LIU TSUNG-YÜAN.
a.d. 773-819.
[A most versatile writer, and one of the intimate friends of Han Wên-kung (q.v.), like whom he was banished on political grounds to a distant official post, where he died. His breadth of intelligence allowed him to tolerate Buddhism, in direct opposition to the utterances of Han Wên-kung, who perceived in its growing influence a menacing danger to Confucianism and to the State. He excelled in political satire, and suffered for the sting of his pen. His death called forth the short but beautiful lament, “In Memoriam,” by Han Wên-kung.
REVENGE.
IT is on record that during the reign of the Empress Wu, a man named Hsü, whose father had been executed for some misdeed, slew the presiding magistrate and then gave himself up to the authorities. A suggestion was made by one of the Censors of the day that, on the one hand, the son should suffer death for his crime; on the other, that a memorial to him should be erected in his native village. Further, that the case should be entered as a judicial precedent.
I consider this suggestion to be wholly wrong. Honours and rewards originated in a desire to prevent aggression. If therefore a son avenges the death of a guilty father, the former should be slain without mercy. Administration of punishment was also organised with the same object. If, therefore, officers of government put the laws in operation without due cause, they too should be slain without mercy. Though springing from the same source, and with the same object in view, honours and punishments are applicable to different cases and cannot be awarded together. To punish one deserving of reward is to cast a slur upon all punishment: to honour one deserving of punishment is to detract from the value of all honours. And if such a case were to be admitted as a precedent for future generations, then those eager to do their duty, and those anxious to avoid evil, would equally find themselves in a strange dilemma. Is this the stuff that law is made of?
Now, in adjusting reward and punishment, praise and blame, the wise men of old adhered closely to fixed principles, while
