CHAPTER 1

1. Yaou said, "Oh! You, Shun, the Heavendetermined order of succession now rests in your person. Sincerely hold fast the Due Mean. If there shall be distress and want within the four seas, your Heavenly revenue will come to a perpetual end."

2. Shun also used the same language in giving charge to Yu.

3. T'ang said, "I, the child Le, presume to use a darkcoloured victim, and presume to announce to Thee, O most great and sovereign God, that the sinner I dare not pardon, and thy ministers, O God, I do not keep in obscurity. The examination of them is by thy mind, O God. If, in my person, I commit offenses, they are not to be attributed to you, the people of the myriad regions. If you in the myriad regions commit offenses, these offenses must rest on my person."

HEADING OF THIS BOOK.—尧曰第二十, 'Yaou said—No. XX.' Hining Ping says: —'This records the words of the two emperors, the three kings, and of Confucius, throwing light on the excellence of the ordinances of Heaven, and the transforming power of government. Its doctrines are all those of sages, worthy of being transmitted to posterity. On this account, it brings up the rear of all the other books, without any particular relation to the one immediately preceding.'

1. PRINCIPLES AND WAYS OF YAOU, SHUN, YU, T'ANG, AND WOO. The first five paragraphs here are mostly compiled from different parts of the Shoo-king. But there are many variations of language. The compiler may have thought it sufficient, if he gave the substance of the original in his quotations, without seeking to observe a verbal accuracy, or, possibly, the Shoo-king, as it was in his days, may have contained the passages as he gives them, and the variations be owing to the burning of most of the classical books by the founder of the Ts'in dynasty, and their recovery and restoration in a mutilated state. 1. We do not find this address of Yaou to Shun in the Shoo-king, Pt I., but the different sentences may be gathered fro Pt. II. Ii. 14, 15, where we have the charge of Shun to Yu. Yaou's reign commenced B. C. 2356, and after reigning 73 years, he resigned the administration to Shun. He died, B. C. 2256, and, two years after, Shun occupied the throne, in obedience to the will of the people. 天之历数,

4. Chow conferred great gifts, and the good were enriched.

5. "Although he has his near relatives, they are not equal to my virtuous men. The people are throwing blame upon me, the one man."

6. He carefully attended to the weights and measures, examined the body of the laws, restored the discarded officers, and the good government of the empire took its course.

7. He revived states that had been extinguished, restored families whose line of succession had been broken, and called to office those who had retired into obscurity, so that throughout the empire the hearts of the people turned towards him.

8. What he attached chief importance to, were the food of the people, the duties of mourning, and sacrifices.

9. By his generosity, he won all. By his sincerity, he made the people repose trust in him. By his earnest activity, his achievements were great. By his justice, all were delighted.

lit., 'the represented and calculated numbers of heaven', i.e., the divisions of the year, its terms, months, and days, all described in a calendar, as they succeed one another with determined regularity. Here, ancient and modern interpreters agree in giving to the expression the meaning which appears in the translation. I may observe here, that Choo He differs often from the old interpreters in explaining these passages of the Shooking, but I have followed him, leaving the correctness or incorrectness of his views to be considered in the annotations on the Shoo-king. 3. Before曰here we must understand 汤, the designation of the founder of the Shang dynasty. The sentences here may in substance be collected from the Shoo-king, Pt IV. iii. 4, 8. Down to 简在帝心 is a prayer addressed to God by T'ang, on his undertaking the overthrow of the Hea dynasty, which he rehearses to his nobles and people, after the completion of his work. T'ang's name was 履. We do not find in the Shoo-king the remarkable designation of God—皇皇后帝. For the grounds on which I translate 帝 by God, see my work on 'The notions of the Chinese concerning God and Spirits.' 后, now generally used for 'empress', was anciently used for 'sovereign', and applied to the emperors. Here, it is an adjective, or in apposition with 帝. The sinner is K?e? (桀), the tyrant, and last emperor of the Hea dynasty.