克己復礼 kokki fukurei Restraining oneself and keeping to propriety; holding back excessive self-assertion and acting as propriety requires

克己復礼 (kokki fukurei), Confucius's answer to Yan Hui on goodness, followed through two thousand years of argument over each of its four characters, into the Japanese reading that treads the rites, a jūjutsu manual of 1894 and the English self-denial.

Abstract

克己復礼, kokki fukurei, is in today's dictionaries restraining oneself and keeping to propriety: in the words of the 日本国語大辞典, holding back excessive self-assertion and acting as propriety requires. The four characters are Confucius's answer to his disciple Yan Hui 顔回, who asked him about 仁, goodness, in the Analects, and the 春秋左氏伝 has Confucius quote them as a saying written down of old, against a king who could not restrain himself. What each of the four characters means has been argued for two thousand years: the Han commentator Ma Rong 馬融 read 克己 as restraining oneself; Zhu Xi 朱熹 (1130–1200) read it as conquering the self's selfish desires and returning to heavenly principle, and his reading is the one the ethics books of Meiji Japan taught; in Edo Japan Itō Jinsai 伊藤仁斎 read it as setting oneself aside to follow others, and Ogyū Sorai 荻生徂徠 called Zhu's conquest of desire a habit left over from the Buddhists and read 復 as to tread, to carry out the rites, a reading Japanese scholars after him kept, one of whom put it into Japanese prose in 1803 as 礼ヲフム. In English the line began with James Legge's subdue one's self and return to propriety of 1861, whose note set Zhu's selfish self beside the Christian doctrine of original sin, and by 1909 and 1910 a Japanese–English dictionary and a translation of the Analects gave 克己 as self-denial; in 1894 a Japanese manual of jūjutsu set the line against the loser in a town dōjō who complains and makes excuses after a bout.

Overview

The sense. The デジタル大辞泉 gives 《「論語」顔淵から》自制して礼儀を守るようにすること, from the Analects, chapter 顔淵: restraining oneself and keeping to propriety; the 日本国語大辞典 gives 過度の自己主張を抑制し、礼儀にのっとるようにすること, holding back excessive self-assertion and acting in accordance with propriety, and says the word comes from 「顔淵問仁、子曰、克己復礼為仁」 in the Analects ^[1]. The 四字熟語を知る辞典 gives the same sense and explains: 「克己」は「己に克つ」で自分の欲望にうち勝つこと。「復礼」は「礼に復る」で礼により従うこと, 克己 is "to overcome oneself," prevailing over one's own desires; 復礼 is "to return to propriety," following propriety ^[1]. JMdict gives exercising self-restraint and conforming to the rules of etiquette and formality ^[2]. The witnesses below hold more than that: a king who could not restrain himself; a Han reading of restraint and a Song reading of conquest; an Edo reading in which the rites are not returned to but trodden; a Meiji ethics of self-control; a jūjutsu manual's rule for the loser of a bout; and an English self-denial.

The words. 克己, kokki, is in the デジタル大辞泉 自分の感情・欲望・邪念などにうちかつこと, overcoming one's own feelings, desires and wicked thoughts, and in the 日本国語大辞典 おのれに克つこと, overcoming oneself, with its earliest Japanese example in 1874 ^[3]. 復礼, fukurei, is in the 日本国語大辞典 礼をふむこと。礼の本質にたちかえること, treading propriety; returning to the essence of propriety, with its earliest example in Fukuzawa Yukichi 福沢諭吉's 文明論之概略 of 1875 ^[4]. The 改訂新版 世界大百科事典 says that the old Japanese reading of the line was わが身をつつしんで礼をふみ行う, to keep oneself in check and carry out the rites, and that Zhu Xi made 己 selfish desire and 礼 the pattern of heavenly principle, an asceticism criticized by the Qing scholars and by Ogyū Sorai ^[3]. The reading is こっきふくれい, kokki fukurei; the dictionaries also print コクキ for the first word ^[1]. The 日本国語大辞典's earliest example of the four-character word in Japanese is a 談義本, a popular sermon-book, of 1771, which it quotes as 克己復礼(コッキフクレイ)とはおのれに克て礼にかへれといふ事也, kokki fukurei means: overcome yourself and return to propriety ^[1]. Each of the four characters has more than one reading in the commentaries, and the record below follows them: 克 as to restrain, to prevail over and, in English, to be able; 己 as oneself, the self's selfish desires and the self as against others; 復 as to return, to tread and to do again and again; 礼 as the rites of the former kings and as the pattern of heavenly principle.

