Confucius left behind voluminous writings, of which his Analects, his book of Poetry, his book of History, and his Rules of Propriety are the most important.  It is these which are now taught, and have been taught for two thousand years, in the schools and colleges of China.  The Chinese think that no man so great and perfect as he has ever lived.  His writings are held in the same veneration that Christians attach to their own sacred literature.  There is this one fundamental difference between the authors of the Bible and the Chinese sage,—­that he did not like to talk of spiritual things; indeed, of them he was ignorant, professing no interest in relation to the working out of abstruse questions, either of philosophy or theology.  He had no taste or capacity for such inquiries.  Hence, he did not aspire to throw any new light on the great problems of human condition and destiny; nor did he speculate, like the Ionian philosophers, on the creation or end of things.  He was not troubled about the origin or destiny of man.  He meddled neither with physics nor metaphysics, but he earnestly and consistently strove to bring to light and to enforce those principles which had made remote generations wise and virtuous.  He confined his attention to outward phenomena,—­to the world of sense and matter; to forms, precedents, ceremonies, proprieties, rules of conduct, filial duties, and duties to the State; enjoining temperance, honesty, and sincerity as the cardinal and fundamental laws of private and national prosperity.  He was no prophet of wrath, though living in a corrupt age.  He utters no anathemas on princes, and no woes on peoples.  Nor does he glow with exalted hopes of a millennium of bliss, or of the beatitudes of a future state.  He was not stern and indignant like Elijah, but more like the courtier and counsellor Elisha.  He was a man of the world, and all his teachings have reference to respectability in the world’s regard.  He doubted more than he believed.

And yet in many of his sayings Confucius rises to an exalted height, considering his age and circumstances.  Some of them remind us of some of the best Proverbs of Solomon.  In general, we should say that to his mind filial piety and fraternal submission were the foundation of all virtuous practices, and absolute obedience to rulers the primal principle of government.  He was eminently a peace man, discouraging wars and violence.  He was liberal and tolerant in his views.  He said that the “superior man is catholic and no partisan.”  Duke Gae asked, “What should be done to secure the submission of the people?” The sage replied, “Advance the upright, and set aside the crooked; then the people will submit.  But advance the crooked, and set aside the upright, and the people will not submit.”  Again he said, “It is virtuous manners which constitute the excellence of a neighborhood; therefore fix your residence where virtuous manners prevail.”  The following sayings remind me of Epictetus: