CONFUCIANISM--II
Persons whose religion is bounded by dogmas and rituals, and who
take such a dismal view of human nature that they cannot conceive
of the existence of moral goodness apart from faith in a particular
creed, are always (consciously or unconsciously) on the look-out for
evidences of "sin" or imperfection or human frailty in the doctrines of
those who are ethical rather than religious teachers, and who do not
profess to have been favoured with a "divine revelation." Some of the
failings ascribed to Confucius--such as his alleged insincerity--have
been already dealt with; but if his Christian critics are unable to
substantiate their charges of moral depravity they are on much firmer
ground when they declare that Confucianism is not a religion at all,
but merely (though why "merely"?) a system of morals. This is a point
which every one will decide for himself in accordance with his own
views of what constitutes Religion. Cardinal Newman said that by
Religion he meant "the knowledge of God, of His Will, of our duties
towards Him." According to this definition Confucianism can hardly be
called a Religion. Carlyle said that whoever believes in the infinite
nature of Duty has religion. If this be so, it may after all be argued
that a religion is possessed by the true Confucian. Legge, who admired
Confucius as "a very great man," but was prompt to seek out evidence
that the Confucian system was altogether inferior to Christianity,
admitted that Confucianism was not "merely" a system of morality, but
also contained religion.[301] Sir Charles Eliot, on the contrary, says
"it has produced twenty centuries of gentlemen. Still, it is not in any
ordinary sense a religion."[302] Similarly Sir Thomas Wade declared
that the Chinese "have indeed a cult, or rather a mixture of cults,
but no creed." Hegel said that Religion is the Infinite Spirit of God
becoming self-conscious through the medium of the finite spirit. The
late Father Tyrrell held that what distinguishes religion from ethics
is "the belief in another world and the endeavour to hold intercourse
with it." Kant said that when moral duties are regarded as divine
commands, that is religion. Fichte said that religion was Knowledge
rather than morality. Matthew Arnold defined religion as "morality
touched with emotion." Schleiermacher said that religion consisted in
the consciousness of absolute dependence on a Power which influences us
though we cannot influence it in turn.
It is obvious that until we are all agreed on what we mean by
Religion it is useless to enquire whether the Confucian system is
or is not entitled to the name. One might as well try to determine
whether a given literary composition is a poem before we have agreed
upon a definition of Poetry. Some writers have been apt to look for
some quality that is common to all religion as the best basis for a
definition; but, as Edward Caird has reminded us, "such a quality,
if it could be found, would be something so vague and abstract that
little or nothing could be made of it."[303] As nobody has yet invented
a definition which will satisfy every one, we must perforce leave
Confucianism unlabelled: though if we all agree that a religious
attitude implies a deep sense of moral responsibility (either to our
own higher selves or to an external Power) and a feeling that to do
what we believe to be right--irrespective of how we come to have ideas
of right and wrong at all--is "wisdom in the scorn of consequence,"
then we cannot go far astray in asserting that Confucianism is not an
irreligious or unreligious system, but is merely an untheological one.
If the word Religion may be said to have almost as many meanings
as there are cultivated human minds, what is to be said of the word
God? The Christian objection to Chinese ancestor-worship, of which
Confucius approved, is that it is a form of idolatry, inasmuch as the
deceased ancestors are worshipped as gods. Here again our concurrence
or dissent must depend upon the exact shade of meaning to be attached
to the word "god." A rough unhewn stone may be a "god" at one place and
time--though probably, as in the case of the meteoric stone that is
said to have been carried in the Ark of Jahveh, it is never regarded by
"initiates" as more than a sacred emblem or representation. At another
place and time God becomes an ineffable Spirit invisible to the human
eye and only partially attainable by human thought. "Of Thee," said
Hooker, "our fittest eloquence is silence, while we confess without
confessing that Thy Glory is unsearchable and beyond our reach." Nor
need it be supposed that the sublimer conception of Deity is the
newly-won possession of Christians only. Perhaps no loftier idea of
the Godhead has ever existed in man's mind than that of the composers
of some of the Indian Vedas and Upanishads which were produced many
hundreds if not thousands of years B.C.; indeed Hooker's prayer and
many other Christian prayers grander and nobler would not seem at all
out of place if they were put into the mouth of an Indian forest-sage
or a prehistoric Brahman.
[Illustration: HILLS NEAR AI-SHAN (see p. 388).]
