The Master said, "'It is according to the rules of propriety,' they say. --
'It is according to the rules of propriety,' they say.
Are gems and silk all that is meant by propriety?
'It is music,' they say. -- 'It is music,' they say.
Are bells and drums all that is meant by music?" (17.9 (11))

It is interesting to read Wang Bi's (226-249 CE) commentary of this saying,
cited by E. Slingerland in his Analects translation with commentaries:

"The governing principle of ritual is respect; jade and silk are merely the
means for expressing and adorning respect. The governing principle of music
is harmony; bells and drums are merely the tools with which music is made.
In Confucius' age, that which went by the name of "ritual" emphasized gifts
and offerings at the expense of respect, and that which went by the name of
"music" failed to harmonize with the Ya and Song, despite its profusion of
bells and drums. Therefore Confucius is here attempting to rectify the
meanings of these words." (Ya and Song refer to parts of the Book of Odes:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Book_of_Songs_(Chinese)

So it seems to me that to Wang Bi: Rules of propriety, or "ritual" are linked to respect, an inner feeling grounding outer behavior
Music is linked to harmony perhaps referring to an aesthetic inner sense.

Zhu Xi ( 1130-1200) wrote his commentary 1000 years later, perhaps with Wang Bi's on his mind because he also mentions harmony and respect (from Daniel Gardner's Zhu Xi's Reading of the Analects):
"Feeling reverential, he puts it into practice with jade and silk: it is this that constitutes ritual. Feeling harmonious, he issues it forth with bells and drums: it is this that constitutes music. To neglect the fundamental and concentrate only on the incidentals is surely not what is meant by ritual and music."
Zhu Xi then quotes his predecessor Cheng Yi (1033-1107 CE) who connected ritual with "order", and the order with "harmony", giving the whole saying a cosmic, metaphysical turn:
"Master Cheng said, "Ritual is nothing but order; music is nothing but harmony. It is just that these two characters have many meanings. Under
heaven, there is nothing that is not ritual and music. Suppose, for instance, you arrange these two chairs. If one of them is not upright, there will be no order, and if there is no order, there will be irregularity, and if there is irregularity, there will be no harmony. Take, too, the case of bandits: they do the most unprincipled things-but they still have ritual and music. It is essential that they have a leader and subordinates who obey; only then they are capable of banditry. If such is not the case, there will be uncontrolled rebellion, and they will be incapable of uniting together in banditry even for a day. There is no place that ritual and music do not reach. It is essential that students recognize this."

So here the whole cosmos is ritual (order) and music (harmony)! And even more amazing, it's, to quote Nietzsche "beyond good and evil" even bandits follow a form of ritual and music, although certainly a less accomplished form of them. Here with Cheng Yi we have a true philosopher, practically in a Western or Greek sense.
Thomas





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