The text in English. The bilingual dictionaries give 克己 alone: Conquering one's self in 1896 ^[5]; Self-denial; self-command; self-control in 1909 ^[6]; Self-denial; self-control; self-conquest (-command); self-restraint; fortitude; stoicism in 1942 ^[7]; self-denial, self-control in 1974 ^[8]. The translations of the Analects give the line as To subdue one's self and return to propriety, is perfect virtue (Legge, 1861) ^[9], Virtue is the denial of self and response to what is right and proper (Soothill, 1910) ^[10], He who can himself submit to ritual is Good (Waley, 1938) ^[11], To master oneself and return to propriety is humanity (Chan, 1963) ^[12], Restraining yourself and returning to the rites (keji fuli) constitutes Goodness (Slingerland, 2003) ^[13], and in others listed below. JMdict gives the phrase as exercising self-restraint and conforming to the rules of etiquette and formality ^[2], and 克己 as self-control; self-mastery; self-restraint; self-denial ^[14].

The historical record

Before Confucius, as the 春秋左氏伝 tells it. The 春秋左氏伝 is a commentary on the 春秋, the Spring and Autumn Annals, traditionally ascribed to Zuo Qiuming 左丘明 ^[15]. Under the twelfth year of Duke Zhao of Lu (昭公十二年) it tells how King Ling of Chu 楚靈王 heard his minister 子革 recite an old poem, 祈招, and then ^[16]:

王揖而入。饋不食，寢不寐。數日，不能自克，以及於難。

The king bowed and went in. Food was brought and he did not eat; he lay down and did not sleep. For several days he could not restrain himself, and so came to disaster. And Confucius, by his name 仲尼, comments ^[16]:

仲尼曰：「古也有志：『克己復禮，仁也。』信善哉！楚靈王若能如是，豈其辱于乾谿？」

Zhongni said: "There is a record of old: 'To restrain oneself and return to the rites is goodness.' True and good indeed! If King Ling of Chu had been able to do this, how would he have met disgrace at Ganxi?" In this telling the four characters are older than Confucius, a saying he quotes. Du Yu 杜預 (222–284), author of the 春秋左氏経伝集解 ^[17], glosses the 克 of the king's 不能自克 with 克勝也, 克 is "to prevail" ^[18]. The passage sets 克己, restrain oneself, against the king's 自克, restrain himself: the 己 of the saying is the self who acts. James Legge's English of 1872 gives the king as not able to subdue himself and the saying as to subdue one's-self and return to propriety is perfect virtue ^[19].

The Analects, 12.1. The Analects is the record of Confucius's words and deeds made by his disciples and edited by a school of Confucians after his death ^[20]. Yan Hui 顔回 (about 522 to about 490 BCE), whom it calls Yan Yuan 顔淵, was the disciple Confucius loved best, and died before him ^[21]. The twelfth book opens ^[22]:

顏淵問「仁」。子曰：「克己復禮爲仁。一日克己復禮，天下歸仁焉，爲仁由己，而由人乎哉？」顏淵曰：「請問其目。」子曰：「非禮勿視，非禮勿聽，非禮勿言，非禮勿動。」顏淵曰：「回雖不敏，請事斯語矣！」

