpretations derived from his own moral concepts. This is exemplified in his interpretation of the old custom that on the death of a parent, a son should mourn three years. Confucius commented on this: 'The child cannot leave the arms of its parents until it is three years old. This is why the three years' mourning is universally observed throughout the world." (Analects, XVII, 2.1.) In other words, the son was utterly dependent upon his parents for at least the first three years of his life; hence upon their death he should mourn them for an equal length of time in order to express his gratitude. Likewise when teaching the Classics, Confucius gave them new interpreta-tions. Thus in speaking of the Book of Poetry, he stressed its moral value by saying: In the Book of Poetry there are three hundred poems. But the essence of them can be covered in one sentence: Have no depraved thoughts.' " (A nalects, II, i.) In this way Confucius was more than a mere transmitter, for in transmitting, he originated something new.