[Illustration: HILL, WOOD AND STREAM]
It is very difficult, then, to know without precise definition what
is the exact meaning of those who declare that the Chinese make gods
of their dead fathers. Du Bose has condemned the Chinese ancestral
cult because it inculcates the worship of "parents once human but
now divine," and he quotes with apparent approval the words of
another writer who describes it as "one of the subtlest phases of
idolatry--essentially evil with the guise of goodness--ever established
among men."[304] Wells Williams says that Chinese ancestor-worship is
distinctly idolatrous; yet he admits that the rites consist "merely of
pouring out libations and burning paper and candles at the grave, and
then a family meeting at a social feast, with a few simple prostrations
and petitions ... all is pleasant, decorous, and harmonious ... and
the family meeting on this occasion is looked forward to by all with
much the same feeling that Christmas is in Old England or Thanksgiving
in New England."[305] So says the earnest American missionary; and
those of us who not only see nothing wrong in the Chinese ancestral
ceremonies but would be exceedingly sorry to see them abolished, will
perhaps feel inclined to smile at the reproachful terms in which he
refers to Sir John Davis, who had expressed the heterodox opinion that
the rites were "harmless, if not meritorious, forms of respect for the
dead."
Another American writer, well known as an authority on China, is
equally strongly opposed to any compromise with the cult of ancestors.
"It makes dead men into gods, and its only gods are dead men. Its
love, its gratitude, and its fears are for earthly parents only. It
has no conception of a Heavenly Father, and feels no interest in such
a being when He is made known. Either Christianity will never be
introduced into China or ancestral worship will be given up, for they
are contradictories. In the death struggle between them the fittest
only will survive."[306]
To show that this is not quite the view taken by all American
missionaries, let us quote the words of yet a third. Dr. W. A.
P. Martin, whose _Lore of Cathay_ is one of the most interesting
books of its kind on China yet produced, has a valuable chapter on
ancestor-worship in which he takes a much more liberal view than that
of his colleagues, though as a champion of Christianity he feels
himself obliged to find fault with "the transformation of the deceased
into tutelar divinities" and with "the invocation of departed spirits."
He admits that the ceremonies connected with the cult are of an
exceedingly impressive nature.
"The spectacle of a great nation," he says, "with its whole
population gathered round the altars of their ancestors, tracing
their lineage up to the hundredth generation, and recognising the
ties of kindred to the hundredth degree, is one that partakes of the
sublime."[307]
Most of my readers are doubtless aware that it has been, and perhaps
still is, the custom of many missionaries to require their converts to
surrender their ancestral tablets, or to destroy them, as a proof of
their sincerity before baptism. There are many sad stories connected
with this cruel proceeding,[308] and it is refreshing to listen to the
frank confession of so experienced and fair-minded a missionary as Dr.
Martin, who admits that he himself once insisted on a convert giving up
his ancestral tablets, and has ever since regarded this as one of the
mistakes of his life, and looks back upon it with "poignant grief." As
he adds decisively, "I had no right to impose such a test," it is to be
hoped that his words have served as a warning to some, at least, of his
successors in the missionary field.
If Christianity is to win its way to the hearts of the Chinese people
it will probably have to condescend to a compromise on the question
of ancestor-worship. A recent writer in _The Spectator_ evidently
thinks it is the Chinese who will make all the compromise. "There is
no reason," he says, "why the Chinese, in accordance with their proved
mental habit, should not adopt a kind of metaphysical reading of
ancestor-worship such as would enjoy the hearty sanction of the Church
which preaches the 'Communion of Saints.'"[309]
It is indeed likely enough that as time goes on certain superannuated
features of ancestor-worship, as of other Chinese religious practices,
will gradually disappear, but it is probable that this will be due
rather to rationalistic pressure than to Christianity. The Chinese
are beginning to imbibe Western culture--especially Western science
and philosophy--with avidity, and the more they do so the more ready
will they be to abandon some of their traditional ideas with regard to
demonology, _fêng-shui_, the burning of paper furniture and money, the
worship of the "gods" of Taoism, and many other superstitious beliefs
and practices; indeed this lopping off of the rotten branches of the
religious life of China began several years ago, and is not likely
to cease until there are no more rotten branches left on the tree.
But it is a very noteworthy fact that the abandonment of many popular
superstitions does not necessarily imply the establishment of Christian
dogmas in their place.
