CONFUCIANISM--I
Various religious notions and practices of the people of Weihaiwei
have been already dealt with in connection with other subjects, but
it remains to investigate more thoroughly the relations that exist
in this part of the Empire between the so-called Three Religions of
China (Confucianism, Taoism and Buddhism) and the extent to which they
severally contribute to the religious life of the people.
A writer quoted in the Ning-hai Chronicle says of the inhabitants of
this district that their customs are thoroughly orthodox, or, as he
expresses it, "in complete accordance with the doctrines of Tsou and
Lu,"--the native states of Mencius and Confucius respectively. The
rituals connected with the worship--if it may be so termed[251]--of
Confucius himself have, however, no place in the ordinary religious
observances of the millions of China, and this is just as true of
Shantung--the modern province which includes the two ancient states
just mentioned--as of any other part of the Empire. Practically those
rituals are carried out only by the governing classes in their official
capacity; one therefore finds few traces of the personal Confucian cult
except in the cities, at the spring and autumn ceremonies held under
the auspices of the district-magistrates and higher officials in the
_Shêng Miao_ or Holy (Confucian) Temples. Such rites, accordingly,
have no place in the Territory of Weihaiwei, though they are carried
out with all the orthodox ceremonies in the neighbouring cities of
Jung-ch'êng, Wên-têng and Ning-hai. Not only is it the case that the
officials alone are regarded as competent to carry out the elaborate
memorial or semi-religious services connected with the cult of the
sage, but to a great extent the same is true in respect of some of the
far more ancient rites which are regarded as coming under the head of
Confucianism because Confucius "transmitted" them to posterity with
his consecrating approval. Such are the biennial sacrifices to Heaven
and Earth and to the Land and Grain, and the spring sacrifice at the
Altar of Agriculture. The high-priest at these great ceremonies is the
Emperor himself, and it is only by his deputies (that is to say the
_ti-fang kuan_ or territorial officials) that similar rites can be
performed in places other than the capital.
Yet it must not be supposed that there is no such thing as Confucianism
in China outside the ranks of the official classes. Confucian ideals
of life and conduct, Confucian doctrines of the relations between
rulers and ruled, Confucian views of the reciprocal rights and duties
of parents and children, friends, neighbours, strangers, the Confucian
sanction of the cult of Ancestors, these are all strong living forces
in the China of to-day. "Wherever Chinamen go," says Dr. H. A. Giles,
"they carry with them in their hearts the two leading features of
Confucianism, the patriarchal system and ancestral worship."[252] The
influx of new light from the West is doubtless bringing about a change
in the traditional attitude of the Chinese towards the person of the
teacher whom their forefathers have revered for more than two thousand
years; but though the Confucian cult conceivably at some future time
may be formally disestablished and the Confucian temples turned into
technical colleges, it is to be hoped for the sake of China that
many centuries will elapse before Confucianism as a moral force, as
a guide of life, fades away from the hearts and minds of the people.
Confucianism is not a mere code of rules that can be established or
abrogated as the fancy takes any prominent statesman who happens to
have the ear of the throne; it has intertwined itself with the very
roots of the tree of Chinese life, and if that venerable tree, in spite
of a mutilated branch or two, is still very far from hopeless decay it
is to Confucianism that much of its strength and vigour is due.[253]
Perhaps no teacher of antiquity has suffered more disastrously at the
hands of most of his interpreters and translators than has Confucius.
Even his Chinese commentators have not always been successful; it
is then little to be wondered at that European students, often
lacking both a complete equipment of Chinese scholarship and a
power of sympathetic insight into alien modes of thought, and above
all possessed by an intensely strong bias against "heathendom"
and "heathen" thinkers, have failed again and again to give their
fellow-countrymen an adequate account either of the Confucian system as
a whole or of the personal character of the Master himself.
Confucius, as one of his most recent English translators reminds us,
was one of the most open-minded of men, and approached no subject
with "foregone conclusions"; but the whole attitude of the Englishman
who is still regarded as the great expounder of Confucianism to the
English-speaking world (Dr. Legge) "bespoke one comprehensive and fatal
foregone conclusion--the conviction that it must at every point prove
inferior to Christianity."[254]
Now what is the impression that Confucianism gives to a European
student who is not only a good Chinese scholar and therefore able to
dispense with translations, but is also entirely free from religious
prejudice?
"The moral teaching of Confucius," says the writer just quoted, "is
absolutely the purest and least open to the charge of selfishness
of any in the world.... _'Virtue for virtue's sake' is the maxim
which, if not enunciated by him in so many words, was evidently the_
_corner-stone of his ethics and the mainspring of his own career_....
Virtue resting on anything but its own basis would not have seemed
to him virtue in the true sense at all, but simply another name for
prudence, foresight, or cunning."[255]
I have italicised certain words in this quotation for a reason
which will soon be apparent. As is well known, Confucianism and
ancestor-worship, as well as Buddhism and Taoism, all established
themselves in Japan. Confucianism is said to have entered Japan in the
sixth century of our era, though it remained in a stationary position,
somewhat inferior in influence to Buddhism, for about a thousand years.
But during the last three hundred years at least, "the developed
Confucian philosophy," says an authority on Japanese religion,[256]"
has been the creed of a majority of the educated men of Japan." Later
on he refers to "the prevalence of the Confucian ethics and their
universal acceptance by the people of Japan."[257] Of course the
Confucian system underwent certain changes in its new island home, as
Dr. Griffis is careful to point out,--especially in the direction of
emphasising loyalty to sovereign and overlord: but it still remained
recognisable Confucianism. Mr. P. Vivian, in a highly interesting
volume,[258] mentions the fact that "Confucianism is an agnostic
ethical system which the educated classes of Japan have adopted for
centuries, and its splendid results are just now much in evidence."
