Chinese Confucius Kong Qiu, known as Kongzi or Kongfuzi, Latinized by the missionaries Jesuits of the XVIIe century in Confucius. The philosophical and religious doctrines of Confucius, which has defied the political systems for 2500 years, recommend the return to morals while calling with the rights of weak and the duties of the powerful ones.

At the time where China one period disturbed by the competition of its princes crossed, it tried to inculcate to the sovereigns art to control by the virtue, an ideal which marked all Far East of Chinese mobility.    

Confucius passes to have sought during thirteen years an enlightened sovereign who agreed to try out his political system, but, arrived to the power and while having tested inconsistency, Confucius would quickly have returned to the meditation and teaching. Its precepts - the respect of the traditions, the requirement of tolerance and humanism - were taken again by a whole current of thought, the Confucianism, which formed the heart of the political ideology, the humanistic ideal and the daily behavior in the Chinese company.  
 

Persuaded that it was necessary to moralize the policy, Confucius, appointed governor of the town of Zhongdu, sought into practice to put its ideas on the ideal government. Its disciples affirmed that its exercise of the power was so remarkable that “at the end of one year at the four cardinal points all took it model”. The tradition still makes him an intendant of public works, a Minister for Justice in the neighborhoods of 5 av. J. - C., then an political adviser of the Lu principality. But, isolated of this station, it took again, from 497, its life of wandering and arrived in pricipauté of Wei.  

At the end fourteen years of absence, Confucius would have returned in its native land and would have devoted under investigation texts, songs and the ritual old ones. According to the historian Sima Qian, it compiled, altered or wrote several parts of the large canonical texts of antiquity, in particular the Book of the documents (Shujing), the Book of the odes (Shijing) and the Book of the changes (Yijing). It would have also composed a chronicle of the Lu principality, Annals of springs and autumns (Chunqiu).  

Confucius would have died in 479 av. J. - C., at the age of soixante-douze years, and would have been buried not far from the Lu capital. The supposed site of its burial became a place of sacrifices dedicated to its memory.  
 
Destiny of the Confucianism

Unlike Confucius, which taught a good part of its existence and vainly tried to put its ideal company into practice, its disciples reached high administrative loads.  

The ideas of Kong Master, in particular his design according to which the Universe, from its gasoline, is a moral universe, were taken up more than one century later by the philosopne Mengzi, said Mencius (towards 371 to 289), which gave to the Confucian thought a mystical dimension. Whereas according to him the moral nature of the man proceeds of principles metaphysics, Xunzi (towards 289-235) - another thinker Confucianist who did not adhere to the positive description of the nature of the man by Mencius - will affirm that ethics is a utilitarian concept answering a need practical and called to improve the human nature.  

Official philosophy
The development of the Confucianism will be slowed down by the advent of Qin Shi Huangdi, the sovereign who founded the Empire by the unification of the kingdoms and Chinese principalities (221 av. J. - C.): the doctrines of the State are based then on the school of the legists, centralizing and autocratic. But under the dynasty of Han (206 av. J. - C. - 220 apr. J. - C.) the Confucianism becomes the official philosophy of the State, in spite of its considerable divergences with the taoism and Buddhism. The great classics Confucianists are with the honor and the imperial religion is closely associated with the precepts with Confucius. The emperor, who makes a worship official to the Sky and the Earth, promulgates the lunisolar calendar (thus mobile) and opens the agricultural work by tracing the first furrow solemnly: he becomes kind the first priest of the State. Thus conforming to the ritual regulations and putting its life harmonizes some with the Universe, it achieves the rites and the duties with regard to the people which it directs. It recruits civils servant well-read men, through a system of examinations based on the analysis of the traditional ones.  

Under Sui (586-618) and Tang (618-907) - the golden age of the taoism then Buddhism - an official worship is dedicated to Confucius, of the temples are built on its behalf and “mandarinat” improves with a marking system which judges the civils servant according to “four fundamental qualities” and a scale of “twenty-seven perfections”. However it is especially with the dynasty Song (960-1279) that the doctrines of Kong Master know a new breath, grace in particular to the most important current of this time: “neoconfucianism” of Zhu Xi.  

Governor of province, Zhu Xi (1130-1200) studied the philosophical principles of the Universe, in particular Li and the IQ, two concepts which are connected respectively with the “form” and with the “matter” forged by the Greek philosophers. For the Chinese thinker, whose ideas will remain in vogue to the XX E century, the ultimate end of the man is to open with the supreme Good (a concept close to that of Plato), by the study of traditional like by the observation of the company and nature.  

The philosophers, in particular Wang Shouren (1472-1529), known as Wang Yangming, will still look further into this penetrated neoconfucianism of concepts taoists and Buddhist, often from the critical point of view, with Gu Yanwu (1613-1682), Huang Zongxi (1610-1695) or Dai Zhen (1724-1777).  

Around 1850, the Confucianism will be reinforced, in reaction to the occidentalization and the attempts at christianization of the Chinese company. But, with the advent of the Republic (1911), the young intellectuals reject Confucius, which they consider feudal and reactionary; the State will remain however close to the tradition Confucianist. Indeed, if Mao Zedong endeavors to eliminate the Confucianism (“I have haï Confucius as of the eight years age”, he will write) as well as all the foreign beliefs and ideologies with the Marxism, the main roads of the communist system - absolute obedience with the intellectual guides, strict hierarchisation of the company, subordination of the private property to the public property - are by no means opposite with the designs Confucianists, and the thought of Confucius was, officially at least, in the middle of the last confrontation between Mao and Lin Biao. If it does not have any more course today as philosophical and religious doctrines in China which seeks its political and spiritual way, the Confucianism less did not leave of them deep traces in the social mentalities and attitudes.  

Confucianism out of China
Conveyed by Chinese civilization, the Confucianism was transposed in the adjoining countries (Korea, Japan, Viet-Nam) who impregnated themselves with his culture. In Europe, the Confucianism was discovered to the XVII E century, thanks to the missionaries Jesuits. At the same time like moral philosophy and system of government, it aroused a great interest near the Western philosophers. Whereas Voltaire and Leibniz idealize it, Diderot or Montesquieu is shown held because of its narrow traditionalism. But, in general, the Occident sees in Confucius the inventor of a humanism. In Japan, which officializes the Confucianism to the XVII E century, various schools adapt the doctrines: that of Yamaga Soko retains in particular the strict hierarchisation of the company and makes adopt the bushidô, code of honor of the warlike caste. The school of Dazai Shundai, to the XVIII E century, will direct the Confucianism towards economic problems, giving up its religious aspect.