man by whom all possible personal excellence was exemplified,
and by whom all possible lessons of social virtue and political
wisdom are taught.
6. The reader will be prepared by the preceding account not
to expect to find any light thrown by Confucius on the great
problems of the human condition and destiny. He did not speculate
on the creation of things or the end of them. He was not troubled
to account for the origin of man, nor did he seek to know about his
hereafter. He meddled neither with physics nor metaphysics [2].

[Sidebar] Subjects on which Confucius did not treat.-- That he
was unreligious, unspiritual, and open to the charge of
insincerity.

The testimony of the Analects about the subjects of his teaching
is the following:-- 'His frequent themes of discourse were the
Book

1 Mencius, II. Pt. I. ii. 23-28.
2 'The contents of the Yi-ching, and Confucius's labors upon it,
may be objected in opposition to this statement, and I must be
understood to make it with come reservation. Six years ago, I
spent all my leisure time for twelve months in the study of that
Work, and wrote out a translation of it, but at the close I was
only groping my way in darkness to lay hold of [footnote continued
next page].


of Poetry, the Book of History, and the maintenance of the rules
of Propriety.' 'He taught letters, ethics, devotion of soul, and