Spring and Autumn, professedly written in the interests of morality and good order, to inspire wicked officials and undutiful sons with wholesome terror, disappoints us in the reading. It is made up of short, unconnected sentences, stating isolated facts (some of them quite insignificant) in the baldest manner, without any attempt at rhetorical excellence or any expression of condemnation or praise. Whether a temple is struck by lightning, or a father is murdered by his son, or locusts appear, or some glorious exploit is performed, or the ruler goes on a journey, or the sun is eclipsed—it is just stated in so many words—nothing more. The historical style of Confucius is certainly not striking, and we fail to see why the guilty should have “quaked with fear” when his annals appeared. =The Four Shoo= are constituted as follows: 1. The Confucian Analects (literary fragments). 2. The Great Learning. 3. The Doctrine of the Mean (as opposed to extremes—the Moderate). 4. The works of Mencius, or the philosopher Meng, a disciple of Confucius, and second only to his master among the sages of China. The Analects consist of the sayings of Confucius, as they occur in conversations with his followers. Sententious, simple, and sometimes signally beautiful, they contain the very marrow of wisdom based upon observation and experience. They shine among the laconics of the world. A few specimens are subjoined. EXTRACTS FROM THE ANALECTS. “The Master said:‘In the Book of Poetry are three hundred pieces, but the design of all may be embraced in one sentence—Have no depraved thoughts.’ There are cases in which the blade springs, but the plant does not go on to flower. There are cases where it flowers, but no fruit is subsequently produced. Learning without thought is labor lost; thought without learning is perilous. Worship as if the Deity were present. Good government obtains when those who are near are made happy, and those who are far off are attracted. Three friendships are advantageous,—friendship with the upright, friendship with the sincere, and friendship with the man of observation. Three are injurious,—friendship with the man of specious airs, friendship with the insinuatingly soft, and friendship with the glib-tongued. To see what is right and not to do it, is want of courage. The cautious seldom err. If I am building a mountain, and stop before the last basketful of earth is placed on the summit, I have failed of my work. But if I have placed but one basketful on the plain and go on, I am really building a mountain. Shall I teach you what knowledge is? When you know a thing, to hold that you know it; and when you do not know a thing, to confess your ignorance—is knowledge. Extravagance leads to insubordination, and parsimony to meanness. It is better to be mean than insubordinate. Learn the past, and you will know the future.