Confucianism used to be the single most significant thing in Chinese life. It affected everything in China: education, government, and attitudes toward behavior in public and private life. Confucianism is not a religion, but it is more a philosophy and a guide to morality and good government. At the time Confucius was born, China was in a constant state of war, and rapid political change altered the structure of Chinese society so much that people no longer respected the established behavioral guidelines. Confucius stated that the ideal person was one of good moral character. The ideal person was also truly reverent in worship and sincerely respected his father and his ruler. He was expected to think for himself, guided by definite rules of conduct. As Confucius said, he was expected to take "as much trouble to discover what was right as lesser men take to discover what will pay". Confucius believed that this type of behavior by rulers had a greater effect on the people than did laws or codes of punishment. So when these types of people were rulers, their moral example would inspire the people to lead good lives. Confucius died sometime around 479 B.C., and his philosophy was not very well known. If it weren't for his disciples his ideas would probably still be unknown. Confucius never wrote anything down himself; his disciples wrote all of his sayings down in a collection of books called the Analects. These contain all that modern day man knows about Confucius.

Confucianism was concerned primarily with the needs of society, and unlike Buddhism and Taoism, not the ability for a person to live in harmony with nature. Beginning in the 200's B.C. Buddhism and Taoism began to affect and reshape the standards of Confucianism, and things such as nature came into play. Around A.D. 200 to 600, there was a rapid decline in the Confucian Beliefs in China. This was partly because Confucianism now had to compete with Buddhism and Taoism, which were developed around this time. Buddhism and Taoism were largely concerned with the meaning of suffering and death, while Confucianism largely ignored these.