it is for the hearer to
discover the meaning for himself.

An epigram is truth in a capsule. The disadvantage of the epigram is the
temptation it affords to good people to explain it to the others who are
assumed to be too obtuse to comprehend it alone. And since explanations
seldom explain, the result is a mixture or compound that has to be
spewed utterly or taken on faith. Confucius is simple enough until he is
explained. Then we evolve sects, denominations and men who make it their
profession to render moral calculi opaque. China, being peopled by human
beings, has suffered from this tendency to make truth concrete, just as
all the rest of the world has suffered. Truth is fluid and should be
allowed to flow. Ankylosis of a fact is superstition. Confucius was a
free-trader.

* * * * *

China has always been essentially feudal in her form of government.
China is made up of a large number of States, each presided over by a
prince or governor, and these States are held together by a rather loose
federal government, the Emperor being the supreme ruler. State rights
prevail. State may fight with State, or States may secede--it isn't of
much moment. They are glad enough, after a few years, to get back, like
boys who run away from home, or farmhands who quit work in a tantrum.
The Chinese are very patient--they know that time cures all things, a
truth the West has not yet learned. States that rebel, like individuals
who place themselves beyond the protection of all, assume grave
responsibilities.

The local prince usually realizes the bearing of the Social
Contract--that he holds his office only during good behavior, and that
his welfare and the welfare of his people are one.

Heih, the father of Confucius, was governor of one of these little
States, and had impoverished himself in an effort to help his people.
Heih was a man of seventy, wedded to a girl of seventeen, when their
gifted son was born. When the boy was three years old the father died,
and the lad's care and education depended entirely on the mother. This
mother seems to have been a woman of rare mental and spiritual worth.
She deliberately chose a life of poverty and honest toil for herself
and child, rather than allow herself to be cared for by rich kinsmen.
The boy was brought up in a village, and he was not allowed to think
himself any better than the other village children, save as he proved
himself so. He worked in the