A Perplexing Passage in the Confucian Analects

Abstract

ONE OF the most baffling passages in the Confucian Analects is Analects IX, 1, which Legge translates: subjects of which the Master seldom spoke were-profitableness, and also the appointment (ofi Heaven), and virtue (Tzu han yen, li, yii ming, yii jen) .1 The difficulty here is not primarily a grammatical one, for such a translation may be read from the text without trouble, but rather lies in the fact that the statement made runs counter to everything that the rest of the Analects tells us concerning Confucius. It may be granted, to be sure, that ii 2 (Legge's profitableness ) is not a subject that appears very frequently in the Analects. It is almost always disparaged, or attacked outright in the places where it does occur,3 and in the one instance in which it is really regarded favorably, it assumes a special meaning having reference to public welfare.4 The same thing, however, can hardly be said about ming5 (Legge's appointments (of Heaven)), which appears frequently in the Analects bearing the same metaphysical connotation that it possesses in this passage (as distinct from its other meanings, such as command, commission, life, etc.).6 But it is with the word jen 7 (Legge's perfect virtue ), which forms the keystone of Confucian ethics, that the greatest obstacle to our understanding arises an obstacle so great as to force Legge to admit: With his not speaking of jen there is a difficulty which I know not how to solve. The fourth Book is nearly all occupied with it and no doubt it was a prominent topic in Confucius's teachings. Despite such a manifest contradiction between this single passage and the entire remainder of the Analects, western sinologists, such