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Romanised transliteration as printed by the translator, not the original script. This is what we hold.
18 THE Lf xt. CH. 1. Thang Wei, and the Yo Xi, making their number in all forty-nine, though, according to the arrangement adopted in the present translation, they still amount only to fortysix. From M4, again, it passed to his pupil Kang Hsiian (A.D. 127-200), in whom he was obliged to acknowledge a greater scholar than himself. Thus the Li Ai was formed. It-is not necessary to pursue its history farther. A&ng was the scholar of his age, and may be compared, in scholarship, with the later Kd Hsi. And he has been fortunate in the preservation of his works. He applied himself to all the three Rituals, and his labours on them all, the KAu Li, the f Li, and the Li Xi, remain. His commentaries on them are to be found in the great work of ‘The Thirteen King’ of the Thang dynasty. There they appear, followed by the glosses, illustrations, and paraphrases of Khung Ying-t4. In a.D. 175, while Kang was yet alive, 3h4i Yung, a scholar and officer of many gifts, superintended the work Ghai Yung and Of engraving on stone the text of all the — his manusculpt. Confucian classics. Only fragments of that great manusculpt remain to the present day, but others of the same nature were subsequently made. We may feel assured that we have the text of the Li Af and other old Chinese books, as it was 1800 years ago, more correctly than any existing manuscripts give us that of any works of the West, Semitic, or Greek, or Latin, of anything like equal antiquity. 3. A few sentences on the Li of the Greater Ti will fitly close this chapter. He handed down his voluminous com- Li of the pilation to a Hsii Liang of Lang Yeh in the Greater Tai. present Shan-tung', and in his family it was transmitted; but if any commentaries on it were published, there is no trace of them in history. As the shorter work of his cousin obtained a wide circulation, his fell into neglect, and, as KO f-gun says, was simply put upon the shelf. Still there appears in the Sui Catalogue these two entries :-— ‘The Li Ai of TA Ti, in 13 Sections,’ and ‘The Hsia ‘te RF He Ma, 52 We A HE HB. CH. II. INTRODUCTION. 9
2Still there appears in the Sui Catalogue these two entries :-— ‘The Li Ai of TA Ti, in 13 Sections,’ and ‘The Hsia ‘te RF He Ma, 52 We A HE HB. CH. II. INTRODUCTION. 9 Hsiao Kang, in 1 Section,’ with a note by the editor that it was compiled by Ta Tai. This little tractate may, or may not, have been also included in one of the 13 Sections. There are entries also about Ta T4i’s work in the catalogues of the Thang and Sung dynasties, which have given rise to many discussions. Some of the Sung scholars even regarded it as a 14th King. In the large collection of ‘Books of Han and Wei,’ a portion of the Li of Ta Tai is still current, 39 Books in 10 Sections, including the fragment of the Hsia dynasty, of which a version, along with the text, was published in 1882 by Professor Douglas of King’s College, under the title of ‘The Calendar of the Hsia Dynasty.’ I have gone over all the portion in the Han and Wei Collection, and must pronounce it very inferior to the compilation of the Hsiao or Lesser T4i. This inferiority, and not the bulk, merely, was the reason why from the first it has been comparatively little attended to. CHAPTER II. SIGNIFICANCE OF THE CHINESE CHARACTER CALLED Lf. MEANING OF THE TITLE Li Xf. VALUE OF THE WORK. 1. The Chinese character Li admits of a great variety of terms in translating a work where it abounds into any of our western languages. In order fully to apprehend its significance, we must try to get hold of the fundamental ideas which it was intended to convey. And these are two. First, when we consult the Shwo W4n, the oldest Chinese Ltis 2 symbol dictionary, we find Li defined as ‘a step or of religious act; that whereby we serve spiritual beings *mport. and obtain happiness.’ The character was to the author, Hsii Shan, an ideagram of religious import ; and we can see that he rightly interpreted the intention of its maker or makers. It consists of two elements, separately called £AZih and li'. That on the left is the symbol, ‘+ B= 5B. 10 THE Lf xt. CH, If. determining the category of meaning to which the compound belongs. It was the earliest figure employed to indicate spiritual beings, and enters into characters denoting spirits, sacrifices, and prayer'. That on the right, called li, is phonetic, but even it is the symbol for ‘a vessel used in performing rites;’ and if, as the Khanghsi dictionary seems to say, it was anciently used alone for the present compound, still the spiritual significance would attach to it, and the addition of the £4ih to complete the character, whensoever it was made, shows that the makers considered the rites in which the vessel was used to possess in the first place a religious import. -Next, the character is used, in moral and philosophical disquisitions, to designate one of the primary constituents of human nature. Those, as set forth by Mencius, are Lt is a symbol four; ‘not fused into us from without,’ not for the feeling produced, that is, by any force of circum-
