On the Significance of Yanghuo’s Seventeenth Chapter in The Analects of Confucius in the History of Confucian Music

The Analects of Confucius emphasizes unity of music form and content,and believes that music and art are the good which conforms to Confucius idea of and virtue and the beautiful of harmony and golden mean.Tao and music have essential connection,and benevolence is their existence prerequisite.And Music was inferior to Tao but later became equal to music,and became central part of Confucianism.Composing music was an essential political task in a dynasty,which concerned about political history rather than social reality and this idea didn’t change a lot until period of Mo zi and Xun zi.The Confucian music is not rigid and closed;it evolves to be perfect based on concern about history and reality,so it can be taken into mainstream of ruling thought.