4.0103 Nerds; Confucius didn't say it (36)
Elaine Brennan & Allen Renear (EDITORS@BROWNVM.BITNET)
Tue, 22 May 90 17:50:07 EDT
Humanist Discussion Group, Vol. 4, No. 0103. Tuesday, 22 May 1990.
(1) Date: Tue, 22 May 90 10:48:33 EDT (7 lines)
From: Clarence Brown <CB@PUCC>
Subject: nerds and humstruc
(2) Date: Tue, 22 May 90 08:31:16 EDT (29 lines)
From: Tom Nimick <0632281@PUCC>
Subject: Trivia: Confucius didn't say it
(1) --------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Tue, 22 May 90 10:48:33 EDT
From: Clarence Brown <CB@PUCC>
Subject: nerds and humstruc
I am interested in forming a support group for Humanists in the Princeton
area who compulsively read all submissions on nerds and hate themselves
in the morning. Clarence Brown, Comp Lit, Princeton. CB@PUCC.
(2) --------------------------------------------------------------36----
Date: Tue, 22 May 90 08:31:16 EDT
From: Tom Nimick <0632281@PUCC>
Subject: Trivia: Confucius didn't say it
I know that Willard's knowledge is broad, but I can't resist correcting
an incorrect attribution in his comments on the structure of Humanist.
He said that Confucius had written on his bathtub "Renew it daily".
That phrase is actually one quoted in the _Great Learning_ (Ta-hsueh)
and was interpreted by the Sung figure Chu Hsi as meaning "renew
yourself everyday". I am unable to put my hands on my copy of the
_Great Learning_, but I believe that the quote was of the very early
(perhaps legendary) emperor T'ang and appears in the _Book of History_,
which predates Confucius. The phrase was a subject of much debate
because Chu Hsi used it to justify emending the text of the first lines
of the _Great Learning_ from "hold the people close to your heart"
(ch'in min) to "renew (or remold) the people" (hsin min), which he
understood as teaching the people so that their original good nature
would emerge from what obscured it, much as one would polish the dirt off
a brass mirror. The "bathtub" was probably a basin and the phrase was
intended to tell the emperor to continually polish the mirror of his
heart so that its original virtue would appropriately reflect the
objects around it (he would respond correctly to all occasions).
Perhaps Willard intended all of that, but it would have passed most of
us by.
Tom Nimick, Graduate Student in Chinese History, Princeton Univ.