In a society—such as Confucius dreamed of—where there was no disagreement in outlook, policy would not be a governmental question; if there were no disharmony of thought and of behavior, there would be no necessity of enforcing conformance to the generally accepted criteria of conduct. From this standpoint, government itself is socially pathological, a remedy for a poorly ordered society. Men are controlled indirectly by the examples of virtue; they do good because they have learned to do good and do it unquestioningly and simply. Whatever control is exercised over men is exercised by their ideology, and if other men desire control they must seek it through shaping the ideas of others. At its full expression, such a doctrine would not lead to mere anarchy; but it would eliminate the political altogether from the culture of man, replacing it with an educational process. Ideological control would need to be supplemented by political only if it failed to cover the total range of social behavior, and left loopholes for conflict and dispute.
This doctrine is framed in quite different terms by Confucius, who spoke and wrote in an age when the mystical elements of the old feudal ideology still exercised powerful and persuasive influence, and when there was no other society than his own which he might make the object of his study. The central point of his teachings is the doctrine of _jên_. Liang Ch’i-ch’ao, one of the most brilliant modern exponents of ancient Chinese philosophy, wrote of this:
In the simplest terms, “Jen” means fellow-feeling for one’s kind. Once Fan Chih, one of his disciples, asked Confucius what “Jen” meant. Confucius replied, “To love fellow-men”; in other words this means to have a feeling of sympathy toward mankind....
Intellectually the relationship becomes common purpose; emotionally it takes the form of fellow-feeling.(31)
This doctrine appears more specific in its application when it is realized that Confucius regarded his own society and mankind as coterminous. Barbarians, haunting the fringes of the world, were unconscious of _jên_; not being in sympathy with mankind, they were not as yet fully human.
_Jên_ is a word which cannot be exactly translated into English. It is laden with a burden of connotations which it has acquired through the centuries; its variability of translation may be shown by the fact that, in the standard translations of the Chinese classics, it is written “Benevolence.” It might equally well be given as “consciousness of one’s place and function in society.” The man who followed _jên_ was one who was aware of his place in society, and of his participation in the common endeavors of mankind.