Abstract
The Confucian system of thought, society, and government has a long JL history in Korea. Knowledge of some of its forms can be traced in the earliest days of our real knowledge of the peninsula. For many centuries, its influence on Korea was continuous but not pervasive. With the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, however, its influence on government and society began to be decisive and, especially from the sixteenth century on, it dominated almost completely the thought and philosophy of the peninsula, continuing to do so until the opening of the present century. So closely were Confucianism and Korea intertwined during this latter long period, that Korean history cannot be understood without Confucianism while the study of Confucianism itself will be greatly enriched by resort to its Korean experience.