Yan Yuan asked about goodness. The Master said: "To restrain oneself and return to the rites is goodness. If one day one restrains oneself and returns to the rites, the world will turn to goodness. The practice of goodness comes from oneself; how could it come from others?" Yan Yuan said: "May I ask for the particulars?" The Master said: "Do not look at what is contrary to the rites, do not listen to what is contrary to the rites, do not speak what is contrary to the rites, do not move in what is contrary to the rites." Yan Yuan said: "Slow as I am, I ask to devote myself to these words." The English here follows the Han reading of 克 as restrain; the readings below take the same words otherwise. The 史記 of Sima Qian 司馬遷 ^[23] gives the exchange more briefly, without 爲仁 and without 一日 ^[24]:

顏淵問仁，孔子曰：「克己復禮，天下歸仁焉。」

About the turn of the era. Yang Xiong 揚雄: the martial as self-conquest. Yang Xiong (53 BCE–18 CE), the Han writer who modeled his 法言 on the Analects ^[25], is asked what the civil and the martial are ^[26]:

或問「文」。曰：「訓。」問「武」。曰：「克。」未達。曰：「事得其序之謂訓，勝己之私之謂克。」

Someone asked about the civil. He said: "Instruction." He asked about the martial. He said: "克, prevailing." The questioner did not follow. He said: "When things find their proper order, that is called instruction; prevailing over what is private in oneself, that is called 克." This is not a commentary on the Analects; it is a definition of the martial virtue. It is the oldest text read for this history that joins 克 as self-conquest to the martial, and the Qing scholar Mao Qiling 毛奇齡 (1623–1716) ^[27] traces the reading of 克 as to prevail to it ^[28].

The Han and Wei reading: restraint. The 論語集解 compiled by He Yan 何晏 (died 249), the oldest commentary on the Analects to survive whole, gathers the readings of the Han and Wei scholars ^[29][30]. On 12.1 it gives Ma Rong 馬融 (79–166) ^[31] and Kong Anguo 孔安國 ^{[32] [33]}:

馬曰：“克己約身。”孔曰：“復，反也。身能反禮則為仁矣。”

Ma Rong says: "克己 is to restrain the body." Kong Anguo says: "復 is to return. If the body can return to the rites, that is goodness." Here 克 is 約, to bind, to restrain, and 己 is the body, the person who acts.

Before Zhu Xi: the reading of conquest. In the subcommentary of the Northern Song scholar Xing Bing 邢昺 on He Yan's text, the scholar Liu Xuan 劉炫 is quoted reading 克 another way ^[33]: 克訓勝也, 克 means "to prevail", and the body has its desires, so that 嗜欲與禮義戰，使禮義勝其嗜欲, desire and the rites are at war, and the rites are made to prevail over desire. The reading of 克 as conquest is therefore older than Zhu Xi.

The twelfth century. Zhu Xi 朱熹: the selfish self. Zhu Xi (1130–1200), the Southern Song thinker whose works include the 四書集注 and whose philosophy had a great influence on later ages ^[34], writes in his 論語集注 ^[35][36]:

仁者，本心之全德。克，勝也。己，謂身之私慾也。復，反也。禮者，天理之節文也。

Goodness is the whole virtue of the original mind. 克 is to prevail. 己 means the selfish desires of the person. 復 is to return. The rites are the measured pattern of heavenly principle. And: 故為仁者必有以勝私慾而復於禮，則事皆天理, so one who practices goodness must prevail over selfish desire and return to the rites; then every act is heavenly principle ^[36]. With Zhu Xi the word 己 itself is glossed as selfish desire, for the first time in the texts read for this history.

The line among the Buddhists. The four characters are cited in Chinese Buddhist writing as a Confucian saying. The 廣弘明集, in the Buddhist canon, has 又君子處世。貴能克己復禮濟時益物, a gentleman in the world prizes being able to restrain himself and return to the rites, to help his time and benefit others ^[37]. The Ming monk Ingen Ryūki 隠元隆琦 (1592–1673), who came to Japan in 1654 and founded the Ōbaku 黄檗 school there ^[38], says in his recorded sayings 一日克己復禮，則天下莫不歸仁，豈非圓明真切之證驗歟, if one day one restrains oneself and returns to the rites, all under heaven turns to goodness: is this not the proof of perfect and true clarity? ^[39].

