Questions to Ask Confucius
Questions to ask Confucius in an imagined interview, written for a school project, a seminar or an essay. The 62 questions follow the order such a conversation would take: his life and the broken age he lived in, then virtue, family and ritual, learning and his students, government, and last how the present day would look to him. Nearly all that is known of his words comes from the Analects, a book of sayings his followers compiled, so the page keeps to what he is recorded as saying and marks what is later legend.
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The questions
Each question, and why to ask it
His life
How would you describe yourself to someone who had never heard of you?
Why ask it
A governor once asked his student Zilu what sort of man Confucius was, and Zilu gave no answer. Told of it, Confucius supplied the reply himself: a man so keen that he forgets to eat, so glad that he forgets his worries, and who does not notice old age coming on. It is the nearest thing to a self-portrait in the Analects, and a ready first line for an imagined interview.
What was the world you were born into like, and what had gone wrong with it?
Why ask it
His traditional dates are 551 to 479 BCE, late in the Spring and Autumn period, when the Zhou kings ruled in name only and three great families in Lu had pushed their own duke aside. Nearly everything he teaches answers that disorder, so ask this early and point back to it later.
What did growing up poor in Lu teach you?
Why ask it
In the Analects he says he was of low station when young and so became handy at many humble jobs, and adds that a gentleman has no need of so many skills. The detail that his father died when he was about three comes from biographies written centuries later, so a careful answer leans on his own words and labels the rest as tradition.
You said that at fifteen you set your heart on learning. What happened at fifteen?
Why ask it
The line opens a short autobiography in Book 2 that moves by decades: standing firm at thirty, free of doubt at forty, knowing what Heaven had decreed at fifty, and at seventy following his heart without crossing the line. He never says what set him off at fifteen, so that part of the reply has to be invented and should be offered as a guess.
Why did you leave Lu in your fifties and spend years on the road?
Why ask it
The Analects gives the cause in one line: the state of Qi sent a troupe of female musicians, the head of the Ji family accepted them, no court was held for three days, and he left. Later accounts add about fourteen years of travel through Wei, Song, Chen and Cai in search of a ruler who would use him. Ask whether the musicians were the reason or the last straw.
What was the closest you came to dying on your travels?
Why ask it
The book has him in danger at a place called Kuang and threatened by a man named Huan Tui. Both times he says Heaven had entrusted him with something and these men could do nothing to him. An essay can read that as real confidence or as a way of steadying frightened students, and the text supports either.
Is it true that you once kept the accounts at a granary and looked after cattle and sheep?
Why ask it
Mencius, writing more than a century after his death, says so, and has him remark that his whole job was to see that the tallies were right and the animals grew fat. It fits his own remark about a humble youth, and it corrects the picture of a man who was a sage from the cradle.
People say you once met Laozi. Did you?
Why ask it
The meeting is told in the Zhuangzi and in Sima Qian's history, both written long afterward, and the Analects never mentions it. Treat it as a story. It still opens a real subject: when two hermits mocked him for trying to mend the world, he answered that a person cannot go and live with the birds and beasts.
No ruler ever let you govern as you wished. Did you count your life a failure?
Why ask it
He is recorded complaining that nobody understood him, then adding that he blamed neither Heaven nor other people. A gatekeeper in the book sums him up as the man who knows it cannot be done and keeps at it anyway. A convincing reply holds the disappointment and the persistence together.
Virtue
What is ren, and why did you give a different answer every time a student asked?
Why ask it
Ren is translated as humaneness, benevolence or goodness, and no single English word holds it. He tells Fan Chi it is loving others, tells Yan Hui it is mastering oneself and returning to ritual, and tells Sima Niu it is care in what one says. Each answer is fitted to the asker, so have him say which one he would give you.
If one word could guide a whole life, which would you choose?
Why ask it
Zigong put exactly this to him, and the word was shu, usually translated as reciprocity: do not do to others what you would not want for yourself. The follow-up is why he phrased it as a 'do not', and whether that asks less of a person than a 'do' would.
Who is a junzi, and can anyone become one?
Why ask it
Junzi meant a lord's son, a man of rank by birth. He turned it into a name for a person of character, translated as gentleman or exemplary person, and set it against the small person who looks only for advantage. Moving the title from birth to conduct is one of the boldest things in the book, so press him on whether a farmer could earn it, and bring up the student he called a small man for asking to be taught farming.