A year ago, while travelling in the province of Anhui, I visited a
town which had so far abandoned its "heathen" rites that a long row
of images had been dragged from their roadside shrines and tossed
into the river. Yet I was told by resident European missionaries that
their converts had had nothing whatever, directly or indirectly,
to do with this proceeding; it had been carried out solely by the
young local _literati_, who had shown themselves as absolutely
impervious to the Christian propaganda as they were contemptuous
of the puerile superstitions of the masses. But it will be a long
time yet before the essential rites and observances connected with
the cult of ancestors begin to suffer from the inroads either of
Rationalism or of Christianity. Buddhism and Taoism are China's
privileged guests, who--unless they speedily adapt themselves to new
conditions--may shortly find they have outstayed their welcome; but
the cult of ancestors is enthroned in the hearts of the people, and
if Christianity is ever to dislodge it, or even find a place by its
side, the intruder will be obliged to adopt a less arrogant and less
uncompromising attitude than it has assumed hitherto. Dr. A. H. Smith,
Dr. Edkins,[310] and other missionaries declare that China must choose
between Christianity and ancestor-worship. She made up her mind on the
subject in the middle of the eighteenth century, as a result of the
controversy between the Jesuits and the Vatican,[311] and there is no
indication that she regrets her choice.
It will be remembered that in the controversy alluded to, the Jesuit
missionaries, who had hitherto been amazingly successful in their
propaganda, strongly advocated the toleration of ancestor-worship on
the ground that the rites were merely civil and commemorative, and
were not idolatrous. This view, after lengthy disputes, was finally
condemned as erroneous, and the cult of ancestors on the part of
Christians was prohibited by the Roman pontiff (Benedict XIV.) "without
qualification or concession of any kind."[312] The result of this was
the collapse of the young and vigorous Roman Church in China. The
Chinese Emperor, who had found himself contradicted on Chinese soil by
papal edicts, was naturally disinclined to treat the foreign religion
and its professors with the tolerance and respect that had hitherto
been extended to it.[313] It is interesting to note the Protestant
attitude towards the papal decision on this matter. "It is not easy to
perceive, perhaps," writes Dr. Wells Williams, "why the Pope and the
Dominicans were so much opposed to the worship of ancestral penates
among the Chinese when they performed much the same services themselves
before the images of Mary, Joseph, Cecilia, Ignatius, and hundreds of
other deified mortals."[314]
Evidently the good Doctor could not withstand the temptation to
administer a sharp Protestant pin-prick to his Romanist rivals, though
"it is not easy to perceive" why he should find fault with the Papists
in this respect when missionaries of his own branch of Christianity
were (as some still are) equally ready to attempt the cheerless task
of reconciling contradictories. They condemn the Chinese for their
demonology and superstitious follies, yet many of them are merely
substituting Western superstition for Eastern. They expel demons from
the bodies of sick men, they report in their journals the occurrence
of miracles wrought by the Deity on behalf of their propaganda, they
pray for the supersession of the laws of meteorology, they report cases
of real devils actually speaking through "idols," they believe in the
existence of real witches, and they still teach the "heathen" fabulous
stories of the creation of the world and the origin of man.[315]
That missionaries of this class are less numerous than formerly
is fortunately true, but their teachings presumably remain the
treasured possession of their converts, and if those converts or
their descendants ever break out in acts of fanatical bigotry and
intolerance, or take to enforcing their beliefs on others, the
responsibility will rest with the Mission Boards for sending out
Christian teachers whose religious beliefs were of a type that
flourished widely in our own land in the age of witch-burning and
about the time of Mr. Praise-God Barebones, but which, thanks chiefly
to Biblical criticism and the study of comparative mythology and the
advance of scientific knowledge, has happily become all but extinct
among our educated classes.
But to return to the specific charge brought against Romanists by
Dr. Wells Williams--that the Pope and the Dominicans condemned
ancestor-worship as idolatrous although they conducted much the same
services themselves before the images of the _Mater Dei_ and other
deified mortals--this charge is one that has never yet been rebutted in
a manner satisfactory to those who are not Romanists.
If a Chinese goes to his _t'u ti_ (village "god") or to Kuan Yin or to
the Queen of Heaven (_Shêng Mu T'ien Hou_) or to Lung Wang the ruler of
clouds and water, with prayers for rain, or for the cure of disease,
or for safety from shipwreck; or if he beseeches the spirits of his
dead ancestors to protect the family and grant its members health and
prosperity, his proceedings are immediately condemned as idolatrous.
But if a Christian goes and prays to St. Hubert for an antidote to a
mad dog's bite or to St. Apollonia for a toothache-cure, or to St.
Theodorus at Rome for the life of a sick child, or to the Blessed
John Berchmans for the eradication of cancer in the breast, or to Our
Lady of Lourdes for the cure of a diseased bone, this is not idolatry
but good Christianity! As a matter of fact the ancestral spirits of
the Chinese and the great majority of the Taoist deities are neither
more nor less "gods" than the saints of Christendom. They--like the
saints--are regarded as the spirits of certain dead men who in their
new life beyond the grave are supposed to have acquired more or less
limited powers over some of the forces of nature and over certain of
the threads of human destiny. One is just as much a "god" as the other.
