Analects of Confucius

The most important book containing the teachings of CONFUCIUS (551– 479 B.C.E.), the founder of CONFUCIANISM. Confucius was one of the most infl uential teachers who ever lived. But he did not actually write down his teachings. After his death, his followers gathered his sayings. They were eventually collected into a book, the Analects. The Analects was put together perhaps in the third century B.C.E. The Analects does not expound Confucius's ideas in a neat, orderly sequence chapter by chapter. It also does not contain stories about Confucius's birth, activities, and death, as, for example, the GOSPELS do about JESUS. Instead, the Analects contains short statements, sometimes no more than a single sentence long, unconnected with one another. These statements claim to present Confucius's teachings in his own words. The following saying is typical: "Tzu-kung asked, ‘Is there a single word which can be a guide to conduct throughout one's life?' The master said, ‘It is perhaps the word "shu [reciprocity]" Do not impose on others what you yourself do not desire' " (Analects 15.24 [Lau tr.]). In the Analects, Confucius instructs his students, who were male, on how to become gentlemen. To Confucius a gentleman was more than someone who is courteous and polite. He was someone with moral depth. Confucius considered the gentleman to be the ideal of what it means for most people to be human. (A few go beyond being gentlemen. They are sages.) In Confucius's eyes, what characterizes a gentleman is humaneness. Humaneness has two parts. One part is the golden rule: As Confucius formulated it, do not do to someone what you would not wish them to do to you. The other part talks about how one should conduct oneself: One should always strive to do one's best. Confucius believed that people had to work hard to realize virtue to the fullest. Virtue had to be cultivated through a process that lasted a lifetime. The process began at home, with obedience and respect—the "fi lial piety"—that children showed their parents. If one did not love one's parents, Confucius asked, how could one love other members of society? The process of cultivating virtue continued in society as a whole. It did so as people observed the rules of proper behavior. Confucius believed that one nurtured virtue, which is ultimately an internal quality, through one's external behavior. (Compare some North American parents, who teach their children gratitude, an internal quality, by telling them to say "thank you," an external act.) Confucius expected his gentlemen to be members of the government. He had a very specifi c idea of how it was best for them to rule. By passing laws and meting out punishments, Confucius said, one could maintain order, but one would not make people more virtuous. The better way to rule was by being virtuous and observing proper behavior oneself. That way, people would develop a sense of shame and as a result govern themselves. These ideals of government often strike North Americans as unrealistic. It is good to remember, then, that for centuries the Chinese government ruled a very large territory at least in part by putting Confucius's ideals into practice.