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Updated: May 22, 2025
The keystone of the Confucian philosophy, that man is born good, will be found in the following lines: How mighty is God! How clothed in majesty is God, And how unsearchable are His judgments! God gives birth to the people, But their natures are not constant; All have the same beginning, But few have the same end. God, however, is not held responsible for the sufferings of mankind.
It has even been said that the Sung philosophy, which grew, not from the I ching itself, but from the appendixes to it, is more Taoistic than Confucian. As it was with the P'an Ku legend, so was it with this more philosophical cosmogony.
As on the streets of Tokyo and Yokahoma the Japanese in European dress jostles his brother in native garb, as streams of men in coats and trousers and shoes mingle with men wearing kimonas, hikamas, and getas, so in the minds of the people the teachings of modern science and Confucian classic meet; the faith of the Christian grapples with the faith of the Buddhist; the masterful aspirations of Western civilization surge against the old placidity of the East.
The population of the empire had also increased; it seems to have amounted to some fifty millions. In the capital a large staff of officials had been created to meet all administrative needs. The capital grew enormously, at times containing two million people. Great numbers of young members of the gentry streamed into the capital for the examinations held under the Confucian system.
The Confucian classics having been engraved on stone to secure them from being again burned up, as they had been by the builder of the great wall, the rubbings taken from those stones were printing. It required nothing but the substitution of wood for stone and of relievo for intaglio to give that art the form it now has.
We should note that the revolt of the educated classes of Japan from Buddhism three hundred years ago, and their general adoption of Confucian doctrine, was partly in the interests of religion and partly in the interests of metaphysics. In both respects the progressive part of the nation had become dissatisfied with Buddhism.
This difference, however, is to be noted between the Shinto ideal social order and the Confucian, or rather that development of Confucian ethics and civics which arose during the Tokugawa Shogunate; Shinto appears to have been, properly speaking, nationalistic, while feudal Confucianism was tribal.
This was a work designed to establish the divine claim of the sovereign of the Southern Court. The reader knows that when, in the eighth century, Japan went to Chinese sources for jurisprudential inspiration, she had to eliminate the Confucian and Mencian doctrine that the sceptre may not be wielded by anyone whose virtues do not qualify him for the task in the eyes of the nation.
To bind them so closely to himself, he must have spoken words which he should not have spoken, and wept tears which he should not have wept. That, however, is a falling away from the heavenly nature." Thus it was quite possible, and later it became the rule, for one and the same person to be both Confucian and Taoist.
Much concession to superstition would be reprehensible according to this code but if a Confucian honours some deity either for his private objects or because it is part of his duties as a magistrate, he is not offending Confucius. He is simply engaging in an act which has nothing to do with Confucianism.
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