the mere killing of an officer by a common person needs the assumption of robbery. It is like the legal fiction of lunacy in modern Chinese law to account for the heinous crime of parricide, and thus save the city from being razed to the ground. Once more, at the Peace Conference of 546, Ts'u undoubtedly "bluffed" Tsin out of her rightful precedence; but, Tsin being an orthodox state, Confucius makes Tsin the diplomatic victor. We have already seen that he once deliberately broke his plighted word, meanly attacked the men who spared him; and, out of servility, visited a woman of noble rank who was "no better than she ought to have been." There is another little female indiscretion recorded against him. When, in 482, the Lu ruler's concubine, a Wu princess (imperial clan name), died, Confucius obsequiously went into mourning for an "incestuous" woman; but, seeing immediately afterwards that the powerful family then at the helm did not condescend to do so, he somewhat ignominiously took off his mourning in a hurry. All these, and numerous similar petty instances of timorousness, may appear to us at a remote distance trifling and pusillanimous, as do also many of the model personal characteristics and goody-goody private actions of the sage; but if we make due allowance for the difficulty of translating strange notions into a strange tongue, and for the natural absence of sympathy in trying to enter into foreign feelings, we may concede that these petty details, quite incidentally related, need in no way destroy the main features of a great picture. Few heroes look the character except in their native clothes and surroundings; and, as Carlyle said, a naked House of Lords would look much less dignified than a naked negro conference. As a philosopher, Confucius in his own time had scarcely the reputation of Tsz-ch'an of Cheng, who in many respects seems to have been his model and guide. Much more is said of Tsz-ch'an's philosophy, of his careful definition of the ritual system, of his legal acumen, of his paternal care for the people's welfare; but, like his contemporaries and friends of Ts'i, Tsin, Cheng, Sung, Wei; and even of Wu and Yueh; he was working for the immediate good of his own state in times of dire peril; whereas Confucius from first to last was aiming at the restoration of religion (i.e., of the imperial, ritualistic, feudal system); and for this reason it was that, after the violent unification of the empire by the First August Emperor in 221 B.C., followed by his fall and the rise of the Han dynasty in 202 B.C., this latter house finally decided to venerate, and all subsequent houses have continued to venerate, Confucius' memory; because his system was, after Lao- tsz's system had been given a fair trial, at last found the best suited for peace and permanency.