at all. Confucius
(551-479 B.C.) spent the greater part of his life in trying to instruct
negligent princes in the art of government, and we know from a
well-known anecdote that he regarded a bad government as "worse than a
tiger." We are told that when one of his disciples asked Confucius for
a definition of good statecraft, he replied that a wise ruler is one
who provides his subjects with the means of subsistence, protects the
state against its enemies, and strives to deserve the confidence of all
his people. And the most important of these three aims, said Confucius,
is the last: for without the confidence of the people no government can
be maintained. If the prince's commands are just and good, let the
people obey them, said Confucius, in reply to a question put by a
reigning duke; but if subjects render slavish obedience to the unjust
commands of a bad ruler, it is not the ruler only, but his sycophantic
subjects themselves, who will be answerable for the consequent ruin of
the state. So far from counseling perpetual docility on the part of the
governed, Confucius clearly indicates that circumstances may arise
which make opposition justifiable. The minister, he says, should not
fawn upon the ruler of whose actions he disapproves: let him show his
disapproval openly.

Mencius, the "Second Sage" of China (372-289 B.C.), is far more
outspoken than Confucius in his denunciation of bad rulers. There was
no sycophancy in the words which he uttered during an interview with
King Hsuan of the State of Ch'i. "When the prince treats his ministers
with respect, as though they were his own hands and feet, they in their
turn look up to him as the source from which they derive nourishment;
when he treats them like his dogs and horses, they regard him as no
more worthy of reverence than one of their fellow subjects; when he
treats them as though they were dirt to be trodden on, they retaliate
by regarding him as a robber and a foe." It is interesting to learn
that this passage in Mencius so irritated the first sovereign of the
Ming dynasty (1368-1398 A.D.) that he caused the "spirit-tablet" of the
sage to be removed from the Confucian Temple, to which it had been
elevated about three centuries earlier; but the remonstrances of the
scholars of the empire soon compelled the Emperor to revoke his decree,
and the tablet of Mencius was restored to its place of honor, from
which it was never subsequently degraded. It is no matter for