PREFACE

IT is now forty years since Dr. LEGGE began the publication of the fi rst instalment of his translation of the “Chinese Classics”. Any one now, even without any acquaintance with the Chinese language, who will take the trouble to turn over the pages of Dr. LEGGE's translation, cannot help feeling how unsatisfactory the translation really is. For Dr. LEGGE, from his raw literary training when he began his work, and the utter want of critical insight and literary perception he showed to the end, was really nothing more than a great sinologue, that is to say, a pundit with a very learned but dead knowledge of Chinese books. But in justice to the memory of the great sinologue who, we regret to hear, has just recently died, it must be said that notwithstanding the extremely hard and narrow limits of his mind, which was the result of temperament, he was, as far as his insight allowed him, thoroughly conscientious in his work.

To an earnest student who can bring his own philosophical and literary acumen to study into those ponderous volumes know as Dr. LEGGE's translation of the “Chinese Classics”, no doubt some insight into the moral culture, or what is called the civilization of the Chinese people, will reveal itself. But to the generality of the English reading people we cannot but think the intellectual and moral outfit of the Chinaman as presented by Dr. LEGGE in his translation of the Chinese books, must appear as strange and grotesque as to an ordinary Englishman's eyes, unaccustomed to it, the Chinaman's costume and outward appearance.

The attempt is therefore hear made to render this little book, which, of all books written in the Chinese language, we believe, is the book which gives to the Chinaman his intellectual and moral outfi t, accessible to the general English reader. With this object in view, we have tried to make Confucius and his disciples speak in the same way as an educated Englishman would speak had he to express the same thoughts which the Chinese worthies had to express. In order further to take away as much as possible the sense of strangeness and peculiarity for the English readers, we have, whenever it is possible to do so, eliminated all Chinese proper names. Lastly, with the hope of bringing home, so to speak, the signifi cance of the thought in the text, we have added as notes quotations from well known European authors, which, by calling up the train of thought already familiar, may perhaps appeal to readers acquainted with those authors.

We take the opportunity here of paying our tribute of respect to the memory of an Englishman, Sir CHALONER ALABASTER, who has at different periods published masterful translations of many portions of this book. When in Canton ten years ago, we urged upon him to seriously undertake the translation of the Chinese sacred books, with Dr. LEGGE's translations of which we were both dissatisfi ed. But he was very conscientious. He said that his knowledge of Chinese books and literature was too limited; besides, that he was not a “literary man”. He in turn advised us to undertake the work. Now, after ten years, just as we fi nish this fi rst attempt to follow his advice, the melancholy news comes that he, to whom our little work would have been of some interest, has passed away from among living men.

We have said that this little book, which contains the digested saying and discourses of Confucius and his disciples — presenting in a very small compass what the late Mr. MATTHEW ARNOLD would call a “criticism of life”, — is the book which gives to the Chinaman his intellectual and moral outfit. Of the nature and value of that outfit we do not feel ourselves called upon here to express an opinion. We will only here express the hope that educated and thinking Englishmen who will take the trouble to read this translation of ours, may, after reading it, be led to reconsider their hitherto foregone conceptions of the Chinese people, and in so doing be enabled not only to modify their preconceptions of the Chinese people, but also to change the attitude of their personal and national relations with the Chinese as individuals and as a nation.

KU HUNG-MING.

Viceroy's Yamen,

Wuchang,

1st August 1898.