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When Zigong said that he did not want to sacrifice the sheep for the New Moon Ceremony, Confucius replied, “You love the sheep – I love the ceremony.” It is likely that this one was his way of telling Zigong that he was thinking foolishly. We can deduce this by looking at the way Confucius felt about the past and what role he felt that ceremony and ritual had to play in remembering the past.
Confucius said that he trusted and loved the past (7.1). By looking to the past you are able to learn from people’s successes and failures. Zhou, for example, had modeled itself on the previous two dynasties and was successful because of this. Since Confucius also said that he considered himself to be a follower of Zhou, we can conclude that he felt that for a dynasty to follow the example of previous successful dynasties was in its best interest. In the same way as the Zhou dynasty, Confucius also believed it was important for individual people to look at the past and to adopt the traits and the customs of those who had been successful. He believed that building upon the example of success from previous generations of people would ensure ones own success. This attitude towards the past and how it should guide our present day decisions is similar to the old idea expressed in the phrase “if it isn’t broke, don’t fix it.”
Based on his view of the past way of doing things being the right one (so long as it had led to success for people in the past), Confucius further believed that the best way to keep from deviating from this way would be to focus on ceremony and ritual. He believed that without ceremony and ritual there would be no way to be sure that a person was adhering to the traditions of the past. If a person did not adhere to the traditions of the past then they would be failing to follow in the footsteps of those who have already proven themselves to be successful. He says that a gentleman restrains himself with ritual so that he will not be...