(Part I)
For roughly twenty-two centuries, his ideas were studied throughout a region that included over 20 percent of the world¡¯s population. Only a few philosophers anywhere have had so great an influence. --- Michael H. Hart
A portrait of Mencius. Confucianism was used to be termed in China as ¡°Teachings of Confucius and Mencius¡±. Mencius¡¯ name was M¨¨ng K¨¥ (ÃÏéðin Chinese characters), born at today¡¯s Z¨u Xi¨¤n County in Sh¨¡nd¨ng Province in approximately 372 B.C., he passed away in approximately 289 B.C.. People in China often referred to him as the ¡°Second Sage¡±. His father died very young, and he was brought up by his mother, who, in order to have a nice environment for his growth, moved their home three times. She has therefore been regarded as a model mother in educating children and her deeds was known to almost every household in China. According to the ¡°Biographies of Mencius and x¨²n Z¨«¡± by S¨©m¨£ Qi¨¡n, ¡°he was a student of the disciples of Z¨« S¨©, a grandson of Confucius.¡± After completion of his studies, he also became a teacher of Confucianism; like Confucius, he also traveled to various countries to advocate his political views to dukes. He went to the states of Q¨ª, S¨°ng, T¨¦ng, W¨¨i and L¨³. He was a high ranking official in the State of Q¨ª for some time and he also taught at the J¨¬xi¨¤ School of Q¨ª. Since his efforts of selling his political views to dukes failed, he then concentrated on interpreting the theory of Confucius, and the outcome of this endeavor was ¡°The Book of Mencius¡±. However, later scholars didn¡¯t think Mencius wrote the book, which, they believed, were compiled by his disciples and students; yet unlike Confucius, he himself may have polished the language.
A sample of the Book of Mencius. ¡°The Book of Mencius¡± that has been read and used nowadays contains seven chapters with over thirty-five thousand characters. It was regarded as an ordinary Confucian book and not included in the list of classics when it was completed. The position of Mencius was slightly improved in the T¨¢ng Dynasty. It was in the S¨°ng dynasty that the book was formally accepted into the list of Confucian classics, and it became one of the ¡°Four Books¡±. In the ¡°The 100¡ªa Ranking of the Most Influential Persons in History¡± complied by Michael H. Hart, Mencius was placed at the 92nd with such remarks as ¡°Mencius¡¯s writings have certainly influenced the Chinese. Though his influence to Confucianism is not nearly as great as St. Paul¡¯s importance to Christianity (for one thing, Mencius lacked Paul¡¯s unusual proselytizing ability), he was unquestionably an immensely influential writer. For roughly twenty-two centuries, his ideas were studied throughout a region that included over 20 percent of the world¡¯s population. Only a few philosophers anywhere have had so great an influence.¡± The titles of each chapter are chosen from the first characters of the first paragraph; and each chapter is divided into two parts.
Main contents in each chapter The first chapter¡ª¡°King Hu¨¬ of the State of Li¨¢ng¡± records mainly Mencius¡¯s conversations with a few kings. Mencius put forth, during these conversations, his ideas of ¡°kindly sympathy¡±, ¡°righteousness¡±, ¡°true kingship¡±,¡± humane government¡± and ¡°commiseration.¡± His proposal that it should not be considered as ¡°murder¡± if an autocrat and a despot was killed by his ministers annoyed quite a number of later rulers, including the first emperor of the M¨ªng, who said when reading this statement, ¡°I would punish this old devil if he was still alive.¡± The second chapter¡ª ¡°G¨ngs¨±n Ch¨¯u¡±, who is a student of Mencius from the State of Q¨ª. In this chapter he put forth one of his basic tenets, which says, ¡°I am good at building up the brio in me so that I could be overpowering, virile, bold and generous.¡±His theory of ¡°four beginnings¡±, which is the basis of his doctrine that ¡°human nature has an innate tendency towards goodness,¡± originates in this chapter, which goes: the feeling of commiseration is the beginning of humanity; the feeling of shame and dislike is the beginning of righteousness; the feeling of deference and compliance is the beginning of propriety; and the feeling of right or wrong is the beginning of wisdom. This chapter also carries such axioms as ¡°to subdue men by virtue,¡± ¡°It is possible to escape from calamities sent by the Heaven while it is not possible to keep our lives if we occasion the calamities ourselves¡±, ¡°He who find proper course has many to assist him. He who losses the proper course has few to assist him.¡±
