have been egregiously translating ‘the rules of propriety’; but which Confucius used primarily for a state of harmony within the soul, which should enable beneficent forces from the Infinite to flow through into the outer world;—­whereof a result would also be, on the social plane, perfect courtesy and politeness, these the most outward expression of it.  On these too Confucius insisted which is the very worst you can say about him.—­Now, the ruler stands between Gods and men; let his li be perfect—­let the forces of heaven flow through him unimpeded,—­and the people are regenerated day by day:  the government is by regeneration.  Here lies the secret of all his insistence on loyalty and filial piety:  the regeneration of society is dependent on the maintenance of the natural relation between the Ruler who rules—­ that is, lets the li of heaven flow through him—­and his people.  They are to maintain such an attitude towards him as will enable them to receive the li. In the family, he is the father; in the state, he is the king.  In very truth, this is the Doctrine of the Golden Age, and proof of the profound occult wisdom of Confucius:  even the (comparatively) little of it that was ever made practical lifted China to the grand height she has held.  It is hinted at in the Bhagavad-Gita:—­“whatsoever is practised by the most excellent men”; again, it is the Aryan doctrine of the Guruparampara Chain.  The whole idea is so remote from modern practice and theory that it must seem to the west utopian, even absurd; but we have Asoka’s reign in India, and Confucius’s Ministry in Lu, to prove its basic truth.  During that Ministry he had flashed the picture of such a ruler on to the screen of time:  and it was enough.  China could never forget.

But if, knowing it to have been enough,—­knowing that the hour of the Open Door had passed, and that he should never see success again,—­he had then and there retired into private life, content to teach his disciples and leave the stubborn world to save or damn itself:—­enough it would not have been.  He had flashed the picture on to the screen of time, but it would have faded.  Twenty years of wandering, of indomitability, of disappointment and of ignoring defeat and failure, lay before him:  in which to make his creation, not a momentary picture, but a carving in jade and granite and adamant.  It is not the ever-victorious and successful that we take into the adyta of our hearts.  It is the poignancy of heroism still heroism in defeat,—­

     “unchanged, though fallen on evil years,”

—­that wins admittance there.  Someone sneered at Confucius, in his latter years, as the man who was always trying to do the impossible.  He was; and the sneerer had no idea what high tribute he was paying him.  It is because he was that:  the hero, the flaming idealist:  that his figure shines out so clear and splendidly.  His outer attempts—­to make a Man of Marquis This