3-Next, the character is used, in moral and philosophical disquisitions, to designate one of the primary constituents of human nature. Those, as set forth by Mencius, are Lt is a symbol four; ‘not fused into us from without,’ not for the feeling produced, that is, by any force of circum- of propriety. stances, but ‘belonging naturally to us, as our four limbs do.’ They are benevolence (#4n), righteousness (i), propriety (li), and understanding (4ih). Our possession of the first is proved by the feeling of distress at the sight of suffering ; of the second, by our feelings of shame and dislike; of the third, by our feelings of modesty and courtesy; of the fourth, by our ‘consciousness of approving and disapproving 2. Thus the character li, in the concrete application of it, denotes the manifestations, and in its imperative use, the rules, of propriety. This twofold symbolism of it—the religious and the moral—must be kept in mind in the study of our classic. A life ordered in harmony with it would realise the highest Chinese ideal, and surely a very high ideal, of human character. But never and nowhere has it been possible for men to: maintain this high standard of living. In China and elsewhere the li have become, in the usages of society in its various relationships, matters of course, forms without the ‘Eng. Jip onan, 2% (en, Wy (4). * Mencius, I, i, 6; VI, i, 6. 7. CH. It. INTRODUCTION. II
The source text as printed, transcribed diplomatically. Where the source language uses a non-Latin script that reaches us only through a Victorian romanisation, this layer is labelled transliteration, because that is what we hold.
Romanised transliteration as printed by the translator, not the original script. This is what we hold.
18 THE Lf xt. CH. 1. Thang Wei, and the Yo Xi, making their number in all forty-nine, though, according to the arrangement adopted in the present translation, they still amount only to fortysix. From M4, again, it passed to his pupil Kang Hsiian (A.D. 127-200), in whom he was obliged to acknowledge a greater scholar than himself. Thus the Li Ai was formed. It-is not necessary to pursue its history farther. A&ng was the scholar of his age, and may be compared, in scholarship, with the later Kd Hsi. And he has been fortunate in the preservation of his works. He applied himself to all the three Rituals, and his labours on them all, the KAu Li, the f Li, and the Li Xi, remain. His commentaries on them are to be found in the great work of ‘The Thirteen King’ of the Thang dynasty. There they appear, followed by the glosses, illustrations, and paraphrases of Khung Ying-t4. In a.D. 175, while Kang was yet alive, 3h4i Yung, a scholar and officer of many gifts, superintended the work Ghai Yung and Of engraving on stone the text of all the — his manusculpt. Confucian classics. Only fragments of that great manusculpt remain to the present day, but others of the same nature were subsequently made. We may feel assured that we have the text of the Li Af and other old Chinese books, as it was 1800 years ago, more correctly than any existing manuscripts give us that of any works of the West, Semitic, or Greek, or Latin, of anything like equal antiquity. 3. A few sentences on the Li of the Greater Ti will fitly close this chapter. He handed down his voluminous com- Li of the pilation to a Hsii Liang of Lang Yeh in the Greater Tai. present Shan-tung', and in his family it was transmitted; but if any commentaries on it were published, there is no trace of them in history. As the shorter work of his cousin obtained a wide circulation, his fell into neglect, and, as KO f-gun says, was simply put upon the shelf. Still there appears in the Sui Catalogue these two entries :-— ‘The Li Ai of TA Ti, in 13 Sections,’ and ‘The Hsia ‘te RF He Ma, 52 We A HE HB. CH. II. INTRODUCTION. 9