Before 1705. Itō Jinsai 伊藤仁斎: setting oneself aside. Itō Jinsai (1627–1705), the Kyoto Confucian who founded the school of 古義学, the ancient meaning ^[40], wrote in his 論語古義, a commentary that opposes Zhu Xi's ^[41]:

此夫子以仁天下之道告之也。克。勝也。己者。對人之稱。復。反復也。克己者。猶舍己從人之意。言不有己也。克己則汎愛衆。復禮則有節文。

Here the Master tells him the way of goodness for all under heaven. 克 is to prevail. 己 is a word for oneself as against others. 復 is to do again and again. 克己 means the same as "setting oneself aside to follow others": to hold nothing as one's own. Overcoming the self, one loves all widely; repeating the rites, one has measure and pattern ^[42]. For Jinsai 克 is conquest, but what is conquered is self-regard toward others, not desire, and 復禮 is the rites done over and over.

Before 1728. Ogyū Sorai 荻生徂徠: fitting oneself into the rites. Ogyū Sorai (1666–1728), founder of the school of 古文辞学, the study of ancient words ^[43], read the line against both Zhu Xi and Jinsai in his 論語徴 ^[44]. It begins ^[45]:

克己復禮者。納身於禮也。爲仁者。行安民之道也。非謂克己復禮即仁也。

克己復禮 is fitting the person into the rites. 爲仁 is carrying out the way that brings peace to the people. It does not say that 克己復禮 is itself goodness. He takes Ma Rong's reading: 馬融曰。克己約身。此古來相傳之說。不可易矣, Ma Rong says, "克己 is to restrain the body": this is the reading handed down from of old, and it cannot be changed; and 克己者。治己而己莫有不可制者也, 克己 is governing oneself so that nothing in oneself is beyond control ^[45]. Of Zhu Xi's reading he writes ^[45]:

宋儒析以爲二。可謂謬已。勝私欲而復天理。浮屠之遺習。與斷無明証眞如何別乎。

The Song scholars split it in two; that is simply wrong. "Prevailing over selfish desire and returning to heavenly principle" is a habit left over from the Buddhists: how does it differ from "cutting off ignorance and realizing suchness"? And on 復, after allowing Kong Anguo's return as passable, he sets it beside 言可復也 in the first book of the Analects ^[45]:

然言可復也。復訓踐。故不如訓踐之勝也。

But in "words can be 復," 復 is glossed 踐, to tread. So nothing is better than glossing it 踐. For Sorai the rites are the former kings' rites, and 復禮 is to carry them out.

From Sorai's successors to Meiji. 復 as to tread. Kamei Nanmei 亀井南冥 (1743–1814), a Confucian and physician of Chikuzen who studied Sorai's learning ^[46], wrote in his 論語語由, printed in 1879 ^[47]:

克己復禮爲仁克勝也巳自己也復履也禮三代之禮也爲仁猶曰仁也言勝自己所欲履三代之禮之爲仁也

克己復禮爲仁: 克 is to prevail; 己 is oneself; 復 is to tread; 禮 is the rites of the three dynasties; 爲仁 is as if to say "is goodness." It means: prevailing over what one wants and treading the rites of the three dynasties is goodness. The print sets 巳 for the 己 of 巳自己也, beside 己 in 克己 and 自己 on the same leaf. Ikai Keisho 猪飼敬所 (1761–1845) ^[48], in his manuscript 四書標記, sides with Sorai on 復 as to tread, reporting a Han edict that he says writes 履禮, tread the rites; he also notes that the 史記 lacks 爲仁 and 一日 ^[49]. The kokugaku scholar Suzuki Akira 鈴木朖 (1764–1837) ^[50] put the line into Japanese prose in his 大学参解 of 1803 ^[51]:

