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The great Chinese
Philosopher Confucius was the first man to develop a system of
beliefs synthesizing the basic ideas of the Chinese people. His
Philosophy, based on personal morality and on the concept of
government that served its people and ruled by moral example,
permeated Chinese life and culture for well over two thousand years.
And has greatly influenced a substantial portion of the world’s
population.
Confucius was born
about 551 B.C., in the small state of Lu, which is in the present
province of Shantung. In northeastern China. His father died when he
was quite young, and Confucius and his mother lived in poverty. As a
young man, the future Philosopher served as a minor government
official, but after several years he resigned his post, he spent the
next sixteen years teaching, attracting a considerable number of
disciples to his Philosophy. When he was about fifty years old, he
was awarded a high position in the government of Lu; however, after
about four years, enemies at court brought about his dismissal, and,
indeed, his exile form the state. He spent the next thirteen years
as an itinerant teacher, and then returned to his home state for the
last five years of his life. He died in 479 B.C.
Confucius is often
credited as the founder of religion. but this description is
inaccurate. He very rarely referred to the Deity, refuse to discuss
the afterlife, and avoided all forms of metaphysical speculation. He
was basically a secular philosopher, interested in personal and
political morality and conduct.
The two most
important virtues, according to Confucius, are Jen and Li, and the
superior man guides his conduct by them. Jen has sometimes been
translated as “love” but it might better be defined as “benevolent
concern fro one’s fellow men “Li describes a combination of manners,
ritual, custom, etiquette, and propriety.
Ancestor worship,
the basic Chinese religion ever before Confucius, was reinforced by
the strong emphasis that he placed on family loyalty and respect for
one’ parents. Confucius also taught that respect and obedience were
owed by wives to their husbands and by subjects to their rulers. But
the Chinese sage did not approve of tyranny. He believed that the
state exits for the benefit of the people, not vice versa, and he
repeatedly stressed that a ruler should govern primarily by moral
examples rather that by force. Another of his tents was slight
variant of the Golden Rule: “What you do not want done to yourself,
do not do to others”.
Confucius’s basic
outlook was highly conservative. He believed that the Golden Age was
in the past and he urged both rulers and people to return to the
good old moral standards. In fact, however. The Confucian ideal of
government by moral example had not been the prevailing practice in
earlier times, and Confucius was therefore a more innovative
reformer than he claimed to be.
Confucius lived
during the Chou dynasty, a period of great intellectual ferment in
China. Contemporary rulers did not accept rulers did not accept his
program, but after the death his ideas spread widely throughout his
country. However, with the advent of the Ch’in dynasty, in 221 B.C.
Confucianism fell upon evil days. The first emperor of the Ch’in
dynasty, shih Hung Ti, was determined to eradicate Confucius’s
influence, and to make a clean break with the past. He ordered the
suppression of Confucian teachings and the burning of all Confucian
books. This attempt at suppression was unsuccessfully, and when the
Ch’in dynasty, the Han (206 B.C. - 220 A.D.) Confucianism became
established as the official Chinese state philosophy.
Starting with the
Han dynasty, Chinese emperor gradually developed the practice of
selecting government officials by means of civil service
examinations. In the course of time these examinations came to based
to large extent on knowledge bureaucracy was the main route to
financial success and social prestiges in the Chinese empire, the
Civil service examinations were extremely competitive. Consequently,
for generations a large number of the most intelligent and ambitious
young men in China devoted many years to intensive study of the
Confucian classics, and , for many centuries the entire civil
administration of China was composed of persons who basic outlook
had been permeated by the Confucian Philosophy. This system endured
in china (with some interruptions) for roughly two thousands years,
from about 100 B.C. to about 1900 B.C.
But Confucianism
was not merely the official phi ploy of the Chinese administration.
Confucian ideals were accepted by the majority of the Chinese
people. And for over two thousand years deeply influenced there life
and thought.
There are several
reasons for Confucius’s enormous appeal to the Chinese. First, his
personal sincerity and integrity were beyond question. Second, he
was a moderate and practical person, and did not demand of men what
they could not achieve. If he asked them to be honorable, he did not
expect them to be saintly. In this regard as in others, he reflected
the practical temperament of the Chinese people. And this perhaps,
was the key to the immense success that his idea achieved in China.
Confucius was not asking the Chinese to change their basics beliefs.
Rather, he was restating, in a clear and impressive form, their
basic traditional ideals. Perhaps no philosopher in history has been
so closely in touch with the fundamental views of his countrymen as
Confucius.
Confucianism, which
stresses the obligations of individuals rather than their rights.
May seem rather stodgy and unappealing by current Western standard.
As philosophy of government, though, it proved remarkably effective
in practice. Judged on the basis of its ability to maintain internal
peace and prosperity, china, for a period of two thousand years, was
on the average the best-governed region on earth.
The ideals of
Confucius, closely grounded as they are in Chinese culture, have not
been widely influential outside East Asia. They have, however, had a
major impact in Korea and Japan, both of which have been greatly
influenced by Chinese culture.
At the present
time, Confucianism is in low estate in China. The Chinese
Communists, in an effort to break completely with the past. He
vigorously attacked Confucius and his doctrines, and it is possible
that the period of his influence upon history has drawn to a close.
In the past, however, the ideas of Confucius have proven to very
deeply rooted within China, and we should no be surprised if there
is resurgence of Confucianism in the course of the next century.
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