Attended by several of his disciples, Mencius went for more than twenty years from one court to another, always baffled, and always ready to try again. He was received with great respect by kings and princes. He would not enter into the service of any of them, but he occasionally accepted honorary offices of distinc tion; and he received gifts which enabled him to live and move about as a man of wealth. He was as fearless and outspoken as John Knox. He lectured great men, and ridiculed them. He unfolded the ways of the old sage kings, and pointed out the path to universal sway ; but he could not stir any one to honourable action. He confronted heresy with strong arguments and exposed it with withering sarcasm; but he could work no deliverance in the earth. The last court at which we find him was that of LO, probably in 310 B.C. The marquis of that state had given office to Yo-chang, one of Mencius's disciples, and he hoped that this might be the means of a favourable hearing for himself. On the suggestion of Yo-chang the marquis had ordered his carriage to be yoked, and was about to step into it and proceed to bring Mencius to his palace, when an unworthy favourite stepped in and diverted him from his purpose. The disciple told his master what had occurred, reproaching the favourite for his ill-timed interven Lion ; Mencius, however, said to him, "A man's advancement or the arresting of it may seem to be effected by others, but is really beyond their power. My not finding in the marquis of DI a ruler who would confide in me and put my lessons in practice is from Heaven." Mencius accepted this incident as a final intimation to him of the will of Heaven. He had striven long against adverse circum stances, but now he bowed in submission. He withdrew from courts and the public arena. According to tradition he passed the last twenty years of his life in the society of his disciples, discours ing to them, and giving the finishing touches to the record of his conversations and opinions, which were afterwards edited by them, and constitute his works. Mencius was not so oracular, nor so self-contained, as Confucius; but his teachings have a vivacity and sparkle all their own.
Mencius held with Confucius—and it was a doctrine which had descended to them both from the remotest antiquity—that royal government is an institution of God. An ancient sovereign had said that "Heaven, having produced the people, appointed for them rulers, and appointed for them teachers, who should be as sisting to God." But how could it be known on what individual the appointment of Heaven had fallen or ought to fall? Mencius concluded that this could be ascertained only from his personal character and his conduct of affairs. The people must find out the will of Heaven as to who should be their ruler for themselves. There was another old saying which delighted Mencius—"Heaven sees as the people see ; Heaven hears as the people hear." He taught that, while government is from God, the governors are from the people;—vox populi vox Dei. No claim then of a "divine right" should be allowed to a sovereign if he were not exercising a rule for the good of the people. "The people are the most important element in a nation ; the altars to the spirits of the land and grain are the second; the sovereign is the lightest." Mencius followed this utterance to its consequences. The mon arch whose rule is injurious to the people, and who is deaf to remonstrance and counsel, should be dethroned. In such a case "killing is no murder." But who is to remove the sovereign that thus ought to be removed? First, he would have the members of the royal house perform the task. Let them disown their unworthy head, and appoint some better individual of their num ber in his room. If they could not or would not do this, he thought, secondly, that any high minister, though not allied to the royal house, might take summary measures with the sovereign, assum ing that he acted purely with a view to the public weal. His third and grand device was what he called "the minister of Heaven." When the sovereign had become a pest instead of a blessing, he believed that Heaven would raise up some one for the help of the people, some one who should so conduct himself in his original subordinate position as to draw all eyes and hearts to himself. Let him then raise the standard not of rebellion but of righteous ness, and he could not help attaining to the highest dignity. Men
cius was in fact counselling rebellion, but he held that the house of Chau had forfeited its title to the throne.
Mencius laid down as essentials of good government care for the general welfare of all the people; the abolition of game laws; a light system of taxation ; the execution of public improvements such as drainage and irrigation; liberty of commerce; and a com plete and all-embracing system of education.
But after all, unless the people could get food and clothing by their labour, he had not much faith in the power of education to make them virtuous. Give him, however, a government fulfilling the conditions that he laid down, and he was confident there would soon be a people, all contented, all virtuous. Mencius contended that the nature of man is good. "Water," he said, "will flow in differently to the east or west; but will it flow indifferently up or down? The tendency of man's nature to goodness is like the tendency of water to flow downwards." Sometimes he may seem to express himself too strongly, but an attentive study of his writ ings shows that he is speaking of our nature in its ideal, and not as it actually is—as we may ascertain, by an analysis of it, like it was intended to be, and not as it has been made to become.
Mencius insists on the constituents of human nature, dwelling especially on the principles of benevolence, righteousness, pro priety, and wisdom or knowledge, the last including the judgment of conscience. "These," said he, "are not infused into us from without. Men have these four principles just as they have their four limbs." But man has also instincts and appetites which seek their own gratification without reference to righteousness or any other control. He met this difficulty by contending that human nature is a constitution, in which the higher principles are designed to rule the lower. "Some constituents of it are noble and some ignoble, some great and some small. The great must not be injured for the small, nor the noble for the ignoble." When he proceeded from his ideal of human nature to account for the actual phenomena of conduct, he was necessarily less suc cessful. "There is nothing good," he said, "that a man cannot do; he only does not do it." But why does he not do it? Against the stubborn fact Mencius beats his wings and shatters his weapons—all in vain.
Above all the sages he extols Confucius, taking no notice of that sage's confession that he had not attained to conformity to his own rule of doing to others as he would have them do to him. No such acknowledgment about himself ever came from Mencius. Therein he was inferior to his predecessor : he had a subtler faculty of thought, and a much more vivid imagination; but he did not know himself nor his special subject of human nature so well. His thoughts were seldom condensed like those of "the master" into aphorisms, and should be read in their connection; but we have from him many words of wisdom that have been as goads to millions for more than two thousand years. For in stance : "Though a man may be wicked, yet, if he adjust his thoughts, fast, and bathe, he may sacrifice to God." "The great man is he who does not lose his child-heart." "Benevolence is the distinguishing characteristic of man. As em bodied in his conduct, it may be called the path of duty." "There is an ordination for everything ; and a man should receive submissively what may be correctly ascribed thereto. He who has the correct idea of what Heaven's ordination is will not stand beneath a tottering wall. Death sustained in the discharge of one's duties may be correctly ascribed to Heaven. Death under handcuffs and fetters cannot be correctly so ascribed." "When one by force subdues men, they do not submit to him in heart. When he subdues them by virtue, in their hearts' core they are pleased, and sincerely submit." Two translations of the works of Mencius are within the reach of European readers: that by Stanislaus Julien, in Latin (Paris, 5824 1829) ; and that forming the second volume of Legge, Chinese Classics (Hong-Kong, 1862). The latter has been published at London (1875) without the Chinese text. See also E. Faber, The Mind of Mencius, or Political Economy founded on Moral Philosophy, trans lated from the German by A. B. Hutchinson (London, 1882).