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II. THE LIFE AND TIMES OF CONFUCIUS. 35
and morals. A man who has lived so long in the affections
and esteem of a huge nation cannot but be classed
amongst the mightiest forces of the past, but his inferiority
to Moses, who lived a thousand years before him, either
as legislator, administrator, moral philosopher, or religious
Seer, is manifest to those who are willing to study the
Pentateuch, and his own writings as well as those of his
disciples lack that throbbing pulse of divinity which has
made the history, poetry and soul-inspiring prophesy of the
Old Testament live with perennial vitality. Confucius
nobly did his best, despite a limited vision and an inelastic
nature, to benefit humanity with what inferior material in
history, poetry and ritual he had to his hand, and the
arct_aeological student may well be profoundly grateful to
him, for rescuing so much matter of varied interest and
value from the rapacious maw of destructive Time, and
the more barbarous hands of ignorant men.
Proceeding next from the general to the particular, the
following is a more detailed sketch of the Sage's life, the
salient features of which are to be found in Chutzfi's
Introduction to his Commentary, and in Legge's more
exhaustive Introduction to his version of the Analects.
The philosopher K'ung "tL, whose name was Ch'iu
lq:., and whose cognomen was Chung Ni _ _, was by
family origin of the State of Sung _,* His father was
Shu Liang Ho _ _]_ _,,_, and his mother, of the Ven
_._ family, gave bilth to him in the city of Ts0u I_, in
* _L means Hole; _.., _ mound; _t_._ the middle of three, i,e,
secundus; ]_-_ is said to be the name of a mountain the J_ .[_ hill
to _xhieh his mother prayad for his birth.