The Christian refuses to call his saints gods because that would be
confessing to polytheism, and as he professes to be a monotheist that
would never do; but he insists on accusing the Chinese of turning dead
men into gods because he wants to prove that the Chinese are idolatrous
and polytheistic.
If he says that he goes by the verdict of the Chinese themselves,
who apply to their dead men the title _shên_ and (in some cases) the
higher title _ti_, it is fair to remind him that if he insists upon
translating the former of these terms by the word "god" he should at
the same time supply a clear definition of the precise meaning which
that word is intended to convey; when he has done that it will be time
enough for us to consider whether the word "god" gives a fair idea
of the meaning of the Chinese when they declare that their deceased
ancestors have become _shên_. As to the supposed functions of the
Chinese "deities" and the Christian "saints," it would puzzle a keen
dialectician to say how the miracle-working of the one essentially
differs from that of the other, or how it is that St. Thomas of
Canterbury, in spite of his wonder-working bones, is a mere saint,
while Kuan Ti--who was once a stout soldier, but having been canonised
by imperial decree is now famous throughout the Chinese Empire as the
spiritual Patron of War--is to be hooted at as a false "god."[316]
It would seem that what the Christian says, in effect, is this: If the
Pope--the earthly head of our religion--canonises a dead man, that dead
man becomes a saint, and you may pray to him as much as you like; if
the earthly head of your religion--the Emperor of China--canonises a
man, he becomes a false god, possibly a demon, and if you commit the
sin of praying to him you do so on the peril of your soul. It is an
exemplification of the old saying, "Orthodoxy is my doxy, heterodoxy is
your doxy." In other words--you are right if you agree with me: if you
don't you are wrong! That was indeed a true saying of Thackeray's, "We
view the world through our own eyes, each of us, and make from within
us the things we see."
Of course there are many degrees of "godhead"--if we are to employ
that term--within the ranks of the Chinese "pantheon." The man
who, on account of his distinguished career in this world, or the
supposed miracles wrought by him since his removal to the next, has
been canonised or "deified" by imperial decree, holds a much more
important and imposing position than the ordinary father of a family
who, as it were, automatically becomes _shên_--a spirit or ancestral
divinity--through the simple and inevitable process of dying. But the
difference is rather in degree than in kind. The Emperor, as Father
of his people and as their High Priest or Pope, can raise any one he
chooses to the position of a _Ti_, and can subsequently elevate or
degrade him in the ranks of the national divinities in accordance
with his imperial will. As a matter of fact the process is intimately
connected with statecraft and considerations of practical expediency.
"In the Chinese Government," as Sir Alfred Lyall says, "the temporal
and spiritual powers, instead of leaning towards different centres,
meet and support each other like an arch, of which the Emperor's civil
and sacred prerogative is the keystone."[317]
What the Emperor can do on a large scale every head of a Chinese family
does regularly on a small one. In a sense no ceremony is necessary: a
man becomes an ancestral spirit as soon as he dies, irrespective of
anything that his son may do for him. But his position as a _shên_
is hardly a regular one--he is a mere "homeless ghost"--until the
son has carried out the traditional rites. The _shên chu_[318]--the
"spirit-tablet"--becomes the dead man's representative; no longer
visible and audible, he is believed to be still carrying on his
existence on a non-material plane, and to be still capable, in
some mysterious way which the Chinese themselves do not pretend to
understand, of protecting and watching over the living members of the
family and of bringing prosperity and happiness to future generations.
The filial affection of son for father is deepened on the father's
death into permanent religious reverence, and this reverential feeling
finds its natural expression in a system of rites and ceremonies
which, for the want of a better term, we call ancestor-worship. The
"idolatry" consists in bowing with clasped hands towards the tombs or
spirit-tablets, placing before them little cups and dishes containing
wine and food, and burning incense in front of the family portraits
in the ancestral temple at the season of New Year, or (if there are
no portraits) before a scroll containing the family pedigree. If the
disembodied members of a family were "gods" in the sense usually
attributed to the word their spiritual powers would not be confined--as
they normally are--to the affairs of their own descendants. The
orthodox Chinese knows that it is not only useless but wrong to
"worship"[319] the spirits of any family but his own. "For a man to
sacrifice to a spirit which does not belong to him," said Confucius,
"is flattery."[320]
For the sake of brevity and convenience we may and sometimes do speak
of the private ancestral spirits and of the great national divinities
as "gods," but we should preserve the necessary distinctions of meaning
in our own minds. That it is only a rough-and-ready mode of speech may
easily be perceived when we attempt to make a single Chinese term apply
to both these classes of spiritual beings. It is true enough that
both (in most cases) sprang from the same human origin, so that their
powers and functions differ, as already pointed out, in degree rather
than in kind; but if--whether from ignorance or from a desire to be
exceptionally polite--we were to describe a man's deceased forefathers
as _Ti_ (the nearest equivalent to "God" that the Chinese language
possesses) we should probably be the innocent cause of an outburst of
genial mirth. The average Chinese takes a very much humbler view of the
degree of deification that has fallen to his dead father's lot than
would be implied by the use of so distinguished a title.
