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Ill._The Analects.
Their History and Authenticity.
"The Confucian Classics are generalty spoken of as the
Four Books and Five Canons. I_! _ _ _.$., The Four
Books, as already stated, are the Lun Y'fi _i_ _, or
Discourses, commonly called the Analects ; the Ta Hs/ieh,
_ or Great Learning; the Chung Yung, @ )_, or
Doctrine of the Mean ; and the Book of Mencius, i_ -_,
The Five Canons are the Yi Ching _ _, or Book of
Changes; the Shu Ching _: _t_, or Book of History;
the Ssfi Ching _ ,_, or Book of Poetry, otherwise the
Odes; the Li Chi _[ _,, or Record of Rites; and the
Ch'un Ch'iu _ :_/_, or Spring and Autumn Annals, a
history of the State of Lu.
Of the Four Books the Analects, in their present form,
are probably the work of disciples of the Sage's disciples.
The Gleat Learning, so far as its text is concerned, is
accJedited to the stylus of Confucius, and its commentary
to that of his ablest surviving disciple Ts6ng Tzu _ _v_,
It forms chapter 42 of the Record of Rites, but is also
treated as a separate work. The Doctrine of the Mean,
which we might for short call the Golden Mean. is attributed
to Tsfi Ssfi 7__ ,_,, i.e. :_[, _ a grandson of the
Sage. Like the Great Learning it forms part of the
Record of Rites, cap. 43, but is also treated as a separate
work. The Book of Mencius is accredited to Mencius
himself, or at least to one of his most intimate disciples.
These then form the Four Book,s,. In the seventh century