Confucianism's Original Texts 2: The Four Books — Learning, Mean, Mencius

Thank you for visiting. This article is the second installment in a series explaining the original texts of Confucianism.

Last time (Article 1), I looked at the head of the Four Books, the “Analects.” This time, I explain the remaining Four Books — the “Great Learning,” “Doctrine of the Mean,” and “Mencius.”

For an overview map of Confucianism’s original texts as a whole, please see this summary article.

Confucianism's Original Texts: The Four Books, Five Classics & Confuciusen.senkohome.com/myths-religions-origins-confucianism/

The Framework of the Four Books

First, what I want to confirm is the making of the framework of the “Four Books” itself.

The one who gathered the “Analects,” “Great Learning,” “Doctrine of the Mean,” and “Mencius” as the “Four Books” and positioned them as the basic texts of Confucianism was the great scholar of the Song dynasty, Zhu Xi. Before that, the “Great Learning” and “Doctrine of the Mean” were merely a chapter within the “Book of Rites,” one of the Five Classics we see later. By Zhu Xi making these independent and establishing that “the beginner should first learn from the Four Books,” the Four Books became the starting point of Confucian study.

Zhu Xi did not merely select the four. He wrote the “Collected Commentaries on the Four Books,” giving each a detailed commentary, and further showed a clear order of reading: “first grasp the overall scale of learning with the ‘Great Learning,’ next learn the root with the ‘Analects,’ its development with ‘Mencius,’ and finally reach the profound principle with the ‘Doctrine of the Mean.’” This “Collected Commentaries on the Four Books” became the virtually official text of the later civil-service examination (keju), and thereafter, for over 600 years, reigned as the “textbook” that East Asian intellectuals must learn. The weight of the Four Books was decided by this work of Zhu Xi.

An Illustrated Introduction to the World’s 5 Great MythologiesView on Amazon → A Complete History of Philosophy and ReligionView on Amazon →

The Great Learning — from Self-Cultivation to Peace Under Heaven

The “Great Learning” is a very short book, but a fine work that showed, in a clear order, “what learning is for” and “where politics begins.”

Its core is the famous words “cultivate the self, regulate the family, govern the state, bring peace to all under heaven.” These are the latter part of the eight steps called the “eight items.”

What is important here is its order. To bring peace to the world (peace under heaven), it preaches that one must first govern the state, before that regulate the family, and before that still, polishing one’s own character (cultivating the self) is the starting point. “If you want to change the world, first correct yourself” — this idea well shows that Confucianism grasped politics and morals as a continuous whole.

Note that, before these eight items, the “Great Learning” also raises the “three guiding principles” — three great goals of “manifesting bright virtue,” “renewing (loving) the people,” and “resting in the highest good.”

The Doctrine of the Mean — Neither Excessive nor Deficient

The “Doctrine of the Mean” too was originally a chapter of the “Book of Rites.” Its subject is, as the title says, the virtue of “the mean.”

The mean is not a mere “middle” or “compromise.” It means keeping a just appropriateness in every scene, neither going too far nor falling short. Even the emotions of joy, anger, grief, and pleasure are not to be wholly removed, but it is ideal to express them in an appropriate degree. Easy to say, but always keeping the optimal balance according to circumstances is an extremely difficult, advanced virtue.

The “Doctrine of the Mean” raises a grand phrase at its opening. “What Heaven decrees is called nature; following that nature is called the Way; cultivating that Way is called teaching.” This means “a person’s nature is granted from Heaven; living according to that nature is the Way, and polishing that Way is learning (teaching),” showing Confucianism’s important worldview that directly links human morals with Heaven.

And the “Doctrine of the Mean” places at the base of this virtue the concept of “sincerity.” Sincerity is truthfulness without falsehood, and is also held to be the fundamental principle running through heaven, earth, and nature. The philosophical depth of the “Doctrine of the Mean” lies in the point of preaching that a person exhausting sincerity is to join the working of heaven and earth. Note that Confucius himself lamented of the mean, “the mean is the highest virtue, but it is long since people could keep it,” so we can see it is held to be the highest virtue, seeming simple yet hard to attain.

Mencius — the Theory of Innate Goodness and Kingly-Way Politics

The last of the Four Books is “Mencius.” Mencius (around the 4th century BC) appeared about 100 years after Confucius’s death, and is a figure who inherited and developed his teaching, revered as the “second sage” after Confucius.

Mencius’s most famous claim is the “theory of innate goodness.” This is the idea that “human nature is good by birth.”

Mencius asks, as its proof: “If one sees a young child about to fall into a well, anyone would instinctively be startled and try to save it.” This “heart of compassion (pity)” that wells up in a moment is the very proof that a person is originally good. Mencius preached that, by cultivating these four sprouts of goodness (the four beginnings = the hearts of compassion, shame, deference, and right-and-wrong), they grow into the virtues of benevolence, righteousness, ritual, and wisdom.

On politics, Mencius made the “kingly way” his ideal. Rejecting the “hegemon’s way” of making people submit by force, he held that the correct politics is one in which the ruler cherishes the people with benevolent virtue.

Further, Mencius also made a bolder claim. “The people are the most precious, the ruler the least” — the people are the very foundation of the state, and the ruler is secondary. And he advocated the idea of the “change of mandate,” that if a ruler loses virtue and carries out tyranny, Heaven gives up on that dynasty and has another virtuous person take its place. This was a powerful idea that could justify overthrowing a tyrant.

Mencius also left powerful words about the individual’s way of life. A representative one is the “flood-like qi.” This is a mental strength, cultivated by piling up right deeds, so vast and unbending that it fills heaven and earth, referring to a moral courage that yields to nothing. Mencius called the ideal figure who does not bend to wealth or power the “great man.”

Also, “Mencius” is a treasury of skillful parables. For example, the “fifty paces and a hundred paces,” where one who fled fifty paces on the battlefield laughs at one who fled a hundred, and “forcing growth,” where one who cannot wait for the seedlings’ growth pulls them and withers them — many of the proverbs still used derive from this book. Explaining deep thought with concrete examples anyone can understand expresses Mencius’s extraordinary skill as an orator.

Note that, against Mencius’s theory of innate goodness, the later Confucian Xunzi advocated the “theory of innate evil” — that human nature, left alone, runs to desire, and so should be corrected by ritual. The dispute over the view of humanity, innate goodness or innate evil, became a great theme of Confucianism.

To Learn More

Here are some related books. Reading them alongside this series lets you savor this world even more deeply.

World Mythology for Beginners (illustrated)View on Amazon → The Origins of Religion: Why We Needed a ‘God’View on Amazon →

Conclusion

In this article, I explained in detail the “Great Learning,” “Doctrine of the Mean,” and “Mencius” of the Four Books. How was it?

The “Great Learning,” as “cultivate the self, regulate the family, govern the state, bring peace to all under heaven,” preached that polishing oneself is the starting point of governing the world. The “Doctrine of the Mean” preached the unbiased virtue and “sincerity,” and “Mencius” preached the “theory of innate goodness” and the “kingly way” and “change of mandate,” which value the people.

These Four Books are the very core original texts, which inherited Confucius’s teaching and deepened Confucianism into a systematic thought.

In the next Article 3, I will explain the other pillar of Confucianism, older than the Four Books — the “Five Classics.”

Confucianism's Original Texts: The Four Books, Five Classics & Confuciusen.senkohome.com/myths-religions-origins-confucianism/

I hope you’ll read the next article too.