happiness of humanity, which dominated over all his other
sentiments, has made of his


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p. 5.


philosophy a system of social perfectionating, which, we venture
to say, has never been equalled.'
Very different is the judgment passed upon the treatise by a
writer in the Chinese Repository: 'The Ta Hsio is a short politico-
moral discourse. Ta Hsio, or "Superior Learning," is at the same
time both the name and the subject of the discourse; it is the
summum bonum of the Chinese. In opening this Book, compiled by
a disciple of Confucius, and containing his doctrines, we might
expect to find a work like Cicero's De Officiis; but we find a very
different production, consisting of a few commonplace rules for
the maintenance of a good government [1].'
My readers will perhaps think, after reading the present
section, that the truth lies between these two representations.
2. I believe that the Book should be styled T'ai Hsio [2], and
not Ta Hsio, and that it was so named as setting forth the higher
and more extensive principles of moral science, which come into
use and manifestation in the conduct of government. When Chu Shi
endeavours to make the title mean -- 'The principles of Learning,
which were taught in the higher schools of antiquity,' and tells us
how at the age of fifteen, all the sons of the sovereign, with the
legitimate sons of the nobles, and high officers, down to the more