w how to build up the inner life
of his disciples; to coax, train, lure the hidden god into
manifestation in them." And for evidence you can give them this:
Tse Kung--who, you remember, was always comparing this man with
that--asked which was the better, Shih or Shang. (They were two
disciples.) Confucius answered: "Shih goes too far; Shang not
far enough." Said Tse Kung (just as you or I would have done):--
"Then Shih is the better man?"--"Too far," replied Confucius, "is
not better than not far enough."--To my ears there is more
occultism in that than in a thousand ethical injunctions.--Or
answered;--"Whilst thy father and they elder brother are alive,
how canst thou do all thou art taught?" Jan Yu said:--"Shall I
do all I am taught?" The Master said:--"Do all thou art taught."
Kung-hsi Hua said: "Yu asked, 'Shall I do all I am taught?'
and you spoke, Sir, of father and elder brother. Ch'iu asked,
'Shall I do all I am taught?' and you answered: 'Do all thou
art taught.' I am puzzled, and make bold to ask you, Sir." The
Master said:--"Ch'iu is bashful, so I egged him on. Yu has the
pluck of two, so I held him back."

Think it over! Think it over!

This though occurs to me: Was that sadness of his last days
caused by the knowledge that the School could not continue after
his death; because the one man who might have succeeded him as
the Teacher, Yen Huy, was dead? So far as I know, it did not go
on; there was no one to succeed him. That supreme success, that
grand capture of future ages for the Gods, was denied him; or I
daresay our own civilization might have been Confucian--BALANCED
--now. But short of that--how sublime a figure he stands! If
he had known that for twenty-five centuries or so he was to
shine within the vision of the great unthinking masses of his
countrymen as their supreme example; their anchor against the
tides of error, against abnormalities, extravagances, unbalance;
a bulwark against invading time and decay; a check on every bad
emperor, so far as check might be set at all; a central idea to
mold the hundred races of Chu Hia into homogeneity; a stay, a
prop, a warning against headlong courses at all times of cyclic
downtrend;--if he had known all this, he would, I think, have
ordered his life precisely as he did. Is there no strength
implied, as of the Universal, and not of any personal, will,
however titanic, in the fact that moment after moment, day after
day, year afte