It is a rather common opinion that "the worship of ancestors probably
had its origin in the fear of the evil which might be done by
ghosts."[321] Lafcadio Hearn, a devoted disciple of Herbert Spencer,
took a similar view of Japanese religion, and held that Shinto was at
one time a religion of "perpetual fear." Nobushige Hozumi, Dr. W. G.
Aston and others have disposed of this opinion with reference to Japan.
The former writer, who was called to the English Bar and subsequently
became a Professor of Law at Tokyo, and was still proud to own himself
an ancestor-worshipper, declared that "it was the love of ancestors,
not the dread of them, which gave rise to the custom of worshipping
and making offerings of food and drink to their spirits.... Respect
for their parents may, in some cases, have become akin to awe, yet it
was love, not dread, which caused this feeling of awe.... We celebrate
the anniversary of our ancestors, pay visits to their graves, offer
flowers, food and drink, burn incense, and bow before their tombs
entirely from a feeling of love and respect for their memory, and no
question of 'dread' enters our minds in doing so."[322]
So far as I have had opportunities of judging of Chinese
ancestor-worship, I am strongly of opinion that, subject to what has
been said in an earlier chapter,[323] the words of this writer are as
applicable to China as they are to Japan.[324] There seems, indeed, to
be very little reason why any one should propound or hold the theory
that a loving father was liable to turn into a malevolent ghost. What
the Chinese believe is that their deceased ancestors are well-disposed
towards them, and will give them reasonable help and protection
throughout the course of their lives: though if the ancestral graves
are left uncared-for or the periodical sacrifices neglected or the
spirit-tablets not treated with respect, or if living members of
the family have wasted the family property or have been guilty of
discreditable conduct, then no doubt the spirits will be angry and will
punish them for the crime of lack of filial piety (_pu hsiao_), the
worst crime of which a Chinese can be guilty.
The Chinese are quite satisfied that so long as they behave in a
filial manner (the word "filial" being taken in its widest possible
signification) they have nothing whatever to fear from their ghostly
ancestors. To be truly filial a Chinese must not merely behave with
dutiful obedience towards his parents when they are alive and with
dutiful reverence towards their manes when they are dead, but he must
also act in such a way as to reflect no speck of discredit upon them by
his own misdeeds. If his parents are themselves guilty of wrongdoing he
is entitled to remonstrate with them, because after all his parents as
well as himself owe filial reverence to their common ancestors. If the
wrongdoing is all his own he is twice guilty, for he has committed an
action which is in itself intrinsically wrong, and by degrading his own
moral nature he has brought disgrace on his parents. According to this
theory, the Chinese who commits a dishonourable action is unfilial;
if he breaks the law he is unfilial; if he does not discharge all his
dead father's obligations he is unfilial; if he ruins his own health
through immorality or excesses of any kind he is unfilial; if he fails
to bring up legitimate offspring (to continue the family and carry on
the ancestral rites) he is unfilial.[325]
Needless to say there is no such person as a perfectly filial son in
all China--or anywhere else in the world for that matter: but that fact
no more justifies us in attempting to disparage the noble and lofty
Chinese ideal of filial piety than the failure of Christian men and
Christian Governments to act in accordance with the doctrines of the
Sermon on the Mount justifies us in disparaging the highest ethical
ideal of Christianity. If the ideal--in either the Christian or the
Chinese system--were actually attainable, it would become necessary to
form a new ideal to take the place of that which had ceased as such to
exist or had been seen to "fade into the light of common day." Some
Western observers are apt to think that the Chinese doctrine of filial
piety is too one-sided to be practical: that it makes the son the slave
of his parents and gives the parents at the same time the position of
irresponsible tyrants. No greater mistake could possibly be made. The
responsibilities of the parent are correlative to the duties of the
child.
