subject of government. These chapters are interesting enough in
themselves, but when I go back from them, and examine whether I
have from them any better understanding of the paragraphs in the
first chapter which they are said to illustrate, I do not find that I
have. Three of them, the seventeenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth,
would be more in place in the Classic of Filial Piety than here in
the Chung Yung. The meaning of the


sixteenth is shadowy and undefined. After all the study which I
have directed to it, there are some points in reference to which I
have still doubts and difficulties.
The twentieth chapter, which concludes the third portion of
the Work, contains a full exposition of Confucius's views on
government, though professedly descriptive only of that of the
kings Wan and Wu. Along with lessons proper for a ruler there are
many also of universal application, but the mingling of them
perplexes the mind. It tells us of 'the five duties of universal
application,'-- those between sovereign and minister, husband and
wife, father and son, elder and younger brother, and friends; of
'the three virtues by which those duties are carried into effect,'
namely, knowledge, benevolence, and energy; and of 'the one thing,
by which those virtues are practised,' which is singleness or
sincerity [1]. It sets forth in detail the 'nine standard rules for
the administration of government,' which are 'the cultivation by
the ruler of his own character; the honouring men of virtue and
talents; affection to his relatives; respect towards the great
ministers; kind and considerate treatment of the whole body of
officers; cherishing the mass of the people as children;
encouraging all classes of artisans; indulgent treatment of men