MENCIUS, the latinized form of M5.ng-tsze, "Mr. Mang," or "Mang the philosopher" (fl. 3rd cent. B.c.), a Chinese moral teacher whose name stands second only to that of Confucius. His statue or spirit-tablet (as the case may be) has occupied, in the temples of the sage, since our 11th century, a place among "the four assessors," and since A.D. 153o his title has been "the philosopher Mang, sage of the second degree." The Mings or Mang-suns had been in the time of Confucius one of the three great clans of Lu (all descended from the marquis Hwan, 711-694 B.c.), which he had endeavoured to curb. Their power had subsequently been broken, and the branch to which Mencius belonged had settled in Tsau, a small adjacent princi pality, the name of which remains in Tsau hsien, a district of Yenchau Shantung. A magnificent temple to Mencius is the chief attraction of the district city, and thousands of Mangs are to be found in the neighbourhood.
Mencius, who died in the year 289 B.c., lived to a great age— some say to his eighty-fourth year, placing his birth in 372 B.C., and others to his ninety-seventh, placing it in 385. His father died before the child was three ; his mother's virtues and dealings with her son were celebrated by a great writer in the 1st century before our era, and for two thousand years she has been the model mother of China. Mencius was forty when he made his first appearance in history.
He intimates that he had been in communication with men who had been disciples of Confucius, and in the doctrines which he had taught Mencius recognized the truth for want of an appreciation of which the bonds of order all round him were being relaxed, and the kingdom hastening to anarchy. When he emerged from Tsau, he was accompanied by eminent disciples. His intercourse with his followers was not so intimate as that of Confucius had been with the members of his selected circle; and he did not secure from them the same homage and reverent admiration.
More than a century had elapsed since the death of Confucius, and during that period the feudal kingdom of Chau had been showing signs of dissolution and even of approaching anarchy. The sentiment of loyalty to the dynasty had disappeared. Mar quesses and other feudal princes of earlier times had usurped the title of king. The smaller fiefs had been absorbed by the larger
ones, or reduced to helpless dependence on them. Tsin, after greatly extending its territory had broken up into three powerful kingdoms, each about as large as England. Mencius found the nation nominally one, and with the traditions of two thousand years affirming its essential unity, but actually divided into seven monarchies, each seeking to subdue the others under itself. The consequences were constant warfare and chronic misery.
On lawlessness, wickedness, heresies and misery Mencius looked out from the quiet of his school, and his spirit was stirred to attempt the rescue of the people from misrule and error. "If Heaven," he said, "wishes that the kingdom should enjoy tran quillity and good order, who is there besides me to bring it about?" He formed his plan, and proceeded to put it in execu tion. He would go about among the different kings till he should find one among them who would follow his counsels and commit to him the entire administration of his government. That ob tained, he did not doubt that in a few years there would be a king dom so strong and so good that all rulers would acknowledge its superiority, and the people hasten from all quarters to crown its sovereign as monarch of the whole of China. This plan was much the same as that of Confucius had been ; but, with the bolder character that belonged to him, Mencius took in one respect a position from which "the master" would have shrunk. The former was always loyal to Chau, and thought he could save the country by a reformation; the latter saw the day of Chau was past, and the time was come for a revolution. Mencius's view was the more correct, but he was not wiser than the sage in forecasting for the future. They could think only of a reformed dynasty or of a changed dynasty, ruling according to the model principles of a feudal constitution, which they described in glowing language. They desired a repetition of the golden age in the remote past ; but soon after Mencius disappeared from the stage of life there came the sovereign of Ch'in, and solved the question with fire and sword, introducing the despotic empire which has since prevailed.