The _locus classicus_ for this is a famous story told of Confucius
himself. When he was Minister of Crime in his native state a father
brought an accusation against his own son. Confucius sent them both to
gaol, and when he was questioned as to why he punished the father as
well as the son and did not rather condemn the son for the gross crime
of disobeying his father, he replied thus: "Am I to punish for unfilial
conduct one who has not been taught filial duties? Is not he who fails
to teach his son his duties equally guilty with the son who fails to
fulfil them?"[326]
This is a point of view which the Chinese--or at least those
who have not succumbed to the seductive whispers of Western
individualism--thoroughly understand and appreciate to this day. Cases
have been heard in the British courts at Weihaiwei which prove this
to be so. On the rare occasions when a father has been compelled to
bring an action against his son, or on the more numerous occasions when
a father is summoned to the court in connection with a criminal case
in which his own son is the accused, he frequently begins by making a
humble acknowledgment that his own failure to perform his duties as
father must at least partially account for his son's depravity; or if
in accordance with the Chinese practice the British magistrate sternly
lectures a father on the enormity of his offence in bringing up his
son so badly that the son has fallen into the clutches of the law,
the unhappy man admits the justice of the charge promptly and without
reserve. _Yü ts'o: ling tsui_,--"I am guilty: I accept punishment."
But the Chinese doctrine of filial piety does not concern itself only
with the relations between parent and child. We have seen that the
whole of Chinese society is regarded as a vast family of which the
Emperor is Father; similarly the territorial officials are _in loco
parentis_ to the heads of the families living within their respective
jurisdictions: they are the _fu-mu kuan_--the father-and-mother
officials.[327] The doctrine of _Hsiao_--Filial Piety--applies not only
to domestic relationships but also to the relations between Emperor
and Minister and between rulers and ruled. The head of a family who
disobeys an official proclamation is guilty of an offence towards
the local _fu-mu kuan_ which is almost identical in kind with the
offence of a son who wilfully disobeys his father. Here again the
responsibilities are not all on one side: the _fu-mu kuan_ is by the
higher authorities held theoretically responsible for the peace and
good order and contentment of the district over which he presides,
just as Confucius is said to have held the father responsible for the
misbehaviour of his son.
Sometimes, indeed, this doctrine is carried too far, as when an
official is degraded for not preventing an outbreak of crime which he
could not possibly have foreseen. Western peoples have taken advantage
of this theory when they have called upon the Government to punish an
official within whose jurisdiction the slaughter of a missionary has
occurred, even when the official's complicity is quite unproved. The
people themselves know well that their officials are theoretically
responsible for their well-being, and often--through their lack of
scientific knowledge--blame their _fu-mu kuan_ for troubles which
the very best and most diligent of officials could not have averted.
The local officials--nay, viceroys of provinces and even the Emperor
himself--are regarded by their subordinates or subjects, or profess to
regard themselves, as personally responsible for such occurrences as
disastrous earthquakes, epidemics and inundations.[328] In 1909 the
appointment of a new governor to the province of Shantung happened
to be followed by a serious drought; he became highly unpopular at
once and received the disagreeable nickname of the Drought-Governor.
As recently as 1908 I passed through a district in the province of
Shansi in which no rain had fallen for several months. On entering
the magisterial town of the district I noticed that the streets
were thronged with crowds of people from the country, all wearing
willow-wreaths as a sign that the crops were threatened with
destruction and that public prayers were being offered for rain.[329]
The whole town was in confusion, and the sudden appearance of a
foreigner made matters worse. A noisy and restless crowd followed me
into my inn and proved so troublesome (though by no means violent) that
I was obliged to send a message to the local magistrate to request him
to have the inn-yard cleared. My messenger soon came back to report
that the magistrate's official residence or yamên was also closely
invested by a clamouring mob and that the wretched man had been obliged
to barricade his windows and doors to save himself from personal
violence. He was therefore powerless to grant my request. The crowd
had no complaint whatever against him except that his official prayers
for rain had failed to have the desired result and that his culpable
inability to establish friendly relations with the divine Powers was
the evident cause of the drought.
This of course is carrying the theory of the mutual responsibilities
of father and son, ruler and ruled, a great deal too far: but
occurrences of this kind will become less and less frequent with
the gradual advance of scientific and general knowledge; and it is
surely far better that the changes should occur automatically than by
forcible interference with customs and superstitions which in their
fall might involve the indiscriminate destruction of good and bad. We
may now perceive, perhaps, how it was that Confucius, who was evidently
almost an agnostic with regard to gods and spiritual beings,[330] was
strenuously opposed to the abandonment of the rites and ceremonies
that presupposed the existence of such beings. He insisted upon the
importance of keeping up the cult of ancestors not so much for the sake
of the dead but because it fostered among living men feelings of love,
respect, reverence, and duty towards family and State. The souls of
the dead might or might not be unconscious of what was done for them,
but it was in the interests of social harmony and political stability
that the traditional religious and commemorative ceremonies should be
jealously preserved and handed down to posterity and that during the
performance of such ceremonies the presence of the ancestral spirits
should at least be tacitly assumed.
