Confucius held that the universe had been generated by the union of two material principles,--a heavenly and an earthly, Yang and Ya. He represents man as having fallen by his own act from his original purity and happiness, and asserts that by his own act he can recover that condition. For this purpose he must lead a life of obedience to the law, and he must not do unto others that which he would not have others do unto him. He made the supremacy of parental authority the basis of his political teaching, and strongly advocated that the son’s submission to the father must be as complete as that of the servant to the master, of the master to the magistrate, of the magistrate to the crown, and of the crown to the law. Of course this implied that the reciprocal obligations must be observed. This rigid application of the family ideal to the administration of the government, and the consequent creation of a pure despotism, has been the cause of all that is most perplexing to Europeans in the Chinese civilisation, and explains why it has never advanced beyond the standard or mark to which it had attained in the era of Confucius. The Confucian doctrines are set forth in _Gze-Chou_, “The Four Books,” and _King_, “The Five Canonical Works,” of which the following particulars may interest the reader. _The Ta-heo, or “Great Study.”_ The _Ta-heo_, or “School of Adults,” has been translated by Dr. Marshman, in the “Clavis Sinica.” It is a treatise, in two chapters, on politics and morals, rising gradually from the government of oneself to the government of a family, thence to the government of a province, and finally to the control of the affairs of an empire. Its leading principle is self-improvement, self-culture. In one of the sections an eulogium is bestowed upon the beauty of virtue as a means of self-enjoyment. And the book closes with a fine exhortation to be just, and truthful, and honest, to those whom fortune places at the head of the state. _The Chung-Yung, or “The Invariable in the Mean,”_ Also translated as “the Safe Middle Course,” and “the Infallible Medium,” describes the golden mean, the due medium by which a man should regulate his conduct. He is not to be lifted up by prosperity, nor cast down by adversity. Through thirty-three sections, in language sometimes clear and strenuous, sometimes obscure, the subject is pursued, and the whole duty of man inculcated. Here is a passage describing a kingly man which may be compared with one in Seneca:--