Chinese and Arabian Literature - E. Wilson - The Search For Mecca

A HUNDRED
7
INTRODUCTION
years after the time of Confucius the
Chinese nation seemed to have fallen back into their
original condition of lawlessness and oppression. The
King's power and authority was laughed to scorn, the peo-
ple were pillaged by the feudal nobility, and famine reigned in
many districts. The foundations of truth and social order
seemed to be overthrown. There were teachers of immorality
abroad, who published the old Epicurean doctrine, " Let us eat
and drink, for to-morrow we die." This teaching was accompanied
by a spirit of cold-blooded egotism which extinguished
every spark of Confucian altruism. Even the pretended disciples
of Confucius confused the precepts of the Master, and by
stripping them of their narrow significance rendered them nuga-
tory. It was at this point that Mang-tsze, " Mang the philoso-
pher," arose. He was sturdy in bodily frame, vigorous in
mind, profound in political sagacity and utterly fearless in denouncing
the errors of his countrymen. He had been brought
up among the disciples of Confucius, in whose province he was
born B.C. 372, but he was much more active and aggressive, less
a Mystic than a fanatic, in comparison wi; his Master. He re-
solved on active measures in stemming the tendency of his day.
He did indeed surround himself with a school of disciples, but
instead of making a series of desultory travels, teaching in remote
places and along the high-road, he went to the heart of
the evil. He presented himself like a second John the Baptist
at the courts of kings and princes, and there boldly denounced
vice and misrule. It was not difficult for a Chinese scholar and
teacher to find access to the highest of the land. The Chinese
believed in the divine right of learning, just as they believed in
the divine right of kings. Mang employed every weapon of
persuasion in trying to combat heresy and oppression ; alter-
nately ridiculing and reproving: now appealing in a burst of
Vol. IV,—
97