There is one alleged objection to ancestor-worship which only a few
years ago might have been regarded as most serious; and indeed it has
been urged again and again by missionaries, travellers, ethical writers
and sociologists. It was supposed that the cult of ancestors kept the
race that practised it in the grip of a remorseless conservatism;
that the ancestor-worshipper always turned his back on progress and
reform on the plea that what was good enough for his grandfather was
good enough for him; that ancestor-worship was the secret of Oriental
stagnation, and that no Eastern race could be expected to advance in
civilisation and culture until it had learned to work for the good of
its posterity rather than for the barren honour of its ancestry.
"As a system, ancestral worship," says a European writer, "is tenfold
more potent for keeping the people in darkness than all the idols in
the land." "By its deadening influences," says another, "the nation has
been kept for ages looking backward and downward instead of forward
and upward."[331] A few years ago, be it repeated, the theory was one
that had some weight: not because it was convincing in itself but
because facts were wanting by which it could be refuted. The leap of
Japan into the front rank of civilised nations has for ever disposed of
the argument that ancestor-worshippers are necessarily impervious to
change and reform. The cult of ancestors, be it remembered, is nearly
if not quite as prominent a feature in the religious life of Japan as
in that of China. Says a foreign observer, "The ancestor-worship of
the Japanese is no superstition: it is the great essential fact of
their lives."[332] Says a native observer, "the introduction of Western
civilisation, which has wrought so many social and political changes
during the last sixty years, has had no influence whatever in the
direction of modifying the custom."[333]
According to Lafcadio Hearn, ancestor-worship is "that which specially
directs national life and shapes national character. Patriotism belongs
to it. Loyalty is based on it." Little wonder is it that, knowing what
the ancestral cult has done for Japan, Prof. H. A. Giles in quoting
this passage adds a significant remark. "It would seem," he writes,
"that so far from backing up missionaries who are imploring the Chinese
to get rid of ancestral worship, the sooner we establish it in this
country the better for our own interests." That ancestor-worship can be
introduced or reintroduced into an occidental country in the twentieth
century is of course out of the question: but before we continue to
devote human lives and vast treasure to the self-imposed task of
uprooting it from its congenial oriental soil, would it not be well
earnestly to consider whether our work may not be regarded by our own
distant posterity as the most stupendous folly or as the gravest and
most disastrous of errors ever committed by the nations of the West?
By all means let it be admitted that ancestor-worship helped to make
China content--perhaps foolishly content--with her traditional culture,
and too heedless of the rapid development of the occidental Powers in
wealth and civilisation and scientific equipment: on the other hand
it helped to make her people industrious, frugal, patient, cheerful,
law-abiding, filial, good fathers, loyal to the past, hopeful and
thoughtful for the future. Most emphatically may we say this, that
it is not essential to China's future progress that ancestor-worship
should be abolished. Among the people of China their ancestors occupy
the place of a kind of Second Chamber--a phantom House of Lords,
strongly antagonistic to sudden change and to rash experiments whether
in social life, religion or politics; a House of Lords which--like
Upper Houses elsewhere--may at times have opposed real progress and
useful reform, but which perhaps far oftener has saved the nation from
the consequences of its own excesses by exercising a sacred right of
veto of which no Lower House has the least desire to deprive it: a veto
which is none the less effective, none the less binding on living men,
through being exercised by a silent crowd of viewless ghosts.
FOOTNOTES:
[301] "The Religion of China," in _Religious Systems of the World_ (8th
ed.), pp. 61 _seq._
[302] _Quarterly Review_, October 1907, p. 374.
[303] _The Evolution of Religion_ (3rd ed.), vol. i. p. 40.
[304] _The Dragon, Image and Demon_, pp. 77 and 88.
[305] _The Middle Kingdom_ (1883 ed.), vol. ii. p. 253-4.
[306] _Chinese Characteristics_ (5th ed.), p. 185.
[307] _The Lore of Cathay_, p. 275.
[308] None perhaps more pitiful than that which is related in the
_Revue des Deux Mondes_ of September 15, 1900. I forbear to quote this
story, as it would not be fair to do so without hearing "the other
side."
