are also the titles of six others. It is contended by Ku Hsi and many
other scholars that these titles were only the names of tunes. More
likely is the view that the text of the pieces so styled was lost after
Confucius' death.]

the Ya and the Sung received their proper places.' The return from Wei
to Lu took place only five years before the sage's death. He ceased from
that time to take an active part in political affairs, and solaced
himself with music, the study of the ancient literature of his nation,
the writing of 'the Spring and Autumn,' and familiar intercourse with
those of his disciples who still kept around him. He reformed the
music,--that to which the pieces of the Shih were sung; but wherein the
reformation consisted we cannot tell. And he gave to the pieces of the
Ya and the Sung their proper places. The present order of the Books in
the Fang, slightly differing from what was common in his boyhood, may
have now been determined by him. More than this we cannot say.

While we cannot discover, therefore, any peculiar and important labours
of Confucius on the Shih, and we have it now, as will be shown in the
next chapter, substantially as he found it already compiled to his hand,
the subsequent preservation of it may reasonably be attributed to the
admiration which he expressed for it, and the enthusiasm for it with
which he sought to inspire his disciples. It was one of the themes on
which he delighted to converse with them[1]. He taught that it is from
the poems that the mind receives its best stimulus[2]. A man ignorant of
them was, in his opinion, like one who stands with his face towards a
wall, limited in his view, and unable to advance [3]. Of the two things
that his son could specify as enjoined on him by the sage, the first was
that he should learn the odes[4]. In this way Confucius, probably,
contributed largely to the subsequent preservation of the Shih, the