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Confucius, 551 Β.Ο.Ε.-479 Β.C.E. Michael H. Hart Mosaic 1 Reading, 4th edition, by Brenda Wegmann Published by Individuals," pages 109-110. Publis Miki Knezevic, Chapter 7: "Remarkable McGraw-Hill. Reprinted with permission. 1 No other philosopher in the world has had more enduring influence than Confucius. For over two thousand years his concept of government, and his ideas about personal conduct and morality, permeated Chinese life and culture. Even today, his thoughts remain influential. 5 There was little in his childhood background to predict the cemarkable prestige that Confucius eventually achieved. He was born in a small principality in northeastern China, was reared in poverty, and had no formal education. Through diligent study, however, be educated himself and became a leamed man. For a 10 while he held a minor government post, but he soon resigned that position and spent most of his life as an instructor. Eventually, his most important teachings were gathered together into a book, The Analects, which was compiled by his disciples. The two cornerstones of his system of personal conduct were Jen 15 and Li. 1. "Jen" might be d fellow men delined as "benevolent concem for "Li" is a term less easily translated: it combines the notions of etiquette, good manners, and due concern for virtue rather than wealth (and in his personal life he seems to have acted on that principle). In addition, he was the fust major philosopher to state the Golden Itule, which he phrased as "Do not do unto others which you would not have them do unto you." en might be defin 20 Confucius ucius believed that mspect and obedience are owed by y children to their parents, by wives to their husbands, and by subjects to their rulers. But he never a defender of tyranny. On the contrary, the starting point of his political outlook is that the state exists for the benefit of the people, not the rulers. Another of his key political ideas is that a leader should govern primarily by moral example rather than by force Con fucius did not claim im a to be an innovator but always said that he was merely urging a return to the moral anandarda of former times. In fact, however, the reforms which he urged represented change from-and a great improvmment over-the governmental practices of earlier days. At the time of his death, Confucius was a respected, but not yet greatly influential, Instructor and philosopher. Gradually, though, his ideas became widely accepted throughout China. Then, in the third century BC, Shih Huang Ti united all of China under his rule, and decided to reform the count atry entirely and malce a complete break with the past. Shih Huang Ti therefore decided to suppress Confucian teachings, and he oitfered the burning of all copies of Confucius' worits (He also ordered the destruction of most other philosophical works.) Most Confucian books were indeed destroyed, but some copies survived the holocaust, and a few years later, after the dynasty founded by the "First Emperor had fallen, Confiscianism erged d. Under the next dynasty, the Har Han, Confucianism became the official state philosophy, re-eme n position it maintained throughout tof millennia Indeed, for much of that period, the civil service examinations in China were based primarily on knowledge of Confucian classics. Since those examinations were the main route by which commoners could enter the administration and achieve political deve politi Ipower, the governing class of the largest nation on Earth was largely composed of men who had carefully studied the works of Confucius and absorbed his principles. This enormous influence persisted until the nineteenth century, when the impact of the West created revolutionary changes in China. Then, in the twentieth century, the Communist Party 45 seized power in China, It was their belief that, in order both to modernize China and to eliminate economic injustice, it was necessary to make radical changes in society. As the ideas of Confucius were highly conservative, the Communists made a major effort to eradicate his influence, the first such effort since Shih Huang Ti, 22 centuries earlies Word count-660 25 30 35 ACTIVITY 2 40