The new Confucianism came
to Japan as the system of Chu Hi. For three centuries this system had
already held sway over the intellect of China. For two centuries and a
half it has dominated the minds of the Samurai so that the majority of
them to-day, even with the new name Shizoku, are Confucianists so far as
they are anything.
To understand the origin of Buddhism we must know something of the
history and the previous religious and philosophical systems of India,
and so, if we are to appreciate modern "orthodox" Confucianism, we must
review the history of China, and see, in outline, at least, its
literature, politics and philosophy during the middle ages.
"Four great stages of literary and national development may be pointed
to as intervening (in the fifteen hundred years) between the great sage
and the age called that of the Sung-Ju,"[3] from the tenth to the
fourteenth century, in which the Confucian system received its modern
form. Each of them embraced the course of three or four centuries.
I. From the sixth to the third century before Christ the struggle was
for Confucian and orthodox doctrine, led by Mencius against various
speculators in morals and politics, with Taoist doctrine continually
increasing in acceptance.
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