2Still there appears in the Sui Catalogue these two entries :-— ‘The Li Ai of TA Ti, in 13 Sections,’ and ‘The Hsia ‘te RF He Ma, 52 We A HE HB. CH. II. INTRODUCTION. 9 Hsiao Kang, in 1 Section,’ with a note by the editor that it was compiled by Ta Tai. This little tractate may, or may not, have been also included in one of the 13 Sections. There are entries also about Ta T4i’s work in the catalogues of the Thang and Sung dynasties, which have given rise to many discussions. Some of the Sung scholars even regarded it as a 14th King. In the large collection of ‘Books of Han and Wei,’ a portion of the Li of Ta Tai is still current, 39 Books in 10 Sections, including the fragment of the Hsia dynasty, of which a version, along with the text, was published in 1882 by Professor Douglas of King’s College, under the title of ‘The Calendar of the Hsia Dynasty.’ I have gone over all the portion in the Han and Wei Collection, and must pronounce it very inferior to the compilation of the Hsiao or Lesser T4i. This inferiority, and not the bulk, merely, was the reason why from the first it has been comparatively little attended to. CHAPTER II. SIGNIFICANCE OF THE CHINESE CHARACTER CALLED Lf. MEANING OF THE TITLE Li Xf. VALUE OF THE WORK. 1. The Chinese character Li admits of a great variety of terms in translating a work where it abounds into any of our western languages. In order fully to apprehend its significance, we must try to get hold of the fundamental ideas which it was intended to convey. And these are two. First, when we consult the Shwo W4n, the oldest Chinese Ltis 2 symbol dictionary, we find Li defined as ‘a step or of religious act; that whereby we serve spiritual beings *mport. and obtain happiness.’ The character was to the author, Hsii Shan, an ideagram of religious import ; and we can see that he rightly interpreted the intention of its maker or makers. It consists of two elements, separately called £AZih and li'. That on the left is the symbol, ‘+ B= 5B. 10 THE Lf xt. CH, If. determining the category of meaning to which the compound belongs. It was the earliest figure employed to indicate spiritual beings, and enters into characters denoting spirits, sacrifices, and prayer'. That on the right, called li, is phonetic, but even it is the symbol for ‘a vessel used in performing rites;’ and if, as the Khanghsi dictionary seems to say, it was anciently used alone for the present compound, still the spiritual significance would attach to it, and the addition of the £4ih to complete the character, whensoever it was made, shows that the makers considered the rites in which the vessel was used to possess in the first place a religious import. -Next, the character is used, in moral and philosophical disquisitions, to designate one of the primary constituents of human nature. Those, as set forth by Mencius, are Lt is a symbol four; ‘not fused into us from without,’ not for the feeling produced, that is, by any force of circum-
3-Next, the character is used, in moral and philosophical disquisitions, to designate one of the primary constituents of human nature. Those, as set forth by Mencius, are Lt is a symbol four; ‘not fused into us from without,’ not for the feeling produced, that is, by any force of circum- of propriety. stances, but ‘belonging naturally to us, as our four limbs do.’ They are benevolence (#4n), righteousness (i), propriety (li), and understanding (4ih). Our possession of the first is proved by the feeling of distress at the sight of suffering ; of the second, by our feelings of shame and dislike; of the third, by our feelings of modesty and courtesy; of the fourth, by our ‘consciousness of approving and disapproving 2. Thus the character li, in the concrete application of it, denotes the manifestations, and in its imperative use, the rules, of propriety. This twofold symbolism of it—the religious and the moral—must be kept in mind in the study of our classic. A life ordered in harmony with it would realise the highest Chinese ideal, and surely a very high ideal, of human character. But never and nowhere has it been possible for men to: maintain this high standard of living. In China and elsewhere the li have become, in the usages of society in its various relationships, matters of course, forms without the ‘Eng. Jip onan, 2% (en, Wy (4). * Mencius, I, i, 6; VI, i, 6. 7. CH. It. INTRODUCTION. II
The source text as printed, transcribed diplomatically. Where the source language uses a non-Latin script that reaches us only through a Victorian romanisation, this layer is labelled transliteration, because that is what we hold.
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