The Book of Mencius in bamboo slips. The third chapter is entitled ¡°Duke W¨¦n of the State of T¨¦ng¡±. Mencius reaffirmed in this chapter the importance of funeral service for the deceased Z¨¥ng Z¨« attached by quoting: ¡°When parents are alive, they should be served according to propriety; when they are dead, they should be buried according to propriety; and they should be sacrificed to according to propriety - this may be called filial duty." The ceremonies to be observed by the princes I have not learned, but I have heard these points: that the three years' mourning, the garment of coarse cloth with its lower edge even, and the eating of congee, were equally prescribed by the three dynasties, and binding on all, from the sovereign to the mass of the people.¡± ¡°The business of the people may not be remissly attended to¡± reflects the position of the people in his mind. He wished a good government could establish educational institutions for the instruction of people and for illustrating to them human relations. He said in this chapter, ¡°Those who labor with their minds govern others; those who labor with their strength are governed by others.¡± This statement, a universal truth in his mind, has been influential in China in the old days. The following saying has inspired many heroes:¡± To be above the power of riches and honors to make dissipated, of poverty and mean condition to make swerve from principle and of power and force to make bend - these characteristics constitute the great man.¡± He had to fight against other schools of thought because at his time Confucianism was far from the main stream in the society, and the ideas of Y¨¢ng Zh¨± (a scholar in the Warring States period, no dates of his birth and death are available) and M¨° D¨ª (468-376 B.C.) were more fashionable. That¡¯s why he said in the chapter, ¡±Indeed, I am not fond of disputing, but I am compelled to do it.¡±
A sample page of the book. The fourth chapter is entitled ¡°L¨ª L¨®u¡±. In this chapter, Mencius emphasized the importance of following the way former kings took, saying that ¡°they are like compass and squares in forming squares and circles.¡± After quoting a common saying of the people¡ª ¡°The sublunary, the state and the family,¡± Mencius said, ¡°the root of the sublunary are the state, the root of the state is family and the root of the family is the person heading it.¡± He proposed his concept of the ¡°mandate of Heaven¡± in this chapter, and said that if one would survive if he accords with the mandate of Heaven and he would be doomed if he does otherwise. He stressed the importance of winning the hearts of the people and said to win over a kingdom; one has to win over its people and to win over the people, one has to win over their hearts. This chapter is well known for his statements on filial duty, such as ¡°The service of parents is the greatest; the keeping of one¡¯s own moral integrity is the greatest¡±; ¡°There are three things which are unfilial, and to have no posterity is the greatest of them;¡± (the other two are: leaving aged parents in poor conditions; not seeking positions in the government and get a salary for such a position.) ¡°The essence of kindly sympathy lies in the services to the parents; while the essence of righteousness lies in the obedience to elder brothers.¡± ¡°If one could not get the hearts of his parents he could not be considered a man; if he could not get to an entire accord with his parents, he could not be considered a son.¡±This chapter also contains one of his well-known aphorisms: ¡°The great man is he who does not lose his child¡¯s heart.¡± The fifth chapter is entitled ¡°W¨¤n Zh¨¡ng¡±. The first thing Mencius described in this chapter is the great filial deeds of Sh¨´n, who succeeded Y¨¢o as the Emperor. Sh¨´n finally won the hearts of his father, step-mother and younger brother despite their repeated schemes of killing him. Mencius pointed out ¡°Y¨¢o presented Sh¨´n to the Heaven, and Heaven accepted him¡Heaven does not speak. It simply indicated his will by his personal conduct and his conduct of affairs.¡± This statement is based on the belief that Heaven sees what people see and hears what people hear. He also devoted some space in the chapter to feature such sagacious officials as Y¨ª Y¨«n and B¨£il¨« X¨©, yet he also pointed out Confucius was a timely combination of all these sagacious officials putting together. Mencius said in respecting sagacious officials the best thing to do is to practice their political propositions. In this chapter, he gave a description of the peerage system, which is a bit different from what ¡°The Kings¡¯ Government¡± in ¡°The Record of Rites and Ceremonies¡± and ¡°The Rites of the Zhou¡± illustrated. The following words on friendship are quite inspiring: ¡°Friendship should be maintained without any presumption on the ground of one¡¯s superior age, or station, or the circumstances of his relatives. Friendship with a man is friendship with his virtue, and does not admit of assumptions of superiority.¡± The sixth chapter is entitled ¡°G¨¤o Z¨«¡±. The first thing Mencius talked about is man¡¯s nature: ¡°The tendency of man's nature to good is like the tendency of water to flow downwards. There are none but have this tendency to good, just as all water flows downwards.