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Dromo's Den
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[Up] [Dromo's Den] Mencius Biography MENCIUS, (Latinized form of Chinese Mêng-Tse Or Mung-Tse (c.371 287 B.C.). A Chinese sage, ranking next after Confucius in the estimation of the Chinese. He was born about 371 B.C. (108 years after the death of Confucius), in the small Principality of Tsóu in the present Province of Shantung, at no great distance from the birthplace of Confucius. As a youth he was known as Mêng K'o. His father died when the future philosopher was only three years old. The widow gave the fatherless boy every attention, and in due course he went to school, but does not seem at first to have been specially diligent or enthusiastic in his studies. It is said that he studied later with the disciples of Tszu-tse the grandson of Confucius, and from them learned the doctrines of the master, of whom he became an enthusiastic admirer. When he was 40 he appeared as a public teacher with a large following of disciples. Like Confucius, he moved about from state to state, inculcating, expounding and amplifying the Confucian teaching. He was more courageous and outspoken than Confucius and was fearless in following his teachings to their logical consequences. He taught that man's nature is good, though it may appear otherwise, and that all his vices and all his misfortunes are due to evil influences from without. Humanity, righteousness, propriety, and knowledge are as natural to man as his four limbs. He condemned warfare and held that man should and need not fight, but should be benevolent, for "the benevolent man has no enemy." He regarded wars as unjust in the main, and an instigator of wars as a criminal. What is wanted is a return to this original goodness and this can be accomplished only by the rectification of the heart. He laid special stress on humanity and righteousness, one the complement of the other, as the two main elements in man's moral being, humanity representing the fullness of virtue in the individual and righteousness the due observance of all man owes to his fellow men. "Humanity is internal," he says; "righteousness external." "There has never been a man trained to humanity who neglected his parents: nor one who, having been trained to righteousness, made his sovereign an after consideration." Mencius was well versed in historical political, and economic questions, in which his views were always rational and the result of deep understanding. In politics he taught that government is from God, but is for the people, whose welfare is of supreme importance; and he emphatically inculcated the application of these two principles, humanity and righteousness, to the conduct of rulers. And he did not hesitate to indicate the duty of the subject in regard to the removal of oppressive rulers or wicked men in high places, when asked if a subject might put his sovereign to death. "He who outrages the humanity proper to his nature," he said, "is called a robber; he who outrages righteousness is called a ruffian. The robber and the ruffian we call a mere fellow. I have heard of the cutting off of Chóu-sin [the ferocious tyrant and last Emperor of the Shang dynasty, 1123 B.C.], but I have not heard in his case of putting a sovereign to death";-only a cruel monster, a mere fellow. With Mencius the happiness of the people is the first essential, and loyalty to the sovereign, as taught by Confucius, of secondary importance. Mencius died at 84, after passing the last 15 years of his life in retirement, during which he edited the Book of History and the Book of Poetry and prepared with the aid of some of his disciples a record of his sayings and of his conversations with the princes-- a fact which may account for their greater fullness as compared with those of Confucius. It is the last of the Four Books which form the basis of the Confucian philosophy. He was buried near the present Tsóu Hien, in Shantung, where there is a temple in his honor and where his descendants still dwell. It leas not till the second century A.D. that his writings were fully studied and appreciated. In 1083 he was created Duke of Tsóu; in 1083 he was admitted into the Temple of Confucius as an Associate, and titles were conferred on his father and mother. The New International Encyclopaedia, Vol. XV (New York: Dodd, Mead & Co., 1920) 389-390. |