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Biographical Notice of Mencius.
JUNE,
Every writer belonging to the Dutch factory, and therefore possessing the best attainable means of knowledge, affirms that rebellion has been prevented by the inthrallment of the princes, and that the empire has, since the quelling of the Arima insurrection, enjoyed profound peace, internal as well as external. Dr. Parker, in his little journal, tells us, indeed, that he was assured rebellion was everywhere raging; but when it is considered that he was hostilely driven away, without being suffered even to set foot on shore, little reliance can be placed upon such hearsay information. Were any further change to be anticipated for Japan, it might perhaps be that the hereditary prime-ininister may play against the sio. goun the game they played against the mikado; abandon Yedo to the general. issimo, as Miyako is abandoned to the son of heaven, and establish elsewhere a third court of the vicegerent's vicegerent, the governor of the empire.*
* [Two articles in the sixth volume of the Repository, pages 460 and 553, contain additional particulars concerning the history of Japan during the entire century (1540-1640) when its ports were open, its princes striving for supremacy and independence, and its internal polity undergoing the revolution which has for two centuries since been so strictly maintained. Dr. Parker's sources of information were probably as little to be depended upon as is stated above; and the three shipwrecked men, who arrived in Macao in February last, confirm the declaration of the Dutch that peace has generally existed throughout the empire; but they add that at the time, Dr. Parker was in the coast (1837), and subsequently, famines have been so severe in some parts as to lead the suffering people to commit many excesses. If any inference can be drawn from the nature of Japanese politico- religious education, the close espionage maintained by the government over all classes in society, and the feebleness of purpose which such popish domination over all the powers of the intellect naturally produces, we should say that there was little prospect of any change in the internal or external policy of the country. Causes for change must come from without; nor, judging from the changes now going on in Asia, do we think that the opinion, that even the exclusive policy of the sea-girt empire of the siogoun will give way before the progress of events, is at all chimerical; and that this too will take place long before another two centuries have rolled away, perhaps even before this one is completed.]
ART. IV. Biographical notice of Măng tsze, or Mencius, the Chinese philosopher. Translated for the Repository from the
French of Rémusat.
MANG tsze, who during his life was called Măng Ko, and by the early missionaries, Mencius, is considered as the first of Chinese philosphers, after Confucius. He was born at the beginning of the fourth century before Jesus Christ, in the city of Tsow, at this mo- ment a dependency of Yenchow foo, in the province of Shantung. His father, Keih Kung-e, descended from a certain Măngsun, whose prodigal administration incurred the censure of Confucius, was origi Wally of the country of Choo, but established in that of Chin.