Confucian analects, the great learning, and the doctrine of the mean

Entire text of the Analects of Confucius in large, readable characters, and beneath this Legge's full translation, which has been accepted and the definitive, standard English version. Full chinese text, standard English translation on same page. Finest edition anywhere of one of world's finest thinkers. Central to the study of Chinese civilization at its widest extension is the thought of the great sage K'ung, usually known in the West by the Latinized form of his name, Confucius. His works form the core of more than two thousand years of Oriental civilization, and even today, when he has been officially discarded, his thought remains important for understanding the present as well as the past. Yet Confucius is the property of not only the Orientalists: his ideas stood behind much of the rational social thought of the European Enlightenment, as great philosophers from Leibnitz on seized with delight "the perfect ethic without supernaturalism: that China offered them. The present edition of the wisdom of Confucius is certainly the best edition ever prepared in the West. The results of many years of study in China by the great Sinologist James Legge, it contains the entire Chinese text of the Analects (or sayings) of Confucius in large, readable characters, and beneath this Legge's full translation, which has been accepted as the definitive, standard English version. The book also includes The Great Learning and The Doctrine of the Mean . In addition to the texts and translation, a wealth of helpful material is offered to the reader: countless notes embodying textual studies, commentators' opinions, interpretation of individual characters, disputed meanings, and similar material. More than 125 pages of introduction cover the Chinese classics, the history of the texts in this volume, and the life and influence of Confucius. Most useful, too, is a complete dictionary of all the Chinese characters in the book, with meanings, grammatical comments, place locations, and similar data. Subject and name indexes enable you to find material easily. Frontmatter CHAPTER I. OF THE CHINESE CLASSICS GENERALLY. (page 1) CHAPTER II. OF THE CONFUCIAN ANALECTS (page 12) CHAPTER III. OF THE GREAT LEARNING (page 22) CHAPTER IV. THE DOCTRINE OF THE MEAN (page 35) CHAPTER V. CONFUCIUS AND HIS IMMEDIATE DISCIPLES (page 56) CHAPTER VI. LIST OF THE PRINCIPAL WORKS WHICH HAVE BEEN CONSULTED IN THE PREPERATION OF THIS VOLUME (page 128) I. CONFUCIAN ANALECTS (page 137) II. THE GREAT LEARNING (page 355) III. THE DOCTRINE OF THE MEAN (page 382) INDEXES (page 435)