¡± Mencius gives definition to the following concepts: kindly sympathy is the ¡°feeling of commiseration¡±; righteousness is the ¡°feeling of shame and dislike¡±; propriety is the ¡°feeling of reverence and respect¡± and intellect is the ¡°feeling of what is right and wrong.¡± He stressed the four concepts ¡°are not infused into us from without. We are certainly furnished with them.¡± He pointed out that a man¡¯s good nature would have to be constantly maintained, ¡°Shall it be said that the mind of any man was without kindly sympathy and righteousness? The way in which a man loses his proper goodness of mind is like the way in which the trees are denuded by axes and bills. Hewn down day after day, can it - the mind - retain its beauty?¡± Here he described consistency thus: ¡°Suppose the case of the most easily growing thing in the world; if you let it have one day's genial heat, and then expose it for ten days to cold, it will not be able to grow.¡± The following quotation from Mencius has been most popular: ¡°I like fish, and I also like bear's paws. If I cannot have the two together, I will let the fish go, and take the bear's paws. So, I like life, and I also like righteousness. If I cannot keep the two together, I will let life go, and choose righteousness.¡± He said that kindly sympathy is actually a man¡¯s mind and righteousness is a man¡¯s path. ¡°The great end of learning is nothing else but to seek one¡¯s lost mind.¡± The aphorism ¡°All men can become Y¨¢os and Sh¨´ns¡± originated from this chapter. The following sentence has been the motto of many Chinese of all generations: ¡°Thus, when Heaven is about to confer a great office on any man, it first exercises his mind with suffering, and his sinews and bones with toil. It exposes his body to hunger, and subjects him to extreme poverty. It confounds his undertakings. By all these methods it stimulates his mind, hardens his nature, and supplies his incompetency.¡±
Having a conversation with a king. The seventh chapter is entitled: ¡°J¨¬n X¨©n¡±. Mencius exhibited his view on self cultivation, which could help a person to establish in the society. He said to cultivate oneself is to ¡°preserve one¡¯s mental constitution and nourish one¡¯s nature,¡± for purpose of serving the Heaven. He believed ¡°everything is ready in us, and nothing gives us more pleasure than proving the correctness of things in us with our own practice.¡± The following maxim has influenced generations of scholars in China: ¡°When the men of antiquity realized their wishes, benefits were conferred by them on the people. If they did not realize their wishes, they cultivated their personal character, and became illustrious in the world. If poor, they attended to their own virtue in solitude; if advanced to dignity, they made the whole kingdom virtuous as well.¡± He repeated here that kindly sympathy and righteousness are built-in with us by saying, ¡°Children carried in the arms all know to love their parents, and when they are grown a little, and they all know to love their elder brothers. Filial affection for parents is the working of kindly sympathy. Respect for elders is the working of righteousness. There is no other reason for those feelings - they belong to all under heaven.¡± We may wish to keep these words in our minds: ¡°A true gentle man has three things in which he delights¡ His father and mother are both alive, and that the condition of his brothers affords no cause for anxiety; this is one delight. When looking up, he has no occasion for shame before Heaven, and, below, he has no occasion to blush before men; this is a second delight. That he can get from the whole kingdom the most talented individuals, and teach and nourish them; this is the third delight.¡± One of his comments on the work by Confucius ¡°Spring and Autumn Annals¡± are quite alarming: ¡°None of the wars described in ¡®Spring and Autumn Annals¡¯ could be considered to be righteous. What did exist was that one war may be better than the other.¡± It is in this chapter that he expressed his people-oriented thought. What he said was:¡± The people are the most important element in a nation; the spirits of the land and grain are the next; the sovereign is the lightest.¡± He also sang praises the power of appeal and influence of sages in the chapter: ¡°A sage is the teacher of a hundred generations - this is true of B¨® Y¨ª and Hu¨¬ of Li¨³ Xi¨¤. Therefore, when men now bear the character of B¨® Y¨ª, the corrupt becomes pure, and the weak acquire determination. When they hear the character of Hu¨¬ of Li¨³ Xi¨¤, the mean become generous, and the niggardly become liberal. Those two made themselves distinguished a hundred generations ago, and after a hundred generations, those who hear of them, are all aroused in this manner. Could such effects be produced by them, if they had not been sages? And how much more did they affect those who were in contiguity with them, and felt their inspiring influence!