How should I choose my friends, and when should I stop giving one advice?
Why ask it
He counts three kinds of friend that do a person good, the upright, the reliable and the well-informed, and three that do harm: those who flatter, those who are all pleasant surface and those who talk too smoothly. When Zigong asks about friendship, the advice is to tell a friend the truth and steer him gently, and to stop if he will not hear it, so as not to be humiliated. That last clause is cooler than his reputation suggests, and worth arguing over.
You said the gentleman understands what is right and the small person understands profit. Is wanting money wrong, then?
Why ask it
Not by his own account. He grants that wealth and rank are what everybody wants, says he would work as a groom with a whip in his hand if riches could be had decently, and calls riches gained wrongly floating clouds. What he judges is how the money was come by.
Should we repay a wrong with kindness?
Why ask it
Somebody suggested it and he pushed back: what, then, would be left to repay kindness with? His rule is to meet injury with uprightness and kindness with kindness. Set it beside teachings that say to love an enemy, then work out what being upright toward a person who wronged you would look like on an ordinary day.
What should a person do after getting something badly wrong?
Why ask it
His definition of a fault is to have one and not mend it, and more than once he tells students not to be afraid of changing course. He takes his own medicine in Book 7. An official in Chen caught him saying that a duke of Lu understood ritual when the duke had plainly broken a marriage rule, and on hearing of it he called himself lucky, because whenever he slipped somebody was sure to notice.
Why do you distrust people who are good with words?
Why ask it
The remark that smooth talk and a pleasing manner seldom go with goodness turns up more than once in the Analects, and he praises people who are firm, plain and slow to speak. Zigong is the test case: the most eloquent of his students, and one of the closest to him.
What is the difference between getting along with people and agreeing with them?
Why ask it
His line is that the gentleman is in harmony with others without being the same as them, and the small person is the same without being in harmony. For an example from his own circle, look at Zilu, who told him to his face that he was wrong and stayed for decades.
Are people born alike, and what makes them turn out so differently?
Why ask it
He says very little about human nature, and Zigong notes that it was a subject the students never got to hear him on. One sentence survives: people are close together by nature and grow far apart through practice. Whether that nature is good was argued later by Mencius and Xunzi, so keep their positions out of his mouth.
Family and ritual
What does a child owe a parent beyond food and a roof?
Why ask it
He tells one student that feeding parents is no more than people do for their dogs and horses, and that without reverence nothing separates the two. To another he says the hard part is the look on your face while you do it. The second answer is the one that stings, because it catches anyone who helps with a sigh.
What should a son or daughter do when a parent is plainly in the wrong?
Why ask it
Object gently, he says, and if the parent will not listen, stay respectful, do not turn against them and bear the burden without complaint. A class usually splits over that last step, and the passage sets no limit for a parent who is doing real harm, so the reply has to supply one.
A man reported his own father for stealing a sheep. Why did you say that was not honesty?
Why ask it
A governor boasted to him about this man, known as Upright Gong. He replied that where he came from a father covers for his son and a son for his father, and that uprightness lies in that. Critics of his family ethics have cited this passage for more than two thousand years, so give someone the job of arguing the governor's side.
Why three years of mourning for a parent, when a student told you one was plenty?
Why ask it
The student, Zai Wo, argued that ritual and music would decay if neglected that long. Asked whether he could enjoy fine rice and brocade after a year, Zai Wo said yes and was told to go ahead. The reason came only after he had left the room: a child spends its first three years in its parents' arms. Notice that the test he applies is the feeling and not the rule.
Why does a good society need ritual at all?
Why ask it
Li, the word translated as ritual, covers everything from court ceremony to the way a guest is greeted. His argument in Book 2 is that people led by regulations and punishments learn to dodge them and feel no shame, while people led by virtue and ritual acquire a sense of shame and put themselves right. Ask for one small courtesy that he thinks does that work.
When is it right to change a ritual?
Why ask it
He gives a worked example. The old rule called for a hemp cap, people had switched to silk because it was cheaper, and he went along with them. The old rule called for bowing at the foot of the hall, people had begun bowing at the top, and he refused because it was presumptuous. His line falls between changing the cost and changing the meaning.
What good is a ceremony when the person performing it feels nothing?
