a common subject, they are thrown together at random more than
on any plan.
4. We cannot tell when the Work was first called the Lun Yu
[1]. The evidence in the preceding section is sufficient to prove
that when the Han scholars were engaged in collecting the ancient
Books, it came before them, not in broken tablets, but complete,
and arranged in Books or Sections, as we now have it. The Old
copy was found deposited in the wall of the house which
Confucius had occupied, and must have been placed there not later
than B.C. 211, distant from the date which I have assigned to the
compilation, not much more than a century and a half. That copy,
written in the most ancient characters, was, possibly, the
autograph of the compilers.
We have the Writings, or portions of the Writings, of
several authors of the third and fourth centuries before Christ. Of
these, in addition to 'The Great Learning,' 'The Doctrine of the
Mean,' and 'The Works of Mencius,' I have looked over the Works of
Hsun Ch'ing [2] of the orthodox school, of the philosophers Chwang
and Lieh of the Taoist school [3], and of the heresiarch Mo [4].
In the Great Learning, Commentary, chapter iv, we have the
words of Ana. XII. xiii. In the Doctrine of the Mean, ch. iii, we have
Ana. VI. xxvii; and in ch. xxviii. 5, we have substantially Ana. III.
ix. In Mencius, II. Pt. I. ii. 19, we have Ana. VII. xxxiii, and in vii. 2,
Ana. IV. i; in III. Pt. I. iv. 11, Ana. VIII. xviii, xix; in IV. Pt. I. xiv. 1,
Ana. XI. xvi. 2; in V. Pt. II. vii. 9, Ana. X. xiii. 4; and in VII. Pt. II.
xxxvii. 1, 2, 8, Ana. V. xxi, XIII. xxi, and XVII. xiii. These
quotations, however, are introduced by 'The Master said,' or
'Confucius said,' no mention being made of any book called 'The
Lun Yu,' or Analects. In the Great Learning, Commentary, x. 15, we
have the words of Ana. IV. iii, and in
1 In the continuation of the 'General Examination of Records and
Scholars (續文獻通考),' Bk. cxcviii. p. 17, it is said, indeed, on the
authority of Wang Ch'ung (王充), a scholar of our first century,
that when the Work came out of the wall it was named a Chwan or
Record (傳), and that it was when K'ung An-kwo instructed a
native of Tsin, named Fu-ch'ing, in it, that it first got the name of
Lun Yu:-- 武帝得論語于孔壁中, 皆名曰傳, 孔安國以古論教晉人扶卿, 始曰論
語. If it were so, it is strange the circumstance is not mentioned
in Ho Yen's preface.
2 荀卿.
3 莊子, 列子.
4 墨子.
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