Later on he quotes an exceedingly significant and important statement
made by the Rev. Henry Scott Jeffreys, a missionary in Japan. "After
seven years' residence among this people I wish to place on record my
humble testimony to their native virtues.... _They love virtue for its
own sake, and not from fear of punishment or hope of reward._" Could
higher praise than this be given to any people on earth? He goes on,
"The conversion of this people to the Christian faith is a most complex
and perplexing problem, not because they are so bad but because they
are so good."[259]
I have italicised the words that are of special interest when
considered in connection with the statement already quoted from
Mr. Lionel Giles. It is true that the praise given to the Japanese
is a great deal too high: there is no nation, whether Christian or
non-Christian, that deserves such praise. At the same time most
Europeans might find it no easy task to prove to the satisfaction of
an intelligent visitor from another planet that the Christian nations
are, on the whole, more virtuous than the people of Japan. The European
advocate would, of course, lay stress on the alleged weakness of
Japanese commercial morality, and perhaps with very good cause. But
there is no valid reason for supposing that the Japanese, without
Christianity, cannot and will not amend their ways in this respect, and
in any case commercial immorality receives no more justification from
Confucian than it does from Christian ethics.[260]
But Japan is not China: and if Confucianism be such a good thing,
exclaims the wondering European, how is it that China is in a state
of decay, that Chinese officials are corrupt, that the population
is sodden with opium, that the country is only now, after centuries
of sloth and stagnation, beginning to show an interest in Western
civilisation and modern science? The real condition of China, or
at least of the Chinese people, is perhaps not so rotten as it is
sometimes believed to be, in spite of the grave political and social
dangers that at present lie ahead. But waiving this point and admitting
that reforms are coming not a day too soon, let us consider one or two
of the most obvious causes to which the present state of China may be
attributed. China was for many centuries so easily supreme in her own
quarter of the globe that a strenuous life became for her unnecessary.
Conflict is a law of nature, but owing to peculiar circumstances
China as a nation became to a great extent temporarily exempt from
that law.[261] She sank into inactivity because it was not necessary
for her, as it was and is for the great nations of Europe, to be
continually sharpening her wits against those of her neighbours, or to
be for ever engaged in the Sisyphean task of redressing "the balance
of power." Do the nations of modern Europe sufficiently realise to
what extent they owe their progress and civilisation and even their
mechanical inventions to the fact that they have all been pitted
against each other in a more or less equal struggle for existence in
which none has ever succeeded in establishing a supremacy over all
the rest? Had powerful and united non-Chinese kingdoms established
themselves in the Indo-Chinese peninsula, in India itself, in the
plains and mountains of Tibet and Mongolia, in Korea and in mediæval
Japan,--kingdoms capable of contending with China on fairly level
terms, competent to defend themselves against her attacks yet not
strong enough to overcome her,--can it seriously be supposed that
China would have been politically corrupt, unwarlike and unprogressive
to-day?
That unhappy bird the great auk ceased to make use of its
wings--perhaps owing to a fatal love for fish--and thereby incurred
the punishment that inexorable Nature provides for those who neglect
to exercise the faculties she provides them with. Somewhat in the same
way China, fatally set at liberty from the invigorating impetus of
competition, seems to have lost the use of those powers and qualities
which ages ago carried her to the apex of the Asiatic world. Unlike
the great auk, however, China has not yet become extinct, nor indeed
is extinction likely to be her fate. To take an illustration of a very
different kind, is it not the case that many a successful and energetic
man of business is only saved from yielding to the insidious habit of
taking afternoon naps by the incessant ringing of his telephone-bell?
For ages China could count on undisturbed slumber whenever she required
it--and it must be admitted that she seemed to require it long and
often. The telephone-bell has now been ringing her up continuously for
some little time; she ignored it at first, or perhaps it only gave a
new colour to her dreams, or occasionally turned them into nightmares;
but now she has risen, slowly and unwillingly it may be, and has put
the receiver to her ear. She has taken down the messages sent her, and
she is beginning to understand them; and among other things she is
realising that afternoon slumbers for her are joys of the past.
If China thinks, or Europe persuades her into the belief, that her
backward position among the great Powers of the world is due to
Confucianism, she will be doing a great wrong to the memory of one of
her greatest sons and a greater wrong to herself.[262] It would be
just as reasonable to make the Founder of Christianity, one of the
most gracious and most pitiful of men, responsible for the injustice
and cruelty of the Crusades or for the frightful atrocities practised
in Europe on the bodies of heretics, or for such priestly and monkish
abuses as the sale of "pardons" and the traffic in saintly relics and
fragments of the "True Cross"; indeed it would perhaps be rather more
reasonable, for the mediæval popes and monks at least professed to act
in the name of their Lord, whereas it is not in the name of Confucius
that offices in China are bought and sold or that Chinese magistrates
take bribes and "squeezes," or that the naval and military defences
of the country have been allowed to fall into decay. Does any one in
Europe now suppose that if Christ had returned to earth in the Middle
Ages He would have accepted a seat beside the Grand Inquisitors and
joined them in sentencing innocent men and women "to the thumbscrew and
the stake, for the glory of the Lord"? Or that if He had appeared in
England in 1646 He would have supported the Act which made it a capital
offence to deny the truth of any of the dogmas that the English Church
of that period chose to consider essential?
This is how a papal legate in 1209 wrote to Innocent III. after a
victorious crusade against the Albigenses: "Our troops, sparing neither
sex nor age, put to the sword nearly twenty thousand; splendid deeds
were accomplished in the overthrow of the enemy, the whole city was
sacked and burned by a divine revenge marvellous fierce." A pope may
have taken this doughty champion of the Church to his bosom, but is
it conceivable that the Carpenter of Nazareth would have greeted this
monster, whose sword was reeking with human blood, with the welcoming
words, "Well done, thou good and faithful servant"? If we refuse, as we
well may, to lay on Jesus the least tittle of responsibility for the
terrible crimes perpetrated in Europe for many consecutive centuries
in the name of the Christian religion, would it not be becoming on our
part to hesitate before we ascribe the faults and disasters of the
Chinese people and their Government wholly or even partially to their
faith in the teachings of Confucius?
I once heard a kind-hearted Englishman say that he could forgive China
all her faults except the torturing of prisoners in the law-courts
and in the gaols. Torture in China--which is very slowly becoming
obsolete--has very naturally made Europeans shudder with horror: but
where does Confucius give countenance to torture? And after all, the
extent of China's crime is only this, that she has not abolished the
practice of torture quite so early as the nations of Western Europe
and America. Perhaps the missionaries and others who have pointed out
to the Chinese the enormity of their crime in permitting torture have
sometimes omitted to state that only in comparatively recent times have
we ourselves become so merciful as to forbid the practice. Without
dwelling on the abominable punishments devised for heretical offenders
in every country in Europe, it is as well to remember that torture was
continually inflicted in England during the Tudor reigns,[263] and
also under the Stuarts. In Scotland it was long a recognised part of
criminal procedure, and was not finally abolished in that country till
the eighteenth century.[264] The Most High and Mighty Prince whose name
adorns the front page of our English Bibles, in one memorable case
directed the application, if necessary, of "the most severe" tortures,
and expressed the devout wish that the Almighty would "speed the good
work."
