The political significance of Confucianism also extends to its role in helping to unify -- culturally and politically -- a large and diverse swath of East Asia under the control of the imperial government. First of all, as with the secularism that resulted from the influence of Confucian humanism, the ability of Confucianism to appeal to unity is rooted in its core tenets, including an emphasis on common ethical standards, social harmony, and merit. In his 1938 book “The Wisdom of Confucius,” Chinese author Lin Yutang summarized the Confucian ideal as “a rationalized social order through the ethical approach, based on personal cultivation. It aimed at political order by laying the basis for it in moral order, and it sought political harmony …show more content…
They would come to be known as “scholar-officials,” embodiments of one of Confucianism’s most well-known ideals. However, in catalyzing their emergence, Confucianism did not erase the divisions of China’s massive and diverse population. Indeed, among its most remarkable feats was the maintenance of its own influence in the face of centuries of challenges from external and internal forces. In the end, Confucianism’s ability to evolve without sacrificing its core principles proved to be not only a means to achieve its own sustainability, but also one that helped unify the Chinese people. This ideological flexibility was one of the main reasons for its early successes in consolidating political power in the Han dynasty: the first major evolution of Confucianism came through the absorption of Legalist practices that had maintained order under the Qin. In the centuries that followed, “without losing its moral zeal, Confucianism developed into a useful tool of government, precisely because it was flexible and eclectic” (Garraty & Gay, 124). The Confucian tradition would bend without breaking in the face of competition; it took elements of the Legalists’ authoritarian governing style and infused it with Confucian ethics. When Taoism and Buddhism rose to prominence, Confucians developed a superficially religious cosmology that provided a metaphysical basis to their ethical beliefs. The result was a ideological system that evolved to reflect the values of the Chinese people without sacrificing its basic principles: “In one form or another, the Han mixture of Legalist pragmatism [...], Confucian ethics [...], and Taoist cosmology [...] dominated the Chinese political, social, and intellectual world right up to end