'The Four Books' is an abbreviation for 'The Books of the
Four Philosophers [1].' The first is the Lun Yu [2], or 'Digested
Conversations,' being occupied chiefly with the sayings of
Confucius. He is the philosopher to whom it belongs. It appears in
this Work under the title of 'Confucian Analects.' The second is
the Ta Hsio [3], or 'Great Learning,' now commonly attributed to
Tsang Shan [4], a disciple of the sage. He is he philosopher of it.
The third is the Chung Yung [5], or 'Doctrine of the Mean,' as the
name has often been translated, though it would be better to
render it, as in the present edition, by 'The State of Equilibrium
and Harmony.' Its composition is ascribed to K'ung Chi [6], the
grandson of Confucius. He is the philosopher of it. The fourth
contains the works of Mencius.
3. This arrangement of the Classical Books, which is
commonly supposed to have originated with the scholars of the
Sung dynasty, is defective. The Great Learning and the Doctrine of
the Mean are both found in the Record of Rites, being the thirty-
ninth and twenty-eighth Books respectively of that compilation,
according to the best arrangement of it.
4. The oldest enumerations of the Classical Books specify
only the five Ching. The Yo Chi, or 'Record of Music [7],' the
remains of which now form one of the Books in the Li Chi, was
sometimes added to those, making with them the six Ching. A
division was also made into nine Ching, consisting of the Yi, the
Shih, the Shu, the Chau Li [8], or 'Ritual of Chau,' the I Li [9], or
certain 'Ceremonial Usages,' the Li Chi, and the annotated editions
of the Ch'un Ch'iu [10], by Tso Ch'iu-ming [11], Kung-yang Kao [12],
and Ku-liang Ch'ih [13]. In the famous compilation of the Classical
Books, undertaken by order of T'ai-tsung, the second emperor of
the T'ang dynasty (A.D. 627-649), and which appeared in the reign