Why ask it
None, by his account. He asks what a person without goodness has to do with ritual or with music, and says ritual is more than gifts of jade and silk. Asked for the root of it, he says sparing is better than lavish, and that at a funeral real grief matters more than getting every detail correct.
Why were you so angry about eight rows of dancers?
Why ask it
The Ji family, ministers in Lu, staged a dance in their own courtyard with eight rows of performers, a number reserved for the king. His comment was that if this could be tolerated, anything could. It looks like fussiness until you see that a borrowed ceremony was a claim to power, made by a family that really had eclipsed its duke.
Do the spirits of the dead hear us?
Why ask it
He will not say. When Zilu asks how to serve the spirits, he answers that we have not yet learned to serve the living, and asked about death, that we do not yet understand life. He also says to sacrifice as though the spirits were present. An answer in character keeps the practice and declines the metaphysics.
What do you mean by Heaven, and does it ever speak?
Why ask it
He once told Zigong he would rather not speak at all, and when Zigong protested he asked whether Heaven speaks: the four seasons turn and everything is born, and Heaven says nothing. When he was gravely ill and Zilu wanted prayers offered, he replied that his own praying had been going on for a long time. Readers still disagree on whether his Heaven is a god or the moral order of things, so say which reading your answer takes.
Why did music matter so much to you?
Why ask it
The book shows him singing with others and asking for a song again when he liked it. Hearing the ancient Shao music in Qi, he was so taken that for three months he did not notice the taste of meat. His summary is that a person is stirred by the Odes, given a footing by ritual and completed by music, so ask what music finishes that the other two leave undone.
What did you teach your own son?
Why ask it
A student once asked the son, known as Boyu, whether he got lessons the others did not. Boyu could recall two short exchanges in the courtyard: had he studied the Odes, without which he would have nothing to say, and had he studied ritual, without which he would have nowhere to stand. The student went away concluding that a gentleman keeps some distance from his own son.
Learning
Who did you accept as a student, and did you ever turn anyone away?
Why ask it
He says he never refused to teach anyone who arrived with so much as a bundle of dried meat, and that teaching knows no classes of people. Staying was harder than getting in. He would not open a subject for someone who was not straining toward it, and if he showed one corner and the student could not come back with the other three, he did not go over it again.
Is learning supposed to be a pleasure, or is that only something teachers say?
Why ask it
The first line of the Analects asks whether it is not a pleasure to learn something and put it into practice at the right time. Later he ranks three stages, knowing a thing, being fond of it and delighting in it, with delight on top. The one boast he allows himself is that any village of ten households will hold someone as loyal and trustworthy as he is, but no one as fond of learning.
Why did you give two students opposite answers to the same question?
Why ask it
Zilu and Ran You each asked whether to act at once on what they had heard. Zilu was told to consult his father and elder brothers first, and Ran You was told to go ahead. Asked about the contradiction, he explained that Ran You hangs back and needed a push, while Zilu has the energy of two men and needed holding in. Bring this up whenever one of his sayings is being treated as a rule for everyone.
Which of your students did you love most?
Why ask it
Yan Hui, on the book's own evidence. He praises Hui for staying cheerful on a bowl of rice and a gourd of water in a back alley, for never taking his anger out on someone else and for never making the same mistake twice. When Hui died young he cried out that Heaven was destroying him. Zigong, the quick one, gave his own measure of the gap: told one thing, he understood two, and Hui understood ten.
Yan Hui never argued with you. Was that a strength or a problem?
Why ask it
He says both. In one passage Hui listens all day without a single objection, as if he were slow, and is then seen living out what he heard. In another he grumbles that Hui is no help to him, because Hui is pleased with everything he says. A teacher who wants to be contradicted is worth drawing out.
Zilu contradicted you to your face and followed you everywhere all the same. What did you make of him?
Why ask it
Zilu is the bold one. Confucius once said that if the Way failed he would put to sea on a raft, and that Zilu would be the one to come along. Zilu was delighted, and was promptly teased that his love of daring ran ahead of his judgment. Later sources say Zilu was killed in a coup in Wei about a year before his teacher died, which changes how the teasing reads.
You told a student that rotten wood cannot be carved. Were you too hard on him?
Why ask it
That was Zai Wo, found asleep in the daytime. He added that he used to hear what people said and trust them to act on it, and that since Zai Wo he listens and then watches what they do. Zai Wo is also the student who argued against three years of mourning, so ask whether the nap was really the trouble.
