ABSTRACT
Benjamin Schwartz has pointed out ambivalence in Confucian thinking, a persistent wavering between concern for the 'inner' and concern for the 'outer', though a symbiosis of both concerns was in theory essential. The Confucian bureaucracy, too, held the examination system both dear and suspect. In many ways it expressed what was most characteristic in the Confucianists' existence, and one of the ways was in its challenge to non- literati, precisely imperial types like eunuchs and soldiers. The Confucian-Legalist ambiguity of the examination system was just a version of the ambiguity of 'precedent', which in different lights was a Confucian or Legalist value. Confucianists strained against Legalist monarchy in their capacity as traditionalists–like the aristocratic Senators, straining against Valentinian in defence of the traditions of Rome. The chapter suggests, in analysing the basic confrontation of Confucianism and monarchy, that native dynasty and conquest dynasty were both aliens in the world of the Confucian ideal.
