Book XXXIX. Tâ Hsio.
Like the Kung Yung (XXVIII), the Tâ Hsio has long been published separately from the other Books of the Lî Kî, and is now the first of the well-known "Four Books." As it appears in this translation, we follow the arrangement of the text given by the Khien-lung editors from that in the Thirteen King published by Khung Ying-tâ, who himself simply followed Kǎng Hsüan. Early in the Sung dynasty the brothers Khǎng occupied themselves with the Treatise; and thinking that errors had crept into the order of the paragraphs, and that portions were missing, made various alterations and additions. Kû Hsî entered into their labours, and, as he thought, improved on them. It is now current in the Four Books, as he published it in 1189, and the difference between his arrangement and the oldest one may be seen by comparing the translation in the first volume of my Chinese Classics and that in the present publication. Despite the difference of arrangement, the substance of the work is the same.
There can be no doubt that the Tâ Hsio is a genuine monument of the Confucian teaching, and gives us a sufficient idea of the methods and subjects in the great or higher schools of antiquity. The enthusiasm of M. Pauthier is not to be blamed when he says:—"It is evident that the aim of the Chinese philosopher is to exhibit the duties of political government as the perfecting of self and the practice of virtue by all men."
Pauthier adopts fully the view of Kû, that the first chapter is a genuine relic of Confucius himself, for which view there really is no evidence. And he thinks also that all that follows should be attributed to the disciple, Зǎng-Зze, which is contrary to the evidence which the Treatise itself supplies.
If it were necessary to assign an author for the work, I should adopt the opinion of Kiâ Kwei (A.D. 30-101), and assign it to Khung Kî, the grandson of Confucius, and
author of the Kung Yung. "When Khung Kî," said Kiâ,