己レヲヨクシテ礼ヲフムヲ仁トス。一日モ己レヲ克シテ礼ヲフマバ天下其仁ニ歸セン。

To master oneself and tread the rites is goodness. If for one day one masters oneself and treads the rites, the world will turn to that goodness. The print writes the first ヨク in kana and gives the second as 克 with the ruby ヨク, and writes シテ as a ligature; 礼ヲフム is the reading the encyclopedia calls the old one. He adds that the meaning of Zhu Xi's commentary on the Four Books 追々假名ガキノ書イデ、世ニ行ハル, has been coming out in books written in kana and is current in the world ^[51]. Okamatsu Ōkoku 岡松甕谷 (1820–1895), the Meiji Confucian and professor ^[52], says in his lectures on the Analects that 克己復禮ノ復モ、カヘルニアラスシテ、履ニ通シテフムナリ, the 復 of 克己復禮, too, is not "return" but stands for 履, to tread ^[53].

1875. Fukuzawa Yukichi: what a teacher can give. In 文明論之概略, An Outline of a Theory of Civilization ^[54], Fukuzawa argues that virtue cannot be taught by form, and takes the four characters as his example: show a pupil 克己復禮 in the classics and teach him their sense, and you still have not passed on the way; so explain more closely ^[55]:

克己トハ一身ノ私欲ヲ制スルヿナリ復禮トハ自分ノ本心ニ立返テ身ノ分限ヲ知ルヿナリ

克己 is governing one's own private desires; 復禮 is returning to one's own true heart and knowing one's place. The teacher's work, he says, ends there. His 克己 is Zhu Xi's, the governing of private desire; the 日本国語大辞典 gives this book as its earliest example of 復礼 in Japanese ^[4].

1893 to 1913. The ethics books. In his 徳学講義, Lectures on the Study of Virtue, with a preface of 1893, Nishimura Shigeki 西村茂樹 (1828–1902), who worked to raise a national morality grounded in Confucian ethics ^[56], prints the English word Self-control beside 克己, says that 克己 is honored by the moralists of East and West alike, and gives Zhu Xi's gloss of 己 as selfish desire, as the National Diet Library's full text gives the page ^[57]. A girls' ethics manual of 1913 prints Self-denial beside the four characters, as the same full text gives it ^[58]. Uno Tetsuto 宇野哲人 (1875–1974), the scholar of Chinese philosophy ^[59], explains the line in 孔子教 (1911) as treading the rites rather than returning to them, as the library's full text gives it ^[60].

1894. A jūjutsu manual: after the bout. The third part of 武道教範, A Manual of the Martial Way, by 隈元実道, published by the 振気館 in 1894 and devoted to the jūjutsu of the 振気流, tells of an examiner who shouted down a candidate for mopping his sweat and fanning himself the moment his bout was over, and goes on to the undisciplined bouts to be seen in the town dōjō (町道場) ^[61]:

負けたる者の癖として噫叱敗矣とか殘念したりとか何とか云ひ譯ヶ間敷卑劣根性を吐露するのみならす不作法千萬にし武道の尊嚴を汚すものあり克巳復禮以て武士道に於ける練體柔術の特色を發揮すへし

There are those who, as losers will, cry "Alas, I am beaten!" or "What a shame!" and pour out a mean spirit of excuses, and who are, besides, utterly ill-mannered, and soil the dignity of the martial way. By 克己復禮 bring out the character of the jūjutsu of training the body in bushidō. The print sets 克巳 for 克己. In this use the line is a rule for the dōjō: composure and manners after the bout, above all in defeat. A collection of bushidō texts of 1906 and a soldiers' handbook of 1909 both print the line, as the library's full text gives them ^[62][63].

1970 to 1974. China: Lin Biao and the campaign against Confucius. Lin Biao 林彪 (1909–1971), the Chinese general named Mao Zedong's successor in the Cultural Revolution, died in a plane crash after a failed plot ^[64]. In 1973 and 1974 the campaign 批林批孔, criticize Lin Biao, criticize Confucius, was waged against them both ^[65]. An editorial of the 人民日報 was printed as a book in 1974 under the title 批“克己复礼”：林彪妄图复辟资本主义的反动纲领, Criticize "restrain oneself and return to the rites": Lin Biao's reactionary program for restoring capitalism ^[66], and a Japanese study of 1999 reports that Lin Biao had written the line out as hanging scrolls, as the library's full text gives it ^[67].

