Confucian Statecraft and Korean Institutions. Yu Hyongwon and the Late Choson Dynasty - James B. Palais

REMOLDING THE RULING CLASS 123

avaricious rulers by changing or confusing ancient laws to satisfy a ruler's desires.

As a matter of custom and tradition these laws continued into later generations.

They became difficult to change because later rulers, no matter how pure in spirit

and well-intentioned. lacked the learning necessary for an understanding of the

superiority of ancient institutions. Even if they had the best of intentions, they

were also obstructed by the advice of inferior men surrounding them. Eventu-

ally it became commonplace for people of any age to feel that the problems they

faced were created by the circumstances of the recent past that were radically

different from ancient times, and that mores and the nature of human feelings

themselves also differed from the ancients. "But alas," he objected, "can any-

thing be more regrettable than this [view ]7"6

Yu's belief in the applicability of ancient models at least in principle was an

inseparable part of his commitment to reform, but he also insisted that he was

not simply a dogmatic fundamentalist:

Some people say that. "No matter what the problem is the only thing you have to

do is look for what's best. Why is it necessary to stick to old tracks and in every

case restore what was [ancicnt practice]?" I would reply that it is not a case of

sticking to old tracks. No matter what the case, whatever the ancients practiced

is the best, and whatever the people of later ages [huse] did is the worst. There-

fore, if we are to adopt what is best, naturally we should restore [the practices

of] the ancients, and if we are to abandon what is worst, we should change what

is done at the present time .... Mencius said: "Can you say a person understands

if in governing he does not put into practice the ways of early kings?" These are

truly knowledgeable words.7

What distinguished Yu from fellow Neo-Confucians who ascribed to the study
of the Way (tohak) and emphasized the moral regeneration of individuals
through self-rectification was that he felt that the fault with the later age of imper-
fection after the fall of the Chou dynasty was to be traced to imperfect laws and
institutions, particularly in the realm of education and recruitment for office. "If
human nature [injong] in the later age is frivolous and not serious, it is because
the laws [fa] make it that way." The Chinese literature on the subject of recruit-
ment was crystal clear, Yu instructed his readers. All that was needed was "an
intelligent ruler to change what is evil and to restore what is good; then in what
is [as little time] as it takes to tum your hand over you can make what is in decline
flourish and put confusion into order."H
Yu's belief in the eternal capacity for moral purity by mankind signified that
the dogma about the decline of humanity from the Chou to later dynasties was
not equivalent to the fall from grace in Christian theology. The Confucians did
not believe that a single act or a cataclysmic event like the Ch'in unification in
220 B.C. meant that mankind had irredeemably fallen into evil until the mes-
sianic appearance of a savior or the final solution of accumulated human evil
on Judgment Day. Since man still retained his innate capacity for goodness, he