SOURCE: Hosie, Dorothea. “Confucius.” In The Analects or The Conversations of Confucius with His Disciples and Certain Others, by Confucius, translated by William Edward Soothill, pp. v-xlvii. London: Oxford University Press, 1937.

In the following essay, Hosie offers a biographical sketch of Confucius.

In the year 551 b.c. Confucius was born in the city of Ch‘ü Fu, which lies in the hilly part of that province of north-east China which we know to-day as Shantung. The Empire was divided into many warring States, some little more than a township with its suburbs: tradition has it that these ‘states’ numbered 124 shortly before the Sage's birth and a nominal 72 during his life. The ‘states’ clustered about the basin of the Yellow River and were the birthplace of Chinese culture and political identity: while the Yangtse, the greatest river of the China we visualize to-day, was little known. The population probably did...