f appropriate behavior in any social setting, but in its best formulation, li is not simply an outward ceremony. It manifests what has been internalized, i.e., adopted as a moral code. Moral leadership comes into play immediately because Confucius's notion of li and jen are meant to govern human interaction at the most intimate and at the most wide-ranging level, i.e., through the whole "way," or tao, of life. That is, he speaks to interpersonal relationships as well as social organization. This social organization is hierarchical, a structure of superior and inferior beings, in which all know their place. The fact that civil servants in China were steeped in Confucian training says much about the reach that Confucius envisioned for his approach to lif
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