When confronted with so lofty an ethical system as that taught by
Confucius, European writers who wish to prove the justice of their
contention that "it must at every point prove inferior to Christianity"
are naturally driven to make the utmost of any passage in the Chinese
classics that appears to reveal something of the Chinese sage's moral
imperfections. Just as an anti-foreign Chinese commentator on the
Christian religion might utilise certain texts in the Old Testament to
show that the Christian God was neither just nor merciful, and certain
texts in the New Testament to show that Jesus of Nazareth shared the
superstitions of his age and was sometimes lacking in self-control, so
European expounders of Confucianism have seized upon a few passages in
the Confucian canon to prove to their own satisfaction that the great
Sage of China did not always speak the truth. The passages are three
in number. In one we are told that a certain brave man was commended
by the Master for his absence of boastfulness, because though he nobly
brought up the rear during a retreat, he said, "It is not courage that
makes me last, it is my horse that won't gallop fast enough."[265] As
courage really was the cause of his conduct, Prof. Legge and those
who think with him take the view that the man's own explanation of
what he had done was untruthful and that Confucius by awarding him
praise condoned a lie. Considering that Confucius's only remark on the
subject was that the man was no braggart, probably few of us except
sanctimonious pedants would say that either the sage or his hero was
guilty of an act or a word that was in any way discreditable.
In another famous passage it is narrated that "A man who wanted to see
Confucius called on him. Confucius, not wishing to see him, sent to
say he was sick. When the servant with the message went to the door,
Confucius took up his musical instrument and sang aloud purposely to
let the visitor hear it and know that he was not really sick."[266] It
is interesting to note that in citing this little story as evidence of
Confucius's lack of veracity, Prof. Legge omits to quote the second
part of the passage,[267] though it ought to be obvious to the most
casual reader that it was only for the sake of the remark about the
music that the story was preserved in the Confucian canon at all. So
far from proving that Confucius could tell a lie, it goes to show
that even in small matters of everyday social intercourse Confucius's
nature was superior to all the little "white lies" and deceptions that
are and no doubt always have been continually practised in "Society."
Probably in his day, as in our own, it was considered more polite to
an unwelcome visitor to plead indisposition or absence from home as an
excuse for not admitting him than to send him the blunt message, "You
are not wanted: go away!" Confucius, however, wishing to make it quite
clear to his visitor that the plea of sickness was merely a social
subterfuge and was not intended to deceive (as a lie must surely be),
took up his musical instrument and played it in his visitor's hearing.
So far from this passage proving that Confucius had an inadequate
regard for the truth, it will perhaps strike a good many people as
indicating that untruth and insincerity were abhorrent to Confucius's
nature: and this was undoubtedly the impression that the disciple who
remembered and recorded the incident wished to convey.
So much for two out of the three solitary occasions on which Confucius
is said to have laid himself open to what Prof. Legge calls "the
most serious charge that can be brought against him, the charge of
insincerity." The events recorded in connection with the third occasion
are much more grave and deserve closer attention. The story goes that
Confucius when travelling to a place called Wei was captured by a
rebel-brigand of that state, who would only release him on condition
that he would take an oath to give up his proposed expedition to Wei.
Confucius took the oath, and on his release forthwith continued his
journey to the place he had sworn to avoid. On one of his disciples
asking him whether it was a right thing to break his word, Confucius
replied: "It was a forced oath. The spirits do not hear such." Now of
the moral question here involved Sir Robert Douglas takes the view that
it is "a nice question for casuists," but expresses the conviction that
by most people Confucius "will not be held to be very blameworthy for
that which, at the worst, was a mistaken notion of truthfulness."[268]
On the other hand many of us will hold the equally strong conviction
that if this story is true there is an ugly blot on the character of
Confucius. If he deliberately and knowingly broke his word, as this
story would indicate, then he was no gentleman.[269]
_Le bon sang ne pent mentir_, as the old French proverb says. Not
his can have been what Burke in thrilling words calls "that chastity
of honour, which felt a stain like a wound." But the evidence from
other sources that Confucius was a gentleman--a man to whom truth
and sincerity were very precious--is overwhelming. His teachings and
actions, so far as we know them--all but this one--prove conclusively
that he laid almost greater emphasis on truth and honour than on
any other quality. "Hold faithfulness and sincerity," he said, "as
first principles."[270] One of his English commentators remarks that
"the earnestness with which he insists on this, repeating the same
injunction over and over again, is a point in his teaching which is
well worthy of admiration."[271]
How then is this strange story of the broken oath to be explained?
Probably by the simple statement that the story is not true. The
incident is one which finds no place in the accepted Confucian canon:
as Prof. H. A. Giles says, it "occurs in an admittedly spurious
work,"[272]--namely the _Chia Yü_, which in its present form is
believed to have been composed in the third century A.D. The only other
authority for it is the great historian Ssŭ-ma Ch'ien. Confucius was
born in 551 B.C., Ssŭ-ma Ch'ien no less than four hundred years later.
It may, doubtless, be urged by those who believe in the story and wish
at the same time to save the honour of Confucius, that the standard
of truth at that time was very low and that Confucius was only acting
in accordance with the practice of the age in breaking his plighted
word. But we have no reason whatever to suppose that the standard
was any lower than it is to-day in Christendom: and what no writer,
so far as I am aware, seems to have made a note of is the important
fact that the story, if true at all, is of itself a clear proof that
the standard of honour was remarkably high. The rebel would not have
given Confucius the option of taking an oath unless there had been
an expectation on his part that Confucius would keep that oath; and
if the expectation existed, it must even in those far-off days have
been founded on a belief that a gentleman's word was "as good as his
bond." Thus if we believe in the story we are compelled to adopt the
conclusion that Confucius was not, as one would have thought, superior
to his contemporaries in matters of morals, but was immeasurably their
inferior: a conclusion which is patently absurd. To suppose after
hearing the evidence of the canonical books that Confucius was a man
who could deliberately break his word seems almost as unreasonable as
to suppose that Sir Walter Scott ("true gentleman, heart, blood and
bone," as Tennyson called him) could have acted dishonourably or that
Sir Philip Sidney, the prince of chivalry, could have told a lie.
