The Conduct of Life - The Ethics of Confucius #247361

When Confucius died, it is recorded that his last words were regrets that none among the rulers then living possessed the sagacity requisite to a proper appreciation of his ethical philosophy and teachings. He died unhonoured, - died in his seventy-third year, 479 B.C., feeling in the flickering beats of his failing heart that his inspiring pleas for truth and justice, industry and self-denial, moderation and public duty, though then without having awakened men's impulses, would yet stir the depths of the social life of his land.<br><br>Only the future will tell how far his staunch guide-ropes to correct conduct will be extended within China, and even be threaded through the dark and dangerous passages of existence in the lands of the Occident to lead humanity safely to that elevated plane which the lofty ideals of the philosopher aimed at establishing. Not yet has the world, sagacious as it is, appreciated the wealth of gentleness, the profound forces for good, the uplifting influences embodied in the teachings of the ancient sage, whose aim, reduced to its simplest definition, was to show "how to get through life like a courteous gentleman."<br><br>A great step forward in the dissemination of the doctrine in foreign lands is taken in "The Superior Man."