The last accusation against Confucius is the most reckless of all. "There is," according to Mr. Jennings, "a certain _selfishness_ in his teaching, which had the effect of making those who came under his influence soon feel themselves great and self-satisfied." As only the feeblest of evidence is produced to support this wild statement, it will not be necessary to consider it at any length, though we may ask in passing whether Yen Hui, the disciple who profited most from his Master's teaching and best exemplified it, is depicted as exhibiting this alleged self-satisfaction in a peculiarly noticeable degree. For an answer to this question the reader may be referred to Tsêng Tzŭ's remarks on p. 128. The truth is, though missionaries and other zealots have long attempted to obscure the fact, that the moral teaching of Confucius is absolutely the purest and least open to the charge of selfishness of any in the world. Its principles are neither utilitarian on the one hand nor religious on the other, that is to say, it is not based on the expectation of profit or happiness to be gained either in this world or in the next (though Confucius doubtless believed that well-being would as a general rule accompany virtuous conduct). "Virtue for virtue's sake" is the maxim which, if not enunciated by him in so many words, was evidently the corner-stone of his ethics and the mainspring of his own career. Not that he would have quite understood the modern formula, or that the idea of virtue being practised for anything but its own sake would ever have occurred to his mind. Virtue resting on anything but its own basis would not have seemed to him virtue in the true sense at all, but simply another name for prudence, foresight, or cunning. Yet material advantage, disguised as much as you will, but still material advantage in one form or another, is what impels most men to espouse any particular form of religion. Hence it is nothing less than a standing miracle that Confucianism, which makes no promise of blessings to be enjoyed in this life or the next, should have succeeded without the adjunct of other supernatural elements than that of ancestor-worship. Even this was accepted by Confucius as a harmless prevailing custom rather than enjoined by him as an essential part of his doctrine. Unlike Christianity and Mahometanism, the Way preached by the Chinese sage knows neither the sanction of punishment nor the stimulus of reward in an after-life. Even Buddhism holds out the hope of Nirvana to the pure of heart, and preaches the long torment of successive rebirths to those who fall short of perfect goodness. No great religion is devoid of elevated precepts, or has ever failed to mould numbers of beautiful characters to attest the presence of something good and great within it. But in every case the element of supernaturalism, which is of course inseparable from a religion properly so called, introduces a new motive for men's actions and makes