I cannot hope that these remarks will re-establish Confucius's
reputation as a lover of truth in the minds of those who wish for
proselytising purposes to convince the Chinese that their sage was a
grievous sinner. Such persons will doubtless in any case continue to
hold that the Chinese as a people are untruthful, and that whether
or not the untruthfulness is a legacy left them by Confucius it is a
vice which only Christianity can extirpate. This question of Chinese
untruthfulness we have already considered,[273] and a few words are all
that is necessary here.
[Illustration: WEIHAIWEI VILLAGERS (see p. 315).]
[Illustration: SHEN-TZŬ (MULE-LITTER) FORDING A STREAM (see p. 17).]
Persons who believe that the untruthfulness of the Chinese (presuming
that it exists) is due to their "heathenism" and that truth is a
typically or exclusively Christian virtue may have some difficulty in
proving the justice of their view. "We have proof in the Bible," as
Herbert Spencer remarks, "that apart from the lying which constituted
false witness, and was to the injury of a neighbour, there was among
the Hebrews but little reprobation of lying."[274] He goes on to admit,
very properly, that in the writings of the Hebrew prophets and in parts
of the New Testament lying is strongly condemned. Missionaries often
say that the Chinese will never become a truthful people until they
become a Christian people. If truthfulness had been an unknown virtue
until Christianity appeared, one might perhaps be unable to question
the accuracy of this statement. But what does Herodotus, writing in
the fourth century B.C., tell us about the Persians of his day? "They
educate their children, beginning at five years old and going on till
twenty, in three things only, in riding, in shooting, and in speaking
the truth ... and the most disgraceful thing in their estimation is to
tell a lie."[275]
And would not most of us trust the word of Socrates, if we had the
chance, as fully as we would trust the word of an archbishop? If
truthfulness is a characteristically Christian virtue, how was it that
in the Merovingian period "oaths taken by rulers, even with their hands
on the altar, were forthwith broken"?[276] And what are we to say of
the alleged Jesuitical doctrine that the end justifies the means,
or about that immoral dogma of the Decretals (surely just as bad as
Confucius's supposed doctrine regarding forced oaths): _Juramentum
contra utilitatem ecclesiasticam praestitum non tenet_?
There are non-Christian peoples in southern India to-day of whom it
has been said that they are characterised by "complete truthfulness.
They do not know how to tell a lie"; in central India certain
aborigines are described as "the most truthful of beings."[277] But
the list might be indefinitely extended. There are numerous races
in the world among whom truth is held in the highest honour, and as
many others who appear to regard a skilful liar as a specially clever
fellow. There is certainly very little reason to believe that truth
is a monopoly of the Christian or that the "heathen" is necessarily a
liar.[278]
The average Englishman or American does not always find that his
pious acquaintances are the most truthful:[279] indeed in many cases
he will prefer to trust the word of a man who from the Church's point
of view is a notorious sinner but who happens at the same time to be a
gentleman. It is of course easy to declare that a Christian who tells
a lie cannot be a true Christian. It is equally easy and equally just
to assert that the native of China who tells a lie cannot be a true
Confucian.
If in Weihaiwei as elsewhere in rural China the influence of Confucius
is to be traced not in temples and religious or commemorative
ceremonial but in the customs, manners and character of the people, it
is clear that a description of the Confucianism of this corner of the
Empire would involve a repetition of much that has been already set
forth at length in the course of the foregoing pages. But there is a
feature of Confucianism that so far has been treated less thoroughly
than it deserves, although it constitutes by far the most important
element in the religious life of the people. This is the cult of
Ancestors.
There is perhaps a popular tendency in Europe (notwithstanding the
doctrines of Herbert Spencer) to regard this cult as something peculiar
to the Far East and without parallel in Western modes of religious
thought and practice: but, as students of comparative religion well
know, such is not the case. That ancestor-worship or something very
like it existed among the ancient Egyptians might be assumed from the
extraordinary measures which they took to preserve the bodies of the
dead: but we know from other evidence that the ancestral Ghost was
regularly approached with veneration and sacrifices. Cakes and other
articles were offered to the Egyptian _ka_ just as they are offered
to the spirits of the dead in China to-day; and, as in China, the
sacrificial ceremonies were made the occasion of family gatherings and
genial festivities.[280] Great religious revolutions have taken place
in Egypt in the course of ages, but among the Egyptian Mohammedans and
the Copts traces of ancestor-worship exist to this day. The evidence
at present available hardly justifies us in declaring that this cult
was also practised in Babylonia, though it seems at least certain that
heroes and distinguished men were deified and venerated. There is
less doubt about the early Israelites. "It is impossible to avoid the
conclusion," says the Rev. A. W. Oxford,[281] "that the pre-Jehovistic
worship was that of ancestors." He observes that "the importance
attached to a father's blessing before his death and the great fear
caused by a curse (Judges xvii. 2) were relics of the old cult of
ancestors."
The importance of the same cult in Greece and Rome can hardly be
exaggerated. In Greece, Zeus himself was regarded in one of his
aspects as πατρῷος, the ancestral god. "The central point of old Roman
religion," as Grant Allen has said,[282] "was clearly the household;
the family ghosts or _lares_ were the most honoured gods." In various
parts of the "Dark Continent" ancestor-worship is the prevailing
religion. "Nowhere," says Max Müller, "is a belief and a worship of
ancestral spirits so widely spread as in Africa."[283] That it existed
and still exists in many Eastern countries besides China need hardly
be emphasised. It is deeply embedded in Hinduism, and in Japan it has
grafted itself on Shinto.[284]
It is perhaps of greater interest to Europeans to know that the
cult of ancestors existed in pre-Christian days in the forests of
old Germany. "Our early Teutonic forefathers," says Mr. F. York
Powell, "worshipped the dead and treated their deceased ancestors as
gods."[285] But old customs, especially religious ones, die hard; and
so we need not be surprised to find that just as the Isis and Horus of
the ancient Egyptians have become the Madonna and Child of the modern
Italians,[286] so the ancestor-worship of our Teutonic forefathers has
been transformed under Christian influences into solemn commemorations
of the dead, and masses for the souls of the "faithful departed." The
transformation, indeed, is in some places hardly complete to this day.
