THE COMPLETE WORKS OF HAN FEI TZŬ

韩  非  子

A Classic of Chinese Political Science

Translated from the Chinese with Introduction and Notes
by W. K. Liao

(Source)

The Biography of Han Fei Tzŭ By Ssŭ-ma Ch`ien 

BY SSŭ-MA CH’IEN

{Historical Records, Bk. lxiii. Bodde’s English rendering of the greater part of the same biography is suggestive (Fung Yu-lan, A History of Chinese Philosophy: The Period of the Philosophers, Bodde’s trans., p. 320), but in many points I have found it necessary to make a different rendering.}

Han Fei was one of the princes of the Han State. He was fond of studies in penology, epistemology, law, and statecraft, tracing his principles to the Yellow Emperor and Lao Tzŭ. Fei, being a habitual stutterer, was unable to deliver fluent speeches, but proficient in writing books. While he was studying with Li Ssŭ under Hsün Ch`ing, Ssŭ considered himself not as successful as Fei. Fei, when seeing Han dwindling and weakening, frequently submitted memorials to the Throne and presented counsels to the King of Han. The King of Han, however, was incapable of taking them into use. Thereupon Han Fei was incensed with the ruler who in governing the state never attempted to improve laws and institutions; never attempted to make use of his august position and thereby rule his subjects; never attempted to enrich the state and strengthen the army; and, in choosing personages, instead of employing worthies, elevated frivolous and dissolute vermin and placed them in posts above men of real merit. He alleged that the literati by means of letters disturbed laws and the cavaliers by means of weapons transgressed prohibitions; and that in time of ease the ruler treated famous personages with great favour, but in case of emergency he called armed warriors to the colours. Now that those who had been fed were not taken into active service and those who had been taken into active service were not fed, Han Fei lamented for honest and upright gentlemen over their inadmissibility to wicked and crooked ministers, observed the changing factors of success and failure of the preceding ages, and, accordingly, composed such works as Solitary Indignation, Five Vermin, Inner and Outer Congeries of Sayings, Collected Persuasions, Difficulties in the Way of Persuasion, which altogether covered upwards of one hundred thousand words. Though Han Fei knew very well the difficulties of persuasion, wherefore his work on the difficulties in the way of persuasion was very comprehensive, yet he met an untimely death in Ch`in after all and was unable to rescue himself from the final calamity. . . .{Vide infra, chap. xii. Here I have purposely omitted Ssŭ-ma Ch`ien’s citation of Han Fei Tzŭ’s "Difficulties in the Way of Persuasion". }

Someone had introduced his Works in Ch`in. Reading the Works, Solitary Indignation and Five Vermin, the King of Ch`in exclaimed: "Lo! Only if I, the King, can meet the author and become friendly with him, I would not regret my death thereafter." "These are Works of Han Fei," remarked Li Ssŭ.

Therefore, Ch`in launched an attack upon Han. At first, the King of Han did not take Fei into service. When the emergency came, he sent Fei as a good-will envoy to Ch`in. The King of Ch`in liked him. Yet before he had confidence in him and took him into service, Li Ssŭ and Yao Ku did an ill office to him. Before the Throne, they slandered him, saying: "Han Fei is one of the princes of the Han State. As Your Majesty is now thinking of conquering the feudal lords, Fei will in the long run work for Han and not for Ch`in. Such is the natural inclination of human nature. Now, if Your Majesty does not take him into service, and, after keeping him long, sends him home, it is to leave a source of future trouble. The best is to censure him for an offence against the law." Considering this admonition reasonable, the King of Ch`in instructed officials to pass sentence on Han Fei. In the meantime, Li Ssŭ sent men to bring poisonous drugs to Han Fei and order him to commit suicide. Han Fei wanted to plead his own case before the Throne and vindicate his innocence but could not have an audience with the King. Later, the King of Ch`in repented and instructed men to pardon him, but Fei had already died (233 b.c. ). . . .

Preface
to
"The Complete Works of Han Fei Tzŭ
with Collected Commentaries"

Han Fei lived at the time when the weakened State of Han was facing an imminent danger. On account of his remoteness in kinship to the ruling house, he could not advance his career and join governmental service. Witnessing the vices of the itinerants and diplomatists, who beguiled the lords of men and thereby sought for their own advantages, and the evils of the wicked and villainous people, who committed violence and outrage at their own pleasure and could not be suppressed, he bitterly criticized administrators of state affairs for their inability to exercise the powers vested in them, enforce penal laws definitely, forbid wicked deeds decisively, purge the government and the country from corruptions, and scheme for peace and order. He took the fate of the country as his own and pointed out the obstacles in its way. As there was left no chance for him to reform the surroundings, he wrote laboriously and thereby clarified his proposed remedies. Therefore, in thought he was vehement and in word informative, thus differentiating himself sharply from the rest of the thinkers and writers of the Era of the Warring States (403-222 B.C.). 