2017. The reading still argued. Hayashi Fumitaka 林文孝, in a study of how modern Japanese editions read 爲仁, quotes an annotated edition of 2001 that reads the line 己に克ちて礼を復むを仁と為す, with the ruby ふむ on 復, and notes that it reads 復 as ふむ throughout though Zhu Xi glosses it 反 ^[68]. He concludes ^[68]:

『論語』顔淵篇第1章の「克己復礼為仁」は，朱熹『論語集注』の解釈に従う限り，「己に克ち礼に復りて仁を為す」と訓読する方向での解釈が正当である。

As long as one follows the interpretation of Zhu Xi's 論語集注, the right reading of "克己復礼為仁" in Analects 12.1 is the one that renders it "overcoming oneself and returning to the rites, one practices goodness." The Japanese reading most readers learned is contested even within Zhu Xi's tradition. A book on the kyūdō master 阿波研造 published in 1999 gives the line as one of his teachings, as the library's full text gives it ^[69].

What is not a source. The four characters are not the 史記's: its version is shorter. Yang Xiong's 勝己之私之謂克 is not a commentary on the Analects but a definition of the martial; it is its own text ^[26]. And Zhu Xi's selfish desires is not the Han reading: the 論語集解 gives restraint of the body ^[33], and both Sorai and Mao Qiling argue that 爲仁由己, two sentences later, uses 己 for the self that acts, which cannot be selfish desire ^[45][28].

克己復礼 in English

1861. James Legge, The Chinese Classics, vol. I, pp. 114–115. Yen Yuen asked about perfect virtue. The Master said, "To subdue one's self and return to propriety, is perfect virtue. If a man can for one day subdue himself and return to propriety, all under heaven will ascribe perfect virtue to him." His note gives the 約身 of the 論語集解, Zhu Xi's 勝 and 身之私欲, and the 合講's 克己非克去其己乃克去己中之私欲也, 克己 is not subduing and putting away the self but subduing and putting away the selfish desires in the self, and then writes: In all these statements there is an acknowledgment of the fact—the morally abnormal condition of human nature—which underlies the Christian doctrine of original sin. On 禮 he writes: It is not here ceremonies ^[9]. The Christian frame enters the English with its first translation, by the translator's own word.

1872. Legge, The Chinese Classics, vol. V, p. 641. The 春秋左氏伝 passage: It is contained in an ancient book that to subdue one's-self and return to propriety is perfect virtue ^[19].

1895. William Jennings, The Confucian Analects. Self-control, and a habit of falling back upon propriety, (virtually) effect it ^[70].

1898. Ku Hung-ming, The Discourses and Sayings of Confucius, p. 95. Renounce yourself and conform to the ideal of decency and good sense, with a note that the first part is the self-renunciation, Entsagen, of Goethe ^[71].

1910. W. E. Soothill, The Analects of Confucius, pp. 556–557. Virtue is the denial of self and response to what is right and proper. Deny yourself for one day and respond to the right and proper, and everybody will accord you Virtue, under the chapter heading Virtue is self-denial and seemliness. His own note says: Perhaps 'self-denial' connotes somewhat more than 克己, which seems to be merely subjective ^[10]. Reference books copied it: the English History of Chinese Philosophy of Fung Yu-lan, in a copy of 1952, gives Jen is the denial of self and response to the right and proper ^[72], and The Home Book of Proverbs, Maxims and Familiar Phrases of 1948 prints Virtue is the denial of self and response to what is right and proper under the address Analects. Bk. vii, ch. 29, which is wrong: the line is in Book XII, chapter 1 ^[73].

1938. Arthur Waley, The Analects of Confucius, Book XII, 1. He who can himself submit to ritual is Good. His note: In the Tso Chuan (Chao Kung, 12th year) Confucius is made to quote this as a saying from 'an old record.' The commentators, not understanding the archaic use of k'o ('able to') turned k'o chi into 'self-conquest,' an error fruitful in edification ^[11]. Chan's note also lists to be able to return to propriety by oneself among other interpretations ^[12]; the commentators read for this history do not give it.