"Although full ancestor-worship," says Dr. Tylor, "is not practised
in modern Christendom, there remains even now within its limits a
well-marked worship of the dead. A crowd of saints, who were once men
and women, now form an order of inferior deities, active in the affairs
of men, and receiving from them reverence and prayer, thus coming
strictly under the definition of manes. This Christian cultus of the
dead, belonging in principle to the older manes worship, was adapted
to answer another purpose in the course of religious transition in
Europe."[287]
It appears that in one part of Christendom, at least, actual
ancestor-worship is not yet extinct. In backward parts of Russia at
this day, we are told, "the dead in return for the offerings are
supplicated to guard and foster the family and crops. 'Ye spirits
of the long departed, guard and preserve us well. Make none of us
cripples. Send no plagues upon us. Cause the corn, the wine, and the
food to prosper with us.'"[288] Evidently if ancestor-worship is
idolatrous, Europe is not without its idolatry even in this twentieth
century.
The Ancestral cult, as every one knows, received the hall-mark of
Confucius's approval, though Confucius himself did not profess to
be a theologian or to speak with authority on matters spiritual. It
is an extraordinary thing that Confucius's reticence with regard to
these matters has been selected by Christian missionaries as a subject
for special reproach. Prof. Legge, after quoting some of Confucius's
utterances on the subject of the unseen world, asks why he did not
"candidly tell his real thoughts on so interesting a subject,"[289] and
exclaims "Surely this was not the teaching proper to a sage." Elsewhere
he solves this question himself, for he decides that Confucius was
no sage.[290] Unfortunately he does not define the word Sage, though
he seems to imply that the word can be fittingly applied only to a
Christian teacher. He did not perhaps quite appreciate the significance
of the Horatian remark _Vixere fortes ante Agamemnona_.
Meadows remarks that every consistent Confucianist ought to be a blank
atheist, though probably he is using the word in the sense that used
erroneously to be attached to it a good many years ago,[291] when
"atheist" was the term applied to all persons who were outside the
Christian fold. In that sense Confucius was an atheist, and inasmuch
as he lived half a millennium before Christ was born it is obvious
that he could not possibly have been anything else. Mr. Arthur H.
Smith states that the mass of Confucian scholars are "thoroughly
agnostic and atheistic,"[292] though if these terms are correctly
used it is difficult to see how they could be both at the same time.
Mr. W. E. Griffis thinks it "more than probable" that Confucius laid
"unnecessary emphasis upon social and political duties, and may
not have been sufficiently interested in the honour to be paid to
Shang Ti or God. He practically ignored the Godward side of men's
duties."[293] Confucius would probably have said that if people fully
and completely discharge all their duties on the manward side they
need have no fear that they are neglecting the Godward side. Griffis
goes on to compare Confucianism with a child-headed giant, because it
is exaggerated on its moral and ceremonial side as compared with its
spiritual development. It must surely be clear to an unprejudiced mind
that Confucius deserves no blame whatever for omitting to lay down the
law on subjects about which he never professed to know anything. Men
have existed on this planet for tens of thousands of years: if, as
many occidental peoples hold, the Deity revealed Himself only nineteen
centuries ago, it is absurd to find fault with an honest philosopher
for not having known facts which had been preserved as a secret in
the archives of heaven for countless ages in the past and were to
remain undisclosed for another five hundred years in the future. Some
of us, perhaps, may be inclined to the opinion that the great secret
remains a secret still. "We are born to enquire after truth," said the
wise Montaigne; "it belongs to a greater power to possess it." But
supposing for the sake of argument that Truth, or a certain aspect of
Truth, came to man's knowledge by a miraculous act on the part of a
Divine Power nineteen centuries ago, one cannot blame Confucius for
not having obtained it from heaven five hundred years sooner. One
might as well blame St. Paul for not anticipating the astronomical
discoveries of Copernicus and Galileo, or St. Augustine for not telling
us how to deal with the modern Women's Suffrage problem, or the
Founder of Christianity Himself for not explaining the mechanism of
motor-omnibuses and aeroplanes. Prometheus is said to have succeeded
in wrenching a valuable secret from heaven without divine permission,
but Prometheus was a Titan and Confucius never pretended to be anything
more than a humble-minded man.
The remarks made both orally and in writing on the subject of
Confucius and his religious views are often so framed as to convey the
idea, either that he was somehow to blame for his want of knowledge, or
that he really knew all the time about God and other spiritual beings,
but was deliberately and wickedly keeping the knowledge up his sleeve.
It is presumably for this reason that some missionaries have found it
their painful duty to explain to the Chinese (whom they are trying to
convert to a belief in a merciful and loving Deity) that Confucius
is now writhing in hell.[294] It is open to them to add that good
Chinese Christians may look forward to the happy day when they, from
their heavenly mansions, may behold their national Sage undergoing the
tortures prescribed for him in the nethermost regions: for was it not
Tertullian who, perhaps in a spirit of irony or mockery, declared[295]
that one of the joys of the blessed when they reach heaven will be
to watch the torments of the damned?[296] Fortunately bigotry and
intolerance of this kind are (thanks partly to secular pressure)
rapidly disappearing from Christian apologetics, but the charge against
Confucius that his views on spiritual matters were not only unsound
but were also discreditable to himself and to those who followed his
teachings, is still occasionally heard in the missionary camp.
It is perhaps worth while to consider briefly what those views were.
They are not to be found in any consecutive form; all one can do
is to pick up hints here and there and piece them together as best
one may. It must be remembered that Confucius seems very rarely to
have offered any remarks on spiritual matters on his own initiative:
he did not profess to be an authority on such subjects, and it was
only in answer to direct questions that he said anything at all. His
attitude may be compared with that of Mohammed, who administered
rebukes to his disciples when he heard them debating about fate and
destiny. Such things, he taught, were beyond all human knowledge. If
one might presume to construct a kind of paraphrase of Confucius's
occasional utterances on spiritual subjects, and put it in the form of
a continuous discourse, it might perhaps run somewhat as follows:
"You need not ask me about the gods and spirits or the world beyond
the grave, because I really cannot tell you anything about them.