You asked four students what they would do if their talents were recognized. Why did you side with the one who wanted to go bathing in the river?
Why ask it
Three of them spoke of governing a state or assisting at ceremonies. Zeng Dian set down his zither and said that in late spring he would go with friends to bathe in the river Yi, enjoy the breeze at the rain altar and walk home singing. The Master sighed and said he was with Dian, and readers have argued ever since over what he was agreeing to.
Which matters more, studying or thinking things through for yourself?
Why ask it
He wants both and says each fails alone: study without thought is labor lost, and thought without study is dangerous. He also reports once going a whole day without food and a whole night without sleep in order to think, and getting less from it than from study. The first half describes the crammer and the second the daydreamer, which gives a class two camps to sort itself into.
How do you know when you actually know something?
Why ask it
His definition, given to Zilu, is to hold that you know what you do know and to admit what you do not. It reads like a truism until you count how seldom anyone manages the second half. Socrates made a similar point in Athens within the following century, with no contact between the two, which makes a good comparison paragraph for an essay.
You called yourself someone who passes things on and invents nothing. Is that true?
Why ask it
The line is his, and what he meant to pass on was the culture of the early Zhou and its founders, above all the Duke of Zhou, whom he says he used to see in dreams. Many readers think he undersold himself: redefining the gentleman by character and teaching whoever turned up were both new. Ask what he believes he changed.
You never wrote the Analects. How much of it sounds like you?
Why ask it
The book was assembled by his students and their students over generations after his death, and many scholars regard its last few books as later than the rest. Some of its sayings belong to followers such as Zengzi and Youzi, which is easy to miss when quoting. A fair imagined reply has him recognize some lines and look doubtful at others.
Government
What makes someone fit to rule?
Why ask it
His reply to Ji Kangzi, who held the real power in Lu, is a play on words: zheng, to govern, sounds the same as zheng, to be straight, and if the one in front is straight, who will dare to be crooked? In Book 2 he compares a ruler who governs by virtue to the Pole Star, which keeps its place while the other stars turn toward it. Neither answer mentions a policy, and an essay can treat that as the insight or as the gap.
What should a ruler do first on taking power?
Why ask it
Asked this about the state of Wei, he said he would set names right, and Zilu told him he was wide of the mark. His reasoning is a chain: when words do not fit things, speech goes astray, then business fails, then punishments miss, and people no longer know where to put hand or foot. Ask him for a word in use today that he would correct first.
A state needs food, weapons and the trust of its people. If it had to give one up, which goes first?
Why ask it
Zigong asked him this in Book 12. Weapons go first and food second, because death has always come to everyone, but a state whose people do not trust it cannot stand. Few people guess that order, so take a vote before giving his answer.
What did you mean by 'let the ruler be a ruler and the father a father'?
Why ask it
It was his reply to Duke Jing of Qi, who had asked about government. The sentence can be read as an order for everyone to stay in their place, or as a demand that people at the top deserve their title. Ask which he meant, and add that he told Zilu to serve a ruler by never deceiving him and by standing up to him openly.
Can a ruler make people good by punishing the bad?
Why ask it
When Ji Kangzi, the chief minister of Lu, proposed executing those who did not follow the Way, he asked what need a ruler had of killing. The ruler's character is wind and the people's is grass, he said, and grass bends when the wind passes over it. The same minister complained about thieves and was told that if he were not greedy himself, nobody would steal even for a reward.
You said the real aim is to have no lawsuits at all. What would take the place of the courts?
Why ask it
His words are that in hearing lawsuits he is much like anyone else, and that the task is to bring it about that there are none. The candidates in the rest of the book are example from above, ritual and families settling matters themselves. The follow-up that tests the idea is who such an arrangement leaves unprotected.
What does a government owe ordinary people, and in what order?
Why ask it
Riding into Wei, he remarked on how many people there were, and his driver, Ran You, asked what should be done for them. Make them prosperous, he said, and after that, teach them. Livelihood comes before instruction in his order, a point to raise against the picture of him as a moralist with no interest in bread.
When should a good person refuse to serve a bad government, and were you ever tempted?
