INTRODUCTION original: PROLEGOMENA

THE WORKS OF MENCIUS.

CHAPTER I.

hundred years before the Christian era, which takes us back to little more than a century and a half from the date assigned to his death.

3. Among writers of the Han dynasty earlier than Sima Qian original: Sze-ma Ts‘een, there were Han Ying⁶ and Dong Zhongshu original: Tung Chung-shoo,⁷ who were contemporaries during the reigns of the emperors Wen, Jing, and Wu⁸ (178–86 BCE). Portions of their works remain, and in them are found quotations from Mencius.⁹

4. However, we find references to Mencius and his works even before the Han dynasty. In the literary remains of Kong Fu original: K‘ung Foo—to whose concealment of many classical works during the edict for their destruction future generations are so indebted¹⁰—there are accounts of Mencius and many details of his history.¹¹

Between the time of Mencius and the rise of the Qin original: Ts‘in dynasty, the philosopher Xun Qing original: Seun K‘ing¹² flourished, of whose writings enough is still preserved to form a large volume. By many, he is regarded as the most capable of all the followers of Confucius. He mentions Mencius several times, and one of his most important chapters—“That Human Nature is Evil”¹³—seems to have been written expressly to oppose Mencius’s doctrine that human nature is fundamentally good. He quotes Mencius's arguments and endeavors to set them aside.

5. I have used the term recognition in the heading of this section because the scholars of the Han dynasty do not seem to have had any trouble in reconstructing or settling the text of Mencius, unlike the difficulties we have seen they faced with the Confucian Analects.

On this point, a statement made by Zhao Qi original: Chaou K‘e, whose work on our philosopher I shall discuss in the next section, deserves consideration. He says: “When the Qin dynasty sought to destroy the classical books by fire and put the scholars to death in pits A reference to the 'burning of books and burying of scholars' in 213 BCE, the School of Mencius came to an end. His works, however, were included under the general category of ‘Philosophical’ original: Zhūzǐ, meaning the works of the various masters or philosophers, and so the tablets containing them escaped destruction.”¹⁴ Ma Duanlin original: Ma Twan-lin does not hesitate—

⁶ Han Ying original: 韓嬰. ⁷ Dong Zhongshu original: 董仲舒. ⁸ Emperor Taizong Xiaowen; Emperor Xiaojing; Emperor Shizong Xiaowu original: 太宗孝文皇帝; 孝景皇帝; 世宗孝武皇帝. ⁹ See Supplementary Remarks on the Four Books: Mencius, Art. I; and Jiao Xun’s Correct Meaning of Mencius, Notes to Zhao Qi’s preface. ¹⁰ See Volume I, introduction, page 36. ¹¹ I have not been able to refer to the writings of Kong Fu themselves, but extracts from them are given in the notes to Zhu Xi’s original: Choo He preface to Mencius in the Collected Comments on the Four Books. ¹² Xun Qing original: 荀卿, also known as Xunzi. ¹³ Xunzi, Chapter on the Evilness of Human Nature original: 荀子, 性惡篇. ¹⁴ “His books were titled among the 'Various Masters,' therefore the records were not destroyed.” original: 其書號爲諸子, 故篇籍得不泯絶; see Zhao Qi’s preface to Mencius.