You ask me what death is. I do not know. I think it will be time
enough to consider the problems of death when we have solved those
presented by life: and it will be a long time before we have done
that.[297] You ask me about serving the dead. First make sure that
you are doing everything possible in the service of living men, then
you may consider, if you will, whether any changes should be made in
our ancestral modes of serving the spirits of the dead. You ask if
the departed have any knowledge of the sacrifices we offer them, or
if they are totally unconscious of what we are doing for them. How
can I answer you? If I were to tell you that the dead are conscious,
you might waste your substance in funerals and sacrifices, and thus
neglect the living to pay court to the dead. If on the other hand I
were to tell you that the dead are unconscious, filial piety might
diminish and sons begin to leave the bodies of their parents uncared
for and unburied. Seek not to know whether the departed are indeed
conscious. If they are, you will know it some day; meanwhile study the
world you live in and have no fear that you will exhaust its treasures
of knowledge: the world takes a lot of knowing. What is the use of
my giving you my personal opinion about death and spiritual beings?
You, or others less intelligent than you, might take my opinions as
definite statements of truth, and if they happen to be erroneous
opinions I might very properly be charged with the propagation of
error. It is the custom of our race to offer sacrifices to the spirits
of the dead and I consider this a good old custom and one that ought
to be kept up, because even if there are no spirits to receive our
homage the practice is in itself a harmless one and helps to foster
reverence for one's elders and for those in authority. Therefore
I say to you, carry out the solemn sacrifices to which you have
been accustomed, and when you do so, honour the spirits as if they
were present,[298] but do not be so foolish as to attempt familiar
intercourse with them. It was not we who made the chasm that lies
between ourselves and the spiritual world, nor have we any right
(so far as we know) to try to bridge that chasm. God--if there be a
God--knows why the chasm is there, and God can bridge it if He will.
"My advice to you is this. Be zealous in the services you owe to your
fellow-men; behave towards them as you would wish them to behave
towards yourself. Be not too proud to admit when you are wrong or
that you 'do not know.' The man who sees what is right and honest and
dares not do it is a craven. Do not repine if you are misunderstood
by men; repine rather that there are men who are misunderstood by
you. Choose as your familiar companions only those who are at least
equal to yourself in virtue. Speak and act with sincerity and truth.
Be true to yourself and charitable towards your neighbour. Carry out
those rites of filial piety and of religious worship that have been
handed down to you by your fathers, even if you have doubts about the
nature or even the very existence of the objects of your worship;
there is nothing to be ashamed of in honest doubt, but do not let
doubts interfere with your duty. Let not your knowledge and practice
of the traditional rituals mislead you into thinking that you are on
intimate terms with the spiritual world; treat the unseen Powers with
all reverence but keep aloof from them. Do not fear that God will
hold you guilty of neglect of heavenly things provided you neglect
nothing of the duties you owe to men."
It is true that several remarks of Confucius are on record which seem
to indicate that he had a belief--however indefinite--in the existence
of a God or at least of spiritual beings who were both greater and
better than men. For instance he is said to have remarked that men had
failed to understand him, adding proudly, "But there is Heaven: THAT
knows me!" There is also the famous reply which he gave to Tzŭ-lu on
the subject of prayer: "My praying," said Confucius, "has been for a
long time."[299] Some English translators incline to the opinion that
according to this remark Confucius really did offer up prayers to an
unseen Power. What one knows of Confucius's life and teachings as well
as the context of this particular passage makes this highly improbable;
and indeed the remark loses most of its beauty and dignity if Confucius
referred merely to prayers in the ordinary sense. As one of his English
editors says, "his whole life had been one long prayer"[300]--in a
sense that the narrow religious pedant perhaps does not and cannot
understand. One is reminded of the landscape-painter who scandalised
the pious natives of a beautiful Welsh village by painting on Sundays.
"How is it," asked the local parson reproachfully, "that we have not
yet seen you in God's house?" "I am not aware," was the artist's quiet
reply, "that I was ever out of it." Those of us who can respect this
answer will be able to respect that given by Confucius when he said,
"My praying has been for a long time."
FOOTNOTES:
[251] It is perhaps still necessary to explain that in spite of the
honorary epithets heaped on Confucius by imperial decree (as in the
decree that confers upon him an "equality with heaven and earth"),
Confucius _is not worshipped as a god_. This was frankly admitted by
Prof. Legge in his later years. "I used to think," he said, "that
Confucius in this service received religious worship, and denounced
it. But I was wrong. What he received was the homage of gratitude, and
not the worship of adoration." "The Religion of China" in _Religious
Systems of the World_ (8th ed.), p. 72.
[252] _Great Religions of the World: Confucianism_, pp. 28-9. (Harper &
Bros., 1901.)
[253] Many missionaries have taken a very different view. Perhaps they
are right and the opinions expressed in this chapter erroneous--let me
hasten to disclaim any intention to dogmatise. However this may be, I
cannot but think that missionaries have not studied, respectfully and
tactfully, the susceptibilities of the proud and ancient people whom
they wish to proselytise when they hint at the approaching dissolution
of their Empire and hold out Christianity to them as a consolation
for the loss of their nationality and all that their forefathers have
held dear. "Disorganisation," says Dr. Legge, "will go on to destroy
it [China] more and more, and yet there is hope for the people ... _if
they will look away from all their ancient sages_, and turn to Him, who
sends them, _along with the dissolution of their ancient state_, the
knowledge of Himself, the only living and true God, and of Jesus Christ
whom He had sent." Is it to be wondered at that the rulers of China
look askance at a foreign religion the God of which intends to send
them--however sweetly the bitter pill may be coated--_the dissolution
of their ancient state_? Perhaps there are still missionaries who would
give their approval to these extraordinary words, but fortunately there
are laymen who take quite a different view of China's "ancient sages"
whom Dr. Legge recommends the Chinese to reject. "Never, perhaps, in
the history of the human race," says Mr. Lionel Giles, writing of
Confucius, "has one man exerted such an enormous influence for good on
after-generations." (_The Sayings of Confucius_, p. 118.) Yet this is
one of the sages from whom we invite the Chinese to "look away"!
[254] See Mr. L. Giles's Introduction to his translation of _The
Sayings of Confucius_, p. 12.
[255] _Op. cit._ p 26.
[256] Dr. W. E. Griffis, _The Religions of Japan_ (4th ed.), p. 108.
[257] _Op. cit._ p. 110.
[258] _The Churches and Modern Thought_ (2nd ed.), p. 38.
[259] _Op. cit._ pp. 398-9. One is sorely tempted to ask the question,
"Then why not leave well alone?"
