to his successful application of analytical methods to astronomical researches. In 1769 he was elected member of the Academy of Sciences, and in 1773 became perpetual secretary. As secretary of the academy he published a series of eulogies upon eminent men, which still remain the chief monuments of his literary skill. Among the most remarkable of these are his éloges upon Pascal, Jussieu, Flamsteed, D'Alembert, Buffon, and Franklin. That upon Buffon is noticeable through its generous impartiality. No one could gather from it that Buffon had employed, both at the court and the academy, every influence he possessed to disparage Condorcet. The first of Condorcet's writings upon religious subjects was an anonymous work entitled "Lettres d'un Théologien," which was attributed to Voltaire. His fundamental doctrine was the present perfectibility of mankind both individually and socially. He held that all moral evils come from bad laws and bad institutions; and he looked forward to the time when disease and suffering should pass away; and death be only the effect of an accident, or the light and gentle decay of vital forces which had exhausted their capacities for joyful action. During the later years of his life we find him intensely involved in the political movements of that revolutionary epoch, the advent of which his writings had powerfully assisted in preparing. Until the flight of Louis XVI. he was faithful to the principle of a constitutional monarchy; but after that event he examined the question whether royalty was essential to liberty, and pronounced in the negative. Condorcet was the chief author of that famous answer of the assembly to the address from the European powers, threatening France with war; in which the idea of war for conquest was renounced, and a solemn pledge taken not to employ the national forces against the liberties of any people (1791). During the revolutionary struggles, he displayed a disposition in which timidity in action and boldness in theory curiously contended against each other. Upon the trial of Louis XIV., Condorcet voted for the gravest punishment next to death. In the struggles between the Mountain and Girondist parties, he took no decided part with either, although he was employed by the Girondists to draw up a new constitution, the plan of which was approved by the convention. He escaped the first proscriptions, but having objected to the proceedings of the dominant party, incurred the enmity of Robespierre; and, on the 3d October, 1793, the convention pronounced a decree of condemnation against "Caritat ci-devant marquis de Condorcet." The montagnards hesitated before proscribing so great a name; but the Jacobins declared the man more dangerous because of his greatness, and urged on the deed. Condorcet was concealed by his friends, and remained shut up in an attic during the autumn and winter of 1793-94; and while the storm of revolution was raging round him, and his own life was not secure for an hour, he employed himself in demonstrating the perfectibility of the human race, and wrote his famous work, "L'esquisse des progrès de l'esprit humain." Assuredly that man was great who could console himself in persecution by cherishing yet more fondly than in prosperity his glorious hopes for the very people whose victim he was; and the history of literature furnishes few more touching pictures than Condorcet writing upon the perfectibility of mankind in a garret, from which he dared not move, and in sight of the guillotine waiting for its prey. At last he could endure confinement no longer. In spite of the precautions of his friends he escaped from his concealment; was arrested as a suspected person at a cabaret of Clamart by some members of the revolutionary committee, and thrown into the prison of Bourg la Reine. In the morning of 28th March, 1794, the guard found a corpse in place of their prisoner; the philosopher had taken poison, preferring to die in quietness and peace rather than that his last agonies should be a sight for a scoffing mob. The works of Condorcet have been published in 21 vols. 8vo, Paris, 1804.—L. L. P.
CONFUCIUS, the Latinized form given originally by the jesuits to the name of the famous Chinese philosopher Koong-foo-tse. He was born about 550 b.c. in the kingdom of Loo, now the province of Shang-tun, and was descended from the imperial family of the dynasty of Shang. He was early distinguished for his great abilities, his extraordinary love of learning, and his proficiency in philosophy. He married at the age of nineteen, but divorced his wife after she had borne him a son, in order, as the jesuits allege, "that he might attend to his studies with greater application." When he had reached his twentieth year he obtained his first political employment as "superintendent of cattle," and soon became conspicuous for his zeal in reforming long-established abuses. His activity and fidelity obtained for him promotion to a more important situation, and the highest position in the kingdom seemed within his reach, when a sudden revolution in the state deprived him of his office.
The next eight years of his life he spent in travelling through the various states into which the Celestial empire was then divided, instructing ail classes in the precepts of virtue and social order, and gradually increasing the number of his disciples. He returned to his native kingdom in his forty-third year, and was soon after intrusted with various responsible political offices. He was at length made prime minister, at the age of fifty-five, and received full authority to carry his theories into practice. He speedily effected a great change, both in the moral and physical condition of the country. He provided an abundant supply of food for the poor, and freed them from the oppression of the nobles. "The revenues of the state," says his biographer, "were directed to the advancement of commerce, the improvement of the bridges and highways, the impartial administration of justice, and the repression of the bands of robbers that infested the mountains." But the great reformation Confucius was effecting roused the jealousy of the neighbouring princes, and they succeeded by a base intrigue in inducing the king of Loo to abandon his faithful minister, who was in consequence once more expelled from the country, and compelled to take refuge in the northern parts of China. For twelve years he wandered about from province to province, making various unsuccessful efforts to obtain office. He made many proselytes, and at length, full of years and worn out with his wanderings and sorrows, he retired with a small band of faithful disciples to a quiet valley in his native province, and there spent the concluding five years of his life in revising and improving those works which for twenty-three centuries have been the sacred books of the Chinese. He died at the age of seventy-three in this valley, with, for all succeeding ages, has been a sacred spot to the inhabitants of the Celestial empire. His sepulchre was erected on the banks of the Loo river. The manner in which the memory of the great philosopher has been revered by posterity, presents a striking contrast to the unworthy treatment which he received from his contemporaries. The highest honours and privileges have been heaped upon his descendants, who now number many thousands, and are the only hereditary nobility in the empire. Amid all the revolutions that have taken place in China, their privileges have been preserved entire. There is at least one temple dedicated to Confucius in every city of the empire of the first, second, and third rank; and the mandarins and the emperor himself are bound to worship there, burning scented gums, frankincense, and tapers of sandal wood, offering wine, fruit, and flowers, and chanting appropriate hymns.
Confucius claimed to be a teacher of morals, rather than the founder of a religion. He made no pretensions to inspiration; and his method of teaching was as simple and natural as his manner of life. The physical system which he inculcated resembled that of the early Greek philosophers. The five elements or kings, as he termed them—water, fire, wood, metals, and earth—stood at its base. He held that the universe had been generated by the union of two material principles,—a heavenly and an earthly—Yang and Yn—but there is no mention of a Creator in his system; and some writers have broadly asserted that Confucius did not recognize the existence of a God. He represents man as having fallen by his own act from his original pure and happy state; and affirms that, by his own act, he can recover the purity and happiness he has lost. The object of one of his treatises is declared to be, "to bring back fallen man to the sovereign good—to what is perfect." In his doctrines there is an evident leaning to fatalism and to fortune-telling. Many of his moral precepts, such as those which regulate the duties of children to parents, and of the younger to the elder, are excellent. His political system, which is one of pure despotism, is founded on the parental relationship. A family is the prototype of his nation, of which the emperor is regarded as the father. Dr. Morrison is of opinion, that it is this feature of his doctrines which has made Confucius such a favourite with all the governments of China for so many Centuries.
The classical or sacred books written, or completed and revised, by Confucius and his disciples, are nine in number, viz., the "Four Books," and the "Five Canonical Books." The
