2 Ana. III. xii.
3 Ana. XI. xi.
4 ®a»y, ¨÷¤G, art. ­P«ä, towards the end.


He said on one occasion that he had no concealments from his
disciples [1]. Why did he not candidly tell his real thoughts on so
interesting a subject? I incline to think that he doubted more
than he believed. If the case were not so, it would be difficult to
account for the answer which he returned to a question as to
what constituted wisdom:-- 'To give one's self earnestly,' said
he, 'to the duties due to men, and, while respecting spiritual
beings, to keep aloof from them, may be called wisdom [2].' At any
rate, as by his frequent references to Heaven, instead of
following the phraseology of the older sages, he gave occasion to
many of his professed followers to identify God with a principle
of reason and the course of nature; so, in the point now in hand, he
has led them to deny, like the Sadducees of old, the existence of
any spirit at all, and to tell us that their sacrifices to the dead
are but an outward form, the mode of expression which the
principle of filial piety requires them to adopt when its objects
have departed this life.
It will not be supposed that I wish to advocate or to defend
the practice of sacrificing to the dead. My object has been to
point out how Confucius recognised it, without acknowledging the
faith from which it must have originated, and how he enforced it
as a matter of form or ceremony. It thus connects itself with the
most serious charge that can be brought against him,-- the charge
of insincerity. Among the four things which it is said he taught,
'truthfulness' is specified [3], and many sayings might be quoted