[260] Prof. H. A. Giles says in a recent publication: "It is beyond
question that to the precepts and faithful practice of Confucianism
must be attributed the high moral elevation of the Japanese people; an
elevation which has enabled them to take an honourable place among the
great nations of the world." (_Adversaria Sinica_, p. 202.)
[261] "It is through conflict alone that the fittest can be selected,
because it is through conflict alone that they are afforded the chance
of manifesting those qualities, physiological and psychical, which
make them the fittest. And, as a matter of fact, conflict is the law
of Nature. It is no exaggeration, nor is it a mere figure of speech,
to say that progress is accomplished through blood."--CHATTERTON HILL,
_Heredity and Selection in Sociology_ (A. & C. Black: 1907), p. 355.
[262] "We think that Confucius cut the tap-root of all true progress,
and therefore is largely responsible for the arrested development of
China." (Griffis, _The Religions of Japan_ (4th ed.), pp. 104-5.) See
also the Lectures delivered by Mr. E. R. Bernard in Salisbury Cathedral
in 1903-4. The latter says, "Now that we have concluded our survey of
Confucius's work and system, I should like to draw your attention to a
practical inference from the results attained by it. _The results are
the condition of Chinese society at the present day with its strange
mixture of benevolence and cruelty, industry and fraud, domestic
virtues and impurity._ And the inference is the small value of an
elevated system of ethics without religion, for of religion there is
nothing in the 'Analects' from beginning to end." (The italics are
mine.) One might almost suppose from this that in Christian England
there is no cruelty, no fraud, no impurity. If a Chinese were to go to
England and declare that the vices of the country were the results of
Christianity he would probably be anathematised as a wicked blasphemer
and hounded out of the land; why should the Western nations show
surprise if the Chinese are indignant with foreigners who use words
which in their obvious and natural sense would lead the world to
suppose that the cases of cruelty, fraud and impurity one meets with
in China are the result of Confucianism! As an offset to the dictum
of Mr. Bernard (who I gather has never been in China) I quote the
opinion of one who has made China and the Chinese his lifelong study.
"The cardinal virtues which are most admired by Christians are fully
inculcated in the Confucian canon, and the general practice of these
is certainly up to the average standard exhibited by foreign nations."
(_Religions of the World_, pp. 26-7: "Confucianism," by Prof. H. A.
Giles.)
[263] As Hallam says, "The rack seldom stood idle in the Tower for all
the latter part of Elizabeth's reign."
[264] By an Act passed in the seventh year of Queen Anne.
[265] Mr. L. Giles's translation of _Lun Yü_, vi. 13.
[266] Mr. Ku Hung-ming's translation of _Lun Yü_, xvii. 20.
[267] See Legge's _Chinese Classics_ (2nd. ed.), vol. i. p. 100.
[268] Sir Robert Douglas, _Confucianism and Taouism_ (5th ed.), p. 146.
[269] This would certainly have been Montaigne's view. See, for a very
apposite passage, _Essays_, Bk. iii, ch. i.
[270] This is Legge's translation of _Lun Yü_ i. 8. The doctrine is
repeated in ix. 24. Cf. also _Lun Yü_ ii. 22 and many other passages in
this and other Confucian books.
[271] Sir Robert Douglas, _op. cit._ p. 114.
[272] "Confucianism," in _Great Religions of the World_, p. 26. See
also Prof. Giles's _Chinese Literature_, p. 48, and Wylie's _Notes on
Chinese Literature_ (1902 ed.), p. 82.
[273] See pp. 108 _seq._
[274] _Principles of Ethics_, i. 402. Herbert Spencer goes on to refer
to 1 Kings xxii. 22, Ezekiel xiv. 9, Genesis xxvi. 12, and also to
the Jacob and Esau incident and to the occasion "when Jeremiah tells
a falsehood at the king's suggestion." The Rev. A. W. Oxford, writing
on ancient Judaism, reminds us that "Jehovah protects Abraham and
Isaac after they have told lies, and punishes the innocent foreigner."
_Religious Systems of the World_ (8th ed.), p. 60.
[275] _Herodotus_, translated by G. C. Macaulay, vol. i. pp. 69-70.
[276] Herbert Spencer, _op. cit._ vol. i. pp. 403-4.
[277] Both cases are cited by Herbert Spencer, _op. cit._ p. 405. That
philosopher argues that "it is the presence or absence of despotic rule
which leads to prevalent falsehood or prevalent truth."
[278] Prof. Legge evidently took the view that truthfulness belonged
only to Christians. He states that a love of truth can only be
maintained, and a lie shrunk from with shame, through "the living
recognition of a God of truth, and all the sanctions of revealed
religion." (_Chinese Classics_, vol. i. p. 101.) By "revealed religion"
Legge means, of course, Christianity. It would be interesting to
know how he would have accounted for truthfulness among numerous
non-Christian races of our own time or among such people as the ancient
Persians. Perhaps as regards the latter case he would have done it by
denying the capacity of a Greek (especially of a Greek who has been
described as the "father of lies") to judge of truthfulness! Prof.
Martin in _The Lore of Cathay_ (p. 177) says that while Confucius's
writings (presumably he means his recorded sayings) "abound in the
praise of virtue, not a line can be found inculcating the pursuit of
truth." This is an amazing misstatement: let us hope it was written
inadvertently. A third missionary, Dr. Wells Williams, makes statements
regarding the character and morals of the Chinese people that are so
grossly unfair as to be almost unreadable [_Middle Kingdom_, vol. i.
pp. 833-6 (1883 edition)]. Mr. Arthur Davenport in his _China from
Within_ (T. Fisher Unwin, 1904) quotes from a missionary's letter which
appeared in _China's Millions_ (a missionary publication) in February
1903. "What a mass of evil the missionary in China has to contend
with!... Certainly there are more souls being lost every day in China
than in any country in the world ... the Bible declares that no liar
or idolater can ever reach heaven, and all these masses of people are
idolaters and liars; for 'China is a nation of liars,' consequently
there must be among the lost, among those going to eternal death, a
greater number from the Chinese than from any nation on earth.... For
though they be all liars and idolaters, they are the most industrious
of people, and of such intellectual capacity as to be able to compete
for the highest scholarships in the Universities of Europe and
America.... We thank God with all our heart that there are now so many
different Protestant Missions at work in Chehkiang, each having godly,
earnest, and faithful men representing them." No wonder Mr. Davenport,
after quoting this astonishing effusion, remarks that "this rendering
of thanks to God that there are now so many 'godly, earnest, and
faithful' foreign missionaries amongst this 'nation of liars' forcibly
reminds us of the parable of the Pharisee and the Publican." It is
pitiful to think that missionaries of the class to which the writer
of this letter belongs are still at work in China, "converting the
heathen." Let us hope that the day may come when the generous-hearted
people who support Foreign Missions with their money and services will
feel justified in insisting that educated gentlemen, and no others,
are selected for work in the Mission field. Fortunately the Mission
Boards appear to be exercising much greater care in their selection of
missionaries for China than they did formerly; but how can they undo
the harm that has already been done?