Why ask it
His stated rule is to come forward when the Way prevails in a state and to stay out of sight when it does not. Yet the book records him tempted on two occasions to answer a summons from men in revolt, with Zilu objecting each time, and calling himself a piece of jade waiting for the right buyer. Ask how long he was prepared to wait.
Today
Which line that people credit to you did you never say?
Why ask it
There are plenty to pick from. 'Choose a job you love and you will never work a day in your life' is not in the Analects, and the journey of a thousand miles that begins with one step comes from the Daodejing, the book credited to Laozi. Before quoting him in an essay, find the saying in a translation of the Analects and give the book and passage.
Families now live in different cities, and sometimes different countries. What happens to filial duty then?
Why ask it
His rule was that while parents are living a child does not travel far, or, if he must, has a fixed destination. The second half is the part to work with: he allows the journey and requires that the parents know where their child is. A weekly call, a shared calendar and a move back home are three different readings of that rule, and a reply should pick one.
For centuries, officials in China were chosen by exams on books tied to your name. Is that what you meant by learning?
Why ask it
The examination system took shape roughly a thousand years after his death and lasted until 1905. Set it beside his complaint that people used to study to improve themselves and now study to impress others, and his remark that a gentleman is not a vessel made for a single use. Have students say which of those two kinds of study their last big exam asked of them.
There are temples and statues in your honor. Would you accept the title of sage?
Why ask it
In his lifetime he turned it down. How would he dare call himself a sage or a man of ren, he asked; the most that could be said was that he studied without tiring and taught without growing weary. An answer in character is embarrassed by the statues and curious whether the visitors have read anything.
Is what you taught a religion?
Why ask it
It has sacrifices, temples and reverence for Heaven, and in his recorded words it has no revelation and no promise about an afterlife, so the reply turns on what the word is taken to mean. Some countries count Confucianism officially as a religion and others class it as a philosophy or a tradition, so check which term your course uses. In character he would probably want the word defined first, in keeping with his remark about setting names right.
You said women and small men are hard to deal with. Would you say it now?
Why ask it
The sentence is in Book 17 and has been made to excuse a great deal. Some translators read it narrowly, as a remark about the maids and menservants of a household, and others take it at face value. Ask it plainly, and have him account for the fact that every student named in the book is a man.
Many countries now choose their leaders by vote. Does that fit your idea of good government?
Why ask it
Elections were outside anything he knew, since the rulers of his day inherited their thrones. What he does supply is a pair of tests: no government stands without the trust of its people, and an upright ruler is followed without having to give orders. Ask whether winning a vote and holding that trust are the same thing.
Anyone can now say something to thousands of strangers in seconds. What would you tell them before they do?
Why ask it
Three of his lines bear on it: the gentleman wants to be slow in speech and quick in action, he is ashamed when his words run ahead of his deeds, and the people of old were sparing with words for fear of not living up to them. He never pictured an audience of strangers, so the reply is an extension and should be marked as one. For a class, have each student turn one of the three into a rule for posting.
You said to respect the young, because who knows that they will not surpass us. Do you still think so?
Why ask it
The saying has a second half that is quoted less often: a person who reaches forty or fifty without being heard of no longer deserves that awe. A room of teenagers can take the first part as a compliment and the second as a deadline, so read both halves aloud before anyone replies.
What one habit would you ask a student today to start tomorrow?
Why ask it
He has two ready. On meeting someone admirable, think how to match them, and on meeting someone who is not, look inward. And in any three people walking together he expects to find a teacher, with something to copy or something to avoid. The daily self-examination often quoted next to these is Zengzi's line, not his.
You looked back to the early Zhou as a golden age. What from your own time should we keep, and what should we leave there?
Why ask it
Save this for the end of the interview. It makes whoever is speaking for him separate what he argued for, such as teaching anyone who came and holding rulers to the meaning of their title, from what he simply inherited: hereditary rank, and a school with no women in it. A man who longed for an age five centuries before his own is well placed to say what nostalgia gets wrong.
How to interview a man who left no book of his own
Practical guidance for the conversation itself
What can be known about him
The Analects is other people's notes
The Analects is twenty short books of sayings and brief scenes, a great many of which open with 'The Master said'. His followers compiled it after his death, and nothing in it is arranged by topic. Passage numbers shift a little from one translation to the next, so when you cite one, give the book and passage as your own translation numbers them.