¡± Features of the thoughts of Mencius A. His idea of Heaven is an indispensible part of his thinking and constitutes the basis of his theory of human nature, his ethics and political views. His idea of Heaven carries four connotations. 1. The Heaven with a will. He recognized the existence of a deity outside the seclude world. He held that it was the Heaven who decided who should succeed the throne. He said in ¡°W¨¤n Zh¨¡ng¡±: ¡°When Heaven gave the kingdom to the sagacious, it was given to the sagacious. When Heaven gave it to the son of the preceding sovereign, it was given to him.¡± Similarly, the rise and fall of a state was also decided by the Heaven, he was quoting from ¡°The Book of Songs¡± to say: ¡°The descendants of the sovereigns of the Sh¨¡ng dynasty, Are in number more than hundreds of thousands, But God having passed His decree, They are all submissive to Zhou. They are submissive to Zhou, Because the decree of Heaven is not unchanging.¡± Mencius at the same time stressed the role men played.
A crowd reading the Book of Mencius. 2. The Heaven decides on fate, which is independent of men¡¯s will. He said, ¡°You did what you didn¡¯t want to do. Why? The Heaven is maneuvering you.¡± He believed an abnormal death was decided by Heaven. He said, ¡°The exercise of love between father and son, the observance of righteousness between sovereign and minister, the rules of ceremony between guest and host, the display of intellect in recognizing the talented, and the fulfilling the heavenly course by the sage - these are the mandate of Heaven.¡± 3. The Heaven with high moral standard, for instance, he said, ¡°Kindly sympathy, righteousness, credibility and fidelity, with unwearied joy in these virtues; these constitute the nobility of Heaven.¡± In his mind, kindly sympathy, righteousness, propriety and intellect are the essence of the Heaven. 4. The Heaven is also the nature as he said, ¡°The heaven collects clouds and then sends down torrents of rain, and the grain erects itself.¡± He held that the Heaven is the motion of the sun and moon, the revolving of the four seasons. B. His theory on men¡¯s good nature, which is based on the following statement: ¡°The feeling of commiseration belongs to all men; so does that of shame and dislike; and that of reverence and respect; and that of approving and disapproving.¡± He said further ¡°you are not a man if you do not possess the feeling of commiseration, the feeling of shame and dislike, the feeling of reverence and respect and the feeling of approving and disapproving.¡± We know from the foregoing his saying about the four beginnings, he further concluded that ¡°Kindly sympathy, righteousness, propriety, and intellect are not infused into us from without. We are certainly furnished with them.¡± He also said, ¡°The ability possessed by men without having been acquired by learning is intuitive ability, and the knowledge possessed by them without the exercise of thought is their intuitive knowledge. Children carried in the arms all know to love their parents, and when they are grown a little, they all know to love their elder brothers. Filial affection for parents is the working of kindly sympathy. Respect for elders is the working of righteousness.¡± If a man¡¯s nature has gone bad, it is because he has abandoned to evil, it is not ¡°any difference of their natural powers conferred by Heaven that they are thus different. The abandonment is owing to the circumstances through which they allow their minds to be ensnared and drowned in evil.¡± C. The Idea of Ethics, which is the main body of his thinking. Mencius proposed three sets of benchmarks: filial duty, love of elder brother; five cardinal relationships; kindly sympathy, righteousness, propriety and intellect. (a) The Moral Benchmarks and the Highest Principle of Morality. 1. Filial duty and love of elder brother are benchmarks of family ethics. Mencius held that in everyone¡¯s conscious there is respect of parents. The key is to expand such a respect and be consistent with it. He despised those who cared about his wife and children and not his parents. He said a man of great filial duty would respect his parents all his life. In looking after parents, one should not only care about their daily life, but, more importantly their mental state. That is to say one has to make his parents happy. He said if one could not get the hearts of his parents, he could not be considered as a man; and he could not be considered as a son if he could not get to an entire accord with his parents. In giving mental care to the parents, one has to respect them, win their hearts, be obedient to them and make them happy. He praised Sh¨´n as an example in providing mental care to the parents. He also regarded Z¨¥ng Z¨«, a disciple of Confucius as an example and said, ¡°To serve one's parents as Z¨¥ng Z¨« served his, may be accepted as filial duty.