He soon, however, 1 嘉靖. 2 王文成. 3 王魯齊. 4 李彭山. 5 高景逸. 6 葛屺瞻 7 聖經古本,南海羅仲藩註辨. withdrew into seclusion, and spent the last years of his life in literary studies. His family have published the Work on the Great Learning, and one or two others. He most vehemently impugns nearly every judgment of Chu Hsi; but in his own exhibitions of the meaning he blends many ideas of the Supreme Being and of the condition of human nature, which he had learned from the Christian Scriptures. SECTION II. OF THE AUTHORSHIP, AND DISTINCTION OF THE TEXT INTO CLASSICAL TEXT AND COMMENTARY. 1. The authorship of the Great Learning is a very doubtful point, and one on which it does not appear possible to come to a decided conclusion. Chu Hsi, as I have stated in the last section, determined that so much of it was Ching, or Classic, being the very words of Confucius, and that all the rest was Chwan, or Commentary, being the views of Tsang Shan upon the sage's words, recorded by his disciples. Thus, he does not expressly attribute the composition of the Treatise to Tsang, as he is generally supposed to do. What he says, however, as it is destitute of external support, is contrary also to the internal evidence. The fourth chapter of commentary commences with 'The Master said.' Surely, if there were anything more, directly from Confucius, there would be an intimation of it in the same way. Or, if we may allow that short sayings of Confucius might be interwoven with the Work, as in the fifteenth paragraph of the tenth chapter, without referring them expressly to him, it is too much to ask us to receive the long chapter at the beginning as being from him. With regard to the Work having come from the disciples of Tsang Shan, recording their master's views, the paragraph in chapter sixth, commencing with 'The disciple Tsang said,' seems to be conclusive against such an hypothesis. So much we may be sure is Tsang's, and no more. Both of Chu Hsi's judgments must be set aside. We cannot admit either the distinction of the contents into Classical text and Commentary, or that the Work was the production of Tsang's disciples. 2. Who then was the author? An ancient tradition attributes it to K'ung Chi, the grandson of Confucius. In a notice published, at the time of their preparation, about the stone slabs of Wei, the following statement by Chia K'wei, a noted scholar of the first century, is found:-- 'When K'ung Chi was living, and in straits, in Sung, being afraid lest the lessons of the former sages should become obscure, and the principles of the ancient sovereigns and kings fall to the ground, he therefore made the Great Learning as the warp of them, and the Doctrine of the Mean as the woof [1].' This would seem, therefore, to have been the opinion of that early time, and I may say the only difficulty in admitting it is that no mention is made of it by Chang Hsuan. There certainly is that agreement between the two treatises, which makes their common authorship not at all unlikely. 3.