1963. Wing-tsit Chan, A Source Book in Chinese Philosophy, p. 38. To master oneself and return to propriety is humanity, with the note: The word k'o was understood by Ma Jung as "to control" but Chu Hsi interpreted it to mean "to master," that is, to conquer the self since it is an embodiment of selfish desires ^[12].

1979. D. C. Lau, The Analects, XII.1. To return to the observance of the rites through overcoming the self constitutes benevolence ^[74].

1998. Roger T. Ames and Henry Rosemont, The Analects of Confucius: A Philosophical Translation, 12.1. Through self-discipline and observing ritual propriety (li) one becomes authoritative in one's conduct; their note gives the 春秋左氏伝 passage and says It is important not to "naturalize" a notion of "ego-self" that then has to be overcome ^[75].

2003. Edward Slingerland, Analects, p. 125. Restraining yourself and returning to the rites (keji fuli) constitutes Goodness, following, he says, Ma Rong and Huang Kan 皇侃 in taking 克 as imposing restraint, and taking 己 as the simple first person rather than as selfish desires, as Zhu Xi would have it ^[13].

2007 to 2014. Burton Watson: To master the self and return to ritual is to be humane ^[76]. David Hinton: Giving yourself over to Ritual – that is Humanity ^[77]. Annping Chin: Restrain the self and return to the rites, with the note that the reading of Song metaphysics is not what Confucius meant to say ^[78].

Today: JMdict gives exercising self-restraint and conforming to the rules of etiquette and formality ^[2]. From 1909 the English dictionaries lead 克己 with self-denial, a word the Han commentators, Sorai and the 春秋左氏伝 do not support, and Soothill doubted the word in the same book that made it current. What a rendering must keep is that the self is not abolished but governed, and that the rites are something one does.

A reading

The line has an answer for its source and none for its sense, and the record keeps the disagreement whole. I read it as disciplining oneself and carrying out the rites is goodness, and I give my reasons word by word. 己 is oneself: the 春秋左氏伝 sets the saying against a king who could not restrain himself, and 爲仁由己 two sentences later uses 己 for the self that acts, as Sorai and Mao Qiling both argue, so Zhu Xi's selfish desires asks the same word to mean two things in one speech. 克 I read as restraint, with Ma Rong, because Sorai's case is strong that 克 in the classics often means to govern and not to defeat; but the conquest reading is old too, in Yang Xiong, in Liu Xuan and in Du Yu's note on the very passage, and the 春秋左氏伝 does not settle it. 復 I read as tread, with Sorai, Kamei Nanmei, Ikai Keisho, Okamatsu Ōkoku and Suzuki Akira: it is the reading Japan made its own, and it makes the rites something done rather than a place returned to, which is what the four 非禮勿 that follow ask of the eyes, the ears, the mouth and the body. Zhu Xi's reading deserves its full weight, all the same: it is the one Fukuzawa, the Meiji ethics books and the jūjutsu manual of 1894 used, and it is how the English reached self-denial, through Legge's own note on original sin. The modern Japanese dictionaries, which give restraining oneself and keeping to propriety, stand nearer to Ma Rong than to Zhu Xi. The dōjō use of 1894 is the line at its plainest: lose, and do not complain; bow, and keep the form.

Notes

• The 日本国語大辞典's earliest Japanese example of the four-character word, a 談義本 of 1771, is given here as the dictionary quotes it; the book was not read for this history.
• The readings of the names 隈元実道 and 阿波研造 are not given in the sources read for this history.
• Ikai Keisho's 履禮 in a Han edict is his report; the edict was not read for this history.

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Authors

Tim Jackowski (Systems Architect, Takase Studios, LLC) · 典 Ten (Anthropic Claude Opus 5.5, Takase Studios LLC)

AI written · Ten wrote the history. Tim Jackowski commissioned it and answers for it.

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