¡± One important aspect of being filial dutiful is to be meticulous in giving funeral service to the parents, as he said, ¡°The nourishment of parents when living is not sufficient to be accounted the great thing. It is only in the performing their obsequies when dead that we have what can be considered the great thing.¡± To be specific, one should try his best to provide a good coffin, shroud of high quality, a good location of the tomb, and observe mourning for three years; one should offer sacrifice to the deceased at the date of death and always remember them. We should keep in mind that in the mind of Mencius held that children should not let a blunder committed by the parents slip away without criticism. He said if one does not complain about a big fault made by the father, who is to estrange himself from his father, to estrange from his father is not filial. 2. Five cardinal relationships were described by Mencius as ¡°between father and son, there should be affection; between sovereign and minister, righteousness; between husband and wife, attention to their separate functions; between old and young, a proper order; and among friends, fidelity.¡± The first relationship is between father and son. The familial blood affirms that the father has the obligation to raise the son and right to ask the son to look after him when he is aged, and that the son has the obligation to look after the father when he is aged and the right to ask the father to foster him. We should keep in mind that Mencius has never asked the son to be absolute obedient to his parents.
Book of Mencius fresh from the printer. The second relationship is between the sovereign and his ministers. This relationship is based on propriety and righteousness, that is to say that the sovereign should act like a sovereign and a minister should act like a minister. The sovereign has the right to select, promote, dispose, educate and use ministers and the obligation to salary, protection to the ministers and guarantee of their livelihood. Ministers have the obligation to respect, obey to and provide service to the sovereign and to conduct funeral service to the deceased sovereign and the right to ask the sovereign to treat them with propriety, to look after their daily life and benefits and the freedom to select their sovereign. Mencius said in this respect, ¡°When the sovereign regards his ministers as his hands and feet, his ministers regard their sovereign as their belly and heart; when he regards them as his dogs and horses, they regard him as another man; when he regards them as the ground or as grass; they regard him as a robber and an enemy.¡± Mencius did not stand for blind and absolute obedience to the sovereign, he said, ¡°To urge one's sovereign to difficult achievements may be called showing respect for him. To set before him what is good and repress his perversities may be called showing reverence for him.¡± He proposed that if the sovereign refused to listen to the remonstration, he should be replaced by a duke from the same family and the ministers with other names should resign from the office. He held that it was entirely acceptable to kill a despot sovereign. The third relationship is between husband and wife. It stressed the difference of functions. The wife should mainly look after family affairs and the husband was responsible for things outside the family. Mencius actually denied the independent person and the right of self-determination of women when he said, ¡°At the marrying away of a young woman, her mother admonishes her, accompanying her to the door on her leaving, and cautioning her with these words, 'You are going to your home. You must be respectful; you must be careful. Do not disobey your husband.'" In the patriarchal society, there was a difference between the aged and the young. The aged had a higher social status and the young had a lower social status. As Mencius said, ¡°In the kingdom there are three things universally acknowledged to be honorable. Nobility is one of them; age is one of them; virtue is one of them. In courts, nobility holds the first place of the three; in villages, age holds the first place; and for helping one's generation and presiding over the people, the other two are not equal to virtue.¡± The purpose for Mencius to include the relationship between the old and the young into the five cardinal relationships was to enable the young to respect and to provide services to the aged sincerely, so that the stability of the patriarchal society which was based on blood relationship could be maintained. The relationship among friends is not bounded by family, blood, social status, age or occupations, and no mandatory rights or obligations are attached to it. So, what makes a friendship work is credibility and good faith. Mencius held schools should teach people the five cardinal relationships, and people should handle their relations with other people, the state and the society according to these relationships. Even today the family affection between father and son, the respect of the aged and the credibility among friends are still positively meaningful.