Later lives fill the gaps, so label them
Dates, offices, the route of his travels and most stories about his parents come from Mencius, from the Zuo commentary and above all from the biography Sima Qian wrote about four centuries after he died. Use them, and write 'tradition says' when you do. An interview that has him confirm a legend as plain fact is weaker than one that has him smile at it.
The names he and his students go by
His family name was Kong and his given name Qiu. Kongzi and Kong Fuzi both mean Master Kong, and Confucius is the Latin form European missionaries made of the second. The students carry several names too, which confuses anyone reading two translations: Zilu is also Zhong You, Yan Hui is also Yan Yuan, and Zigong is also Duanmu Ci.
Five words to leave in Chinese
Ren (goodness or humaneness), li (ritual, and manners generally), junzi (the gentleman or exemplary person), xiao (filial devotion) and dao (the Way). Every translator renders them differently, and an essay that uses the Chinese word with one short gloss stays clear of an argument about English. Pick your gloss once and keep it.
Running it in a classroom or a discussion group
Cast the students as well as the Master
The book is a set of conversations, so hand out the other parts. Zilu is blunt and brave, Zigong is polished and good with money, Yan Hui is poor and quiet, and Zai Wo asks the awkward question. Let each put the questions that suit them, and have whoever plays the Master answer that person, not the room.
Vote before the answer is read out
Several questions here have a recorded answer that is hard to guess: which of food, weapons and trust a state gives up first, whether the son should have reported the stolen sheep, whether a wrong is repaid with kindness. Take a show of hands, hear one reason from each side, then read his reply.
One group a session
The six groups run from his life to the present day, and each holds enough for a lesson. For a single session, take Virtue or Family and ritual, add two questions from Today, and leave the others for homework. Twelve questions argued through will stay with a class longer than sixty read aloud.
Put the same question to someone else
He is easier to see beside a contrast. Ask Socrates what it is to know something, ask Laozi whether ritual makes people better, or ask a modern lawmaker whether punishment does. The Mohists and the Legalists argued with his followers for centuries, and either makes a ready opposing bench if the class has met them.
Writing his answers for an interview or an essay
Keep his replies short
Most of his recorded answers are a sentence or two, often an image: wind over grass, a vessel, rotten wood, pine and cypress still green in a cold year. A paragraph of explanation in his voice sounds like a lecturer. Write the short reply, then let the interviewer ask what he meant.
Have him size up the person asking
He fits the answer to the asker, pushing the timid forward and reining in the rash. Decide who your interviewer is before you write a line: a nervous student, a confident official and a grieving son would each get a different reply to the same words. He also sends questions back, so let him ask one.
Use the small details in Book 10
Book 10 describes how he carried himself: he would not sit on a mat that was not straight, he did not talk during meals, he kept ginger on the table and he drank without a fixed limit but never to the point of confusion. When the stables burned, he asked whether anyone had been hurt and did not ask about the horses. One such detail does more for an imagined scene than a paragraph of doctrine.
For an essay, pick a strain in his thought
The strongest essays work on a place where two of his commitments pull apart: loyalty to a father against honesty to the state, the letter of a ritual against the feeling behind it, serving a flawed ruler against keeping clean. State both sides from passages you can cite, then say which way he leans and whether you would.
Mistakes that give an invented Confucius away
The fortune cookie
Riddles, rhyming maxims and anything that begins 'Confucius say' belong to a comic tradition that has nothing to do with the book. His recorded speech is plain and concrete, about parents, pay, funerals, music and bad officials. If a line would look at home on a mug, check it against a translation before using it.
The scold who never laughs
He sings, teases Zilu, sighs in agreement at a student's wish for a spring outing, and at least once has to tell his students he was only joking, after a quip about using an ox cleaver to kill a chicken. He also loses his temper and weeps beyond what ritual allows when Yan Hui dies. Leave the warmth and the temper in.
The prophet
He claims no revelation and turns aside questions about spirits and what follows death. The book says the subjects he did not discuss included prodigies and gods. An interview that has him describe an afterlife or issue commandments has swapped him for another kind of teacher.
Later Confucianism in his mouth
A great deal that carries his name came afterward. The claim that human nature is good is Mencius's, the examinations arrived many centuries later, and the stiff codes of obedience often called Confucian were worked out under later dynasties. Before giving him a doctrine, make sure you can point to where the Analects has him say it.