The teachings of Confucius relate chiefly to the higher branches of ethics, the means of attaining perfection, and the rules of good government. They treat in general terms of vice and virtue, and it was not often that he descended to the consideration of particular sins. Occasionally, however, we find sentences which throw light upon Chinese society in his day. “The superior man,” he says, “when he is at table does not seek to glut his appetite. When he is in his house he does not indulge in the enjoyments of indolence and effeminacy.”[25] “Ki-chi (a noble of the kingdom of Lou) employed eight troupes of musicians at his family fêtes. If he can allow himself to act thus, of what is he not capable?”[26] “I see no fault in Yu; he was sober in eating and drinking.”[27] “When you are abroad,” said the philosopher, “pay your respects to your superior magistrates.... Be not given to excess in the use of wine.”[28] His disciple Mencius makes more frequent references to the vice of drunkenness. He speaks of the excessive use of wine in the sacrifices.[29] “The vices,” he says, “which, according to the custom in our day, are called defects of filial piety, are five in number.... Loving to play chess,[30] and to drink instead of fulfilling one’s duties to father and mother, is the second defect of filial piety.” Judging from the writings of these two sages, however, we should, perhaps, be disposed to think that drunkenness was not a flagrant vice in their day, for whilst directions are given over and over again concerning religious rites and observances, the duties of princes, obedience and reverence to parents; whilst both princes and people are warned against voluptuousness and extravagance, we seldom find drunkenness referred to, and never as a dangerous and prevalent vice. But long before their time a very different state of things must have prevailed, for the “Shoo-King, or History,”[31] and the “She-King, or Book of Ancient Poetry,”[32] teem with evidences of the over-indulgence in wine, as well as what are called “spirits,” and it is to those records that we must now turn in order to acquire a fuller knowledge of the subject. That the use of intoxicating drinks was not absolutely forbidden, but was sanctioned under certain conditions, is clear, both from the poems as well as the prose writings of the period. Here is an extract from the “Shoo-King, or History,”[33]—“Ye people of the Land of Mei, if you can employ your limbs largely, cultivating your millet, and hastening about in the service of your fathers and elders, and if, with your cart and oxen, you traffic to a distance, that you may thereby filially minister to your parents, then when your parents are happy, you may set forth your spirits clear and strong, and you may use them. Hearken constantly to my instructions, all ye high officers, ye assistants, and all ye noble chiefs; when you have hugely done your duty in ministering to your aged and serving your