[279] "A Highlander, who considered himself a devout Christian, is
reported to have said of an acquaintance: 'Donald's a rogue, and a
cheat, and a villain, and a liar; but he's a good, pious man.' Probably
Donald 'kept the Sabbath--and everything else he could lay his hands
on.'"--D. G. RITCHIE, _Natural Rights_ (2nd ed.), p. 190.
[280] The parallels between Egyptian and Chinese culture are not
perhaps very numerous or instructive; it may therefore be worth while
to mention one that is not without interest though it is doubtless
accidental. The Milky Way in Egypt was known as the Heavenly Nile: in
China it is named the Heavenly River (_T'ien Ho_). It would perhaps be
correct to translate the Chinese _ho_ in this case as "Yellow River":
for when the word _ho_ (river) is spoken of without qualification it
is the Yellow River (near the banks of which most of the old Chinese
capitals were situated) that is understood. With the phrases Heavenly
Nile and Heavenly Yellow River may be compared an old English name for
the Milky Way--Watling Street. (See A. Lang's _Custom and Myth_ [1901
ed.], p. 122.)
[281] See article on Judaism in _The Religious Systems of the World_
(Sonnenschein & Co. 8th ed.), p. 56.
[282] _The Evolution of the Idea of God_, pp. 369-70. See also Tylor,
_Primitive Culture_ (4th ed.), vol. ii. 120; Fustel de Coulanges, _La
Cité Antique_; and T. R. Glover's _Conflict of Religions in the Early
Roman Empire_, pp. 14-15.
[283] _Last Essays_, Second Series (1901 ed.), p. 45.
[284] Ancestor-worship has been called "the foundation and chief
characteristic of Shinto" (D. Goh in _Religious Systems of the World_,
8th ed., p. 99); but though this is the statement of a scholarly native
of Japan, it is as well to observe that Dr. Aston, one of the best
European authorities on the subject, holds a somewhat different view as
to the connection between Shinto (in its earliest form) and the cult of
ancestors. "All the great deities of the older Shinto," he says, "are
not Man but Nature gods." (_Shinto_, p. 9.)
[285] "Teutonic Heathendom," in _Religious Systems of the World_ (8th
ed.), p. 279.
[286] See T. R. Glover's _Conflict of Religions in the Early Roman
Empire_, p. 23. See also F. C. Conybeare's admirable work _Myth, Magic,
and Morals_, in which he says, "Latin hymns in honour of Isis seem to
have been appropriated to Mary with little change; and I have seen
statues of Isis set up in Christian churches as images of the Virgin"
(p. 230). He also points out that in Asia Minor "the Virgin took the
place of Cybele and Artemis."
[287] _Primitive Culture_ (4th ed.), vol. ii. pp. 120 _seq._ See also
vol. i. pp. 96-7 for mention of vestiges of sacrificial ceremonies
in England in honour of the dead. With reference to the gradual
transformation of the old Roman feasts for the dead into festivals of
the Christian martyrs, see T. R. Glover's _Conflict of Religions in the
Early Roman Empire_, pp. 15-16.
[288] Dr. L. R. Farnell in _Hibbert Journal_, January 1909, p. 426.
[289] _Chinese Classics_, vol. i. (2nd ed.), p. 100.
[290]_Op. cit._ vol. iii. pt. i. p. 200.
[291] See Max Müller's _Lectures on the Origin of Religion_ (1901 ed.),
pp. 310-16.
[292] _Chinese Characteristics_ (5th ed.), p 293.
[293] _The Religions of Japan_ (4th ed.), p. 104.
[294] See pp. 353-4.
[295] _De Speculis_, 30.
[296] In nothing have we moved away from the pious savagery of a former
age more noticeably than in the average Christian's attitude towards
hell. "I don't believe in hell," is a very common observation nowadays
even on the part of those who assert themselves to be good Christians,
though surely from the Church's point of view the position is a highly
heretical one. Modern humanitarianism is gradually teaching the "plain
man" to see that if a heaven exists, and if human souls are to attain
to a condition of perfect happiness there, it is inconceivable that
there can be a hell also: for whatever the Christians of Tertullian's
day may have deemed necessary to happiness, few if any of us in
modern times could possibly (without undergoing a fundamental change
of character) attain complete happiness while in possession of the
knowledge that certain of our fellow human-beings were undergoing
eternal torment. The fact that we could ourselves behold the tormented
ones in their misery, so far from being an added source of pleasure
would surely turn our heavenly joys into dust and ashes. We cannot be
perfectly happy, as Prof. William James has remarked, so long as we
know that a single human soul is suffering pain. In a book entitled
_The Future Life and Modern Difficulties_, the Rev. F. C. Kempson
"does not hesitate to defend the belief that there are souls which are
finally lost, although he deprecates any materialistic presentation of
that state of loss." As his critic in the _Church Quarterly Review_
(April 1909, p. 200) sensibly points out, Mr. Kempson "does not fully
appreciate the depth of the objections against such a doctrine. To
many minds, not generally supposed to be tainted with sentimentality,
it appears that a universe where there was an ultimate loss of souls
through the complete determination of the will towards evil would be an
essentially atheistic universe, for it would be one in which the evil
was in the end partially triumphant over the good."
[297] "I don't know about the unseen world," said Thackeray in one of
his letters, "the use of the seen world is the right thing I'm sure. It
is as much God's world and creation as the kingdom of heaven with all
its angels."
[298] In some respects, it may be noted, Confucius's position is not
very far removed from that of some of the so-called Modernists of our
own time. Cf. Le Roy, _Dogme et Critique_ (4th ed.), p. 26; and the
late Father Tyrrell's _Lex Orandi_.
[299] _Lun Yü_, vii. 34.
[300] Mr. L. Giles, _The Sayings of Confucius_, p. 87.