CHAPTER 1

1. Yen Yuen asked about perfect virtue. The Master said, "To subdue one's-self and return to propriety, is perfect virtue. If a man can for one day subdue himself and return to propriety, all under heaven will ascribe perfect virtue to him. Is the practice of perfect virtue from a man himself, or is it from others?"

2. Yen Yuen said, "I beg to ask the steps of that process." The Master replied, "Look not at what is contrary to propriety; listen not to what is contrary to propriety; speak not what is contrary to propriety; make no movement which is contrary to propriety." Yen Yuen then said, "Though I am deficient in intelligence and vigour, I will make it my business to practice this lesson."

HEADING OF THIS BOOK.—颜渊第十二. 'The twelfth Book, beginning with YenYuen.' It contains 24 chapters, conveying lessons on perfect virtue, government, and other questions of morality and policy, addressed in conversation by Confucius chiefly to his disciples. The different answers, given about the same subject to different questioners, show well how the sage suited his instructions to the characters and capacities of the parties with whom he had to do.

1. HOW TO ATTAIN TO PERFECT VIRTUE:—A CONVERSATION WITH YEN YUEN. 1. In Ho An,克己 is explained by 约身,'to restrain the body'. Choo He defines 克 by 胜, 'to overcome', and 己 by 身之私欲, 'the selfish desires of the body'. In the 合讲, it is said—己非即是私, 但私即附身而存, 故谓私为己, '己here is not exactly selfishness, but selfishness is what abides by being attached to the body, and hence it is said that selfishness is己.' And again, 克己非克去其己, 乃克去己中之私欲也, '克己is not subduing and putting away the self, but subduing and putting away the selfish desires in the self.' This 'selfishness in the self' is of a threefold character:—first, 气禀, said by Morrison to be 'a person's natural constitution and disposition of mind:' it is, I think, very much the 'animal man'; second, 耳, 目, 口, 鼻之欲, 'the desires of the ears, the eyes, the mouth, the nose'; i.e., the dominating influences of the senses; and third, 尔我, 'Thou and I', i.e., the lust of superiority. More concisely, the 己 is said, in the 翼注, to be the 人心 as opposed to the 道心, 'the mind of man' in opposition to the 'mind of reason'. See the Shoo-king II. ii. 9. This refractory 'mind of man', it is said, 与生俱生, 'is innate', or, perhaps, 'connate'. In all these statements, there is an acknowledgment of the fact—the morally abnormal condition of human nature—which underlies the Christian doctrine of original sin. With ref. to the above three-fold classification of selfish desires, the second par. shows that it was the second order of them—the influence of the senses, which Conf. specially intended. 复礼, —see note on 礼, VIII. 2. It is not here ceremonies. Choo He defines it—天理之节文, 'the specific divisions and graces of heavenly principle or reason'. This is continually being departed from, on the impulse of selfishness, but there is an ideal of it as proper to man, which is to be sought—'returned to'—by overcoming that. 归 is explained by Choo He by 与, 'to allow'. The gloss of the 备旨 is—称其仁, 'will praise his perfect virtue'. The whole sentence thus seems to become a mere platitude. Perhaps天下is only=our 'every body', or 'any body'. In Ho An, kwei is taken in the sense of 'to return',—'the empire will return to perfect virtue', supposing the exemplifier to be a prince. In the next sentence, which is designed to teach that every man may attain to this virtue for himself, 而= 'or'. 2. 其refers to 克己复礼. 目=条目, 'a list' or 'index'. 事 is used as an active verb;—'I beg to make my business these words.'