From Rite To Law

There is no impassable chasm between rite and law. As professorGE ZHAO GUANG states: "developing from rule of courtesy intorule of law is but a natural result concerning rebuilding social order atthat time. When the power of self-conscious rituals is inadequate tobridle people's heart or consolidate the society, compulsory legalsystem becomes necessary. On the surface, the Confucianists believein rule of courtesy, while the so called Legalists involving insociety-governing pursue rule of law, however, their thinking isfundamentally on the same track: both of them concern social orderand base their actions on general assumption of human nature. Thedifference is that the former believes human nature is originally evilwhile the latter thinks human is inherently good in nature; the formerhas a perspective of humanistic thinker but the latter holds pragmaticpolitician stand. As long as the social order fails to be straightened outwith self-consciousness or the moral collapse cannot be preventedwith rituals, when the Confucianists who used to sit back andpontificate get in the ranks of Legalists to administer practically, theywill inevitably change their standpoint." (from Volume 1 by GE ZHAO GUANG, published by Fu DanUniversity Press).The starting point of this article is to probe the procedure of ritetransferring to law and try to explain the theoretic connection betweenthem. However, limited by personal talent, it seems impossible for thewriter to grasp such a broad subject, so only XUN ZI and HAN FEIare selected for discussion. It is based on their special positions andtheir great achievements in the development of both trends of thought:rule of courtesy and rule of law.Divided into 4 parts, the first one of this article explore the procedure of "rite" being established as core of XUN ZI's thought, thesecond and the third parts make detailed analysis of both thinkingsystems: rule of courtesy and rule of law respectively; and finally thefourth part tries to explain, by exploring the fundamentalcharacteristics of HAN FEI's thoughts, when and how rule of courtesymay transfer to rule of law.