political intriguer, inciting the feudal lords against each other in the
course of his wanderings from one state to another, with the intention
of somewhere coming into power himself. There may, indeed, be some truth
in that.

Confucius's importance lies in the fact that he systematized a body of
ideas, not of his own creation, and communicated it to a circle of
disciples. His teachings were later set down in writing and formed,
right down to the twentieth century, the moral code of the upper classes
of China. Confucius was fully conscious of his membership of a social
class whose existence was tied to that of the feudal lords. With their
disappearance, his type of scholar would become superfluous. The common
people, the lower class, was in his view in an entirely subordinate
position. Thus his moral teaching is a code for the ruling class.
Accordingly it retains almost unaltered the elements of the old cult of
Heaven, following the old tradition inherited from the northern peoples.
For him Heaven is not an arbitrarily governing divine tyrant, but the
embodiment of a system of legality. Heaven does not act independently,
but follows a universal law, the so-called "Tao". Just as sun, moon, and
stars move in the heavens in accordance with law, so man should conduct
himself on earth in accord with the universal law, not against it. The
ruler should not actively intervene in day-to-day policy, but should
only act by setting an example, like Heaven; he should observe the
established ceremonies, and offer all sacrifices in accordance with the
rites, and then all else will go well in the world. The individual, too,
should be guided exactly in his life by the prescriptions of the rites,
so that harmony with the law of the universe may be established.

A second idea of the Confucian system came also from the old conceptions
of the Chou conquerors, and thus originally from the northern peoples.