Confucius was essentially a statesman as well as a moralist; but his political career was an apparent failure, since few princes listened to his instructions.  Yet if he was lost to his contemporaries, he has been preserved by posterity.  Perhaps there never lived a man so worshipped by posterity who had so slight a following by the men of his own time,—­unless we liken him to that greatest of all Prophets, who, being despised and rejected, is, and is to be, the “headstone of the corner” in the rebuilding of humanity.  Confucius says so little about the subjects that interested the people of China that some suppose he had no religion at all.  Nor did he mention but once in his writings Shang-te, the supreme deity of his remote ancestors; and he deduced nothing from the worship of him.  And yet there are expressions in his sayings which seem to show that he believed in a supreme power.  He often spoke of Heaven, and loved to walk in the heavenly way.  Heaven to him was Destiny, by the power of which the world was created.  By Heaven the virtuous are rewarded, and the guilty are punished.  Out of love for the people, Heaven appoints rulers to protect and instruct them.  Prayer is unnecessary, because Heaven does not actively interfere with the soul of man.

Confucius was philosophical and consistent in the all-pervading principle by which he insisted upon the common source of power in government,—­of the State, of the family, and of one’s self.  Self-knowledge and self-control he maintained to be the fountain of all personal virtue and attainment in performance of the moral duties owed to others, whether above or below in social standing.  He supposed that all men are born equally good, but that the temptations of the world at length destroy the original rectitude.  The “superior man,” who next to the “sage” holds the highest place in the Confucian humanity, conquers the evil in the world, though subject to infirmities; his acts are guided by the laws of propriety, and are marked by strict sincerity.  Confucius admitted that he himself had failed to reach the level of the superior man.  This admission may have been the result of his extraordinary humility and modesty.

In “The Great Learning” Confucius lays down the rules to enable one to become a superior man.  The foundation of his rules is in the investigation of things, or knowledge, with which virtue is indissolubly connected,—­as in the ethics of Socrates.  He maintained that no attainment can be made, and no virtue can remain untainted, without learning.  “Without this, benevolence becomes folly, sincerity recklessness, straightforwardness rudeness, and firmness foolishness.”  But mere accumulation of facts was not knowledge, for “learning without thought is labor lost; and thought without learning is perilous.”  Complete wisdom was to be found only among the ancient sages; by no mental endeavor could any man hope to equal the supreme wisdom of Yaou and of Shun.  The object of learning, he said, should be truth; and the combination of learning with a firm will, will surely lead a man to virtue.  Virtue must be free from all hypocrisy and guile.