opinion by the concurring testimony of Tsai Wo, Tsze-kung, and Yu Zo, who all had wisdom, he thought, sufficient to know their master. Tsai Wo's opinion was, 'According to my view of our master, he is far superior to Yao and Shun.' Tsze-kung said, 'By viewing the ceremonial ordinances of a prince, we know the character of his government. By hearing his music, we know the character of his virtue. From the distance of a hundred ages after, I can arrange, according to their merits, the kings of those hundred ages;-- not one of them can escape me. From the birth of mankind till now, there has never been another like our master.' Yu Zo said, 'Is it only among men that it is so? There is the ch'i- lin among quadrupeds; the fung-hwang among birds; the T'ai mountain among mounds and ant-hills; and rivers and seas among rainpools. Though different in degree, they are the same in kind. So the sages among mankind are also the same in kind. But they stand out from their fellows, and rise above the level; and from the birth of mankind till now, there never has been one so complete as Confucius [1].' I will not indulge in farther illustration. The judgment of the sage's disciples, of Tsze-sze, and of Mencius, has been unchallenged by the mass of the scholars of China. Doubtless it pleases them to bow down at the shrine of the Sage, for their profession of literature is thereby glorified. A reflection of the honour done to him falls upon themselves. And the powers that be, and the multitudes of the people, fall in with the judgment. Confucius is thus, in the empire of China, the one man by whom all possible personal excellence was exemplified, and by whom all possible lessons of social virtue and political wisdom are taught. 6. The reader will be prepared by the preceding account not to expect to find any light thrown by Confucius on the great problems of the human condition and destiny. He did not speculate on the creation of things or the end of them. He was not troubled to account for the origin of man, nor did he seek to know about his hereafter. He meddled neither with physics nor metaphysics [2]. [Sidebar] Subjects on which Confucius did not treat.-- That he was unreligious, unspiritual, and open to the charge of insincerity. The testimony of the Analects about the subjects of his teaching is the following:-- 'His frequent themes of discourse were the Book 1 Mencius, II. Pt. I. ii. 23-28. 2 'The contents of the Yi-ching, and Confucius's labors upon it, may be objected in opposition to this statement, and I must be understood to make it with come reservation. Six years ago, I spent all my leisure time for twelve months in the study of that Work, and wrote out a translation of it, but at the close I was only groping my way in darkness to lay hold of [footnote continued next page].