After reading his literary remains in the present age and inferring therefrom the political trends of his times, everybody is inclined to maintain that aside from Han Fei’s teachings, there could be no other ways and means to create order out of chaos in those days. Indeed, benevolence and beneficence are significant means of mass control, but are not ways of suppressing wickedness and outrage. Mencius had taught the rulers of his days benevolence and righteousness and abhorred any discussion on the problem of profit. According to Fei’s sayings, however, "The learned men of the age, when giving counsels to the lord of men, do not tell them to harass the wicked and rapacious ministers with authority and severity, but all speak about benevolence, and compassion. So do the present-day sovereigns admire the names of benevolence and righteousness but never carefully observe their actual effects." As a matter of fact, what the then sovereigns admired was not what Mencius had called benevolence and righteousness only, but was, as the itinerants emphasized, "either benevolence and righteousness or profit." As regards the advice to employ authority and severity, nobody but Fei, a relative of the royal family, dared to utter it. 

Han Fei’s ideas and principles, no doubt, involve biases and bigotries. Yet his teaching that law should be made clear and penalty should be made strict to save all lives out of chaos, purge All-under-Heaven from calamities, prevent the strong from oppressing the weak, the many from transgressing the few, and enable the aged and infirm to live a happy ending and the young and the orphan to grow up to their best, is an emphasis on the utility of the legal code and on the propriety of severity and leniency, which in motive and purpose does not differ from Mencius’s advice how to utilize ease and leisure and clarify the rules of political and penal administration. 

After his theory had failed to take effect in Han, the legalism enforced by Ch`in happened to be identical with it, till she succeeded in exterminating the rest of the Warring States and annexed All-under-Heaven. Accordingly, Tung Tzŭ-nai said, "Ch`in practised Han Fei’s theory." In the light of the facts that when Fei was appointed a good-will envoy to Ch`in, the state policy of Ch`in had already been well fixed and her supreme position in the world had been successfully established, and that no sooner had he entered Ch`in than he was put to death, how could it be said that Ch`in had acted on his theory? 

His writings altogether cover twenty books. Hitherto few of the commentaries have succeeded in elucidating the whole text. It is not until my younger cousin, Hsien-shen, has collected all the commentaries, corrected the errors, supplied the hiatuses, and discussed the meanings and implications of dubious points, that the author’s text appears lucidly readable. The Tao of the Sovereign and its following Works were most probably written during the lifetime of the author. The First Interview with the King of Ch`in and others at the opening of the text were subsequently added. In these memorials Fei attempted to persuade the Ruler of Ch`in not to ruin Han and thereby schemed for the preservation of the ancestral shrines of his people. His plan was extremely unique, wherefore every gentleman sees the more reason to sympathize with his patriotic cause. 

Old Man of the Sunflower Garden,

Wang Hsien-ch`ien.
Twelfth Month, Winter,
22nd Year of Kuang-hsü
(January, 1897).

                                               Foreword
                                                      to
                          "The Complete Works of Han Fei Tzŭ
                                with Collected Commentaries"

The Works of Han Fei Tzŭ in the remote past had Yin Chi-chang’s Commentary {尹知章注} as mentioned in the Records of Arts and Letters in the History of T`ang {唐書藝文志} The number of the books was not recorded most probably because the Commentary has been lost long before. During the Yüan Dynasty (A.D 1279-1367) Ho Huan said that Li Tsan’s Commentary {李瓚注} had been in existence. Yet Li Tsan’s life and work can no longer be traced. The edition which appeared during the Ch`ien-tao period (A.D 1165-1173) {During the reign of Emperor Hsiao-tsung.} of the Sung Dynasty (A.D. 960-1279) bears no name of the editor. Nobody has as yet disclosed the anonymity. All the quotations and citations from Han Fei Tzŭ’s Works as found in T`ai-p`ing Imperial Library {太平禦覽}, the Literary Works on Facts and Varieties {事類賦}, and Classical Selections for Beginners {初學記} coincide with the text of the Ch`ien-tao edition. If so, the anonym must have lived before the Sung Dynasty. 

As regards these early commentaries, they do not completely cover the whole works of the author, and, moreover, contain mistakes and errors. Nevertheless, these pioneering efforts have proved exceedingly helpful to scholars of recent times. Accordingly, I have juxtaposed the various commentaries and from place to place interposed my own viewpoints among them. In consequence, I have compiled the present work, The Complete Works of Han Fei Tzŭwith Collected Commentaries in which the author’s text is largely based on the Ch`ien-tao edition whose errors are corrected and hiatuses are supplied in accordance with the contents of other editions. 

Wang Hsien-shen.

Changsha,
First Winter Month,
21st Year of Kuang-hsü
(November, 1895).