[309] _The Spectator_, August 22, 1908, p. 267.
[310] _Religion in China_ (1893 ed.), p. 153.
[311] For brief accounts of this celebrated episode, see Prof. Parker's
_China and Religion_, pp. 197-203; Williams's _Middle Kingdom_ (1883
ed.), vol. ii. pp. 299 _seq._, and Max Müller's _Last Essays_ (Second
Series), pp. 314-18.
[312] Parker, _op. cit._ p. 202.
[313] "Considering," writes Sir Charles Eliot, "what would have been
the probable fate of Chinamen in Rome who publicly contradicted the
Pope on matters of doctrine, it is hardly surprising if K'ang Hsi dealt
severely with the rebellious foreign religion." (_Quarterly Review_
October 1907, p. 375.)
[314] _The Middle Kingdom_ (1883 ed.), vol. ii. p. 253.
[315] Evidence of these things may be found _passim_ in such journals
as _China's Millions_. Some typical cases are mentioned by Arthur
Davenport in his interesting work _China from Within_. He also quotes
in full the case referred to on p. 332 (footnote 3).
[316] The processes of beatification and canonisation in Rome and
China are in many respects similar. Some years ago the Archbishop of
Rouen and other prelates addressed a letter to the Pope with regard
to Joan of Arc, begging the Holy See to declare that "this admirable
girl practised heroically the Christian virtues ... and that she is
consequently worthy of being inscribed among the Blessed and of being
publicly invoked by all Christian people." After the lapse of some
years Pope Pius IX. duly "proclaimed the heroic quality of Joan of
Arc's virtues, and the authenticity of the miracles associated with
her name"; and since then, as is well known, the French heroine has
gone through the process of beatification. (See _Times_ of April 13,
1909.) In China a man or woman who was distinguished during life
for some heroic action or for pre-eminent virtue may--in suitable
circumstances--be recommended by the local officials for canonisation,
and if the Emperor wills it to be so he issues a decree whereby that
person becomes a saint or a god (whichever term we prefer) and is
officially entitled to be the recipient of public worship. The memorial
in which the magistrates set forth the virtues of the dead man--and the
miracles performed at his tomb if there happen to have been any--might
be translated almost word for word from similar memorials sent to Rome
by orthodox Christian prelates; and the Chinese Emperor gives his
decision in the matter in very much the same terms as are adopted by
the Pope. Cf. Farnell's _Evolution of Religion_, p. 77.
[317] _Asiatic Studies_ (Second Series), 1906 ed., p. 155.
[318] See pp. 277 _seq._
[319] This word "worship" is not a strictly correct translation of the
Chinese _pai_. "To visit or salute ceremoniously" would, as a rule, be
a fairer rendering.
[320] _Lun Yü_, ii. 24 (Legge's translation).
[321] Sir Charles Eliot, in _The Quarterly Review_, October 1907, p.
362.
[322] _Ancestor-worship and Japanese Law_ by Nobushige Hozumi (Tokyo,
1901), pp. 4 _seq._ For a similar view see Tylor's _Primitive Culture_
(4th ed.), vol. ii. p. 113.
[323] See pp. 119, 263.
[324] In case the reader should be misled into the belief that this
opinion is shared by all foreigners in China, I quote some words
recently published by the Rev. J. Macgowan in his work _Sidelights on
Chinese Life_ (pp. 75-6). The root of ancestor-worship, he says, "lies
neither in reverence nor in affection for the dead, but in selfishness
and dread. The kindly ties and the tender affection that used to bind
men together when they were in the world and to knit their hearts in
a loving union seem to vanish, and the living are only oppressed with
a sense of the mystery of the dead, and a fear lest they should do
anything that might incur their displeasure and so bring misery upon
the home." This view is not, I think, a fair one.
[325] According to Mencius the most unfilial of sons is he who does not
become the father of children.
[326] For a criticism of the theory, cf. Montesquieu, _L'Esprit des
Lois_, vi. 20. But see also some very appreciative remarks by the
same writer on the Chinese theory of Filial Piety, as applied to both
domestic and political relationships, in Book xix. 17-19.
[327] See above, pp. 9, 15.
[328] Cf. the beautiful prayer-poem of the Chinese king Hsüan Wang,
attributed to the ninth century B.C. (For text and translation see
Legge's _Chinese Classics_, vol. iv. pt. ii. pp. 528 _seq._)
[329] See p. 187.
[330] It need not be supposed that there was anything unique about
Confucius's agnosticism. There is evidence enough that he did not stand
alone in his attitude of uncertainty with regard to the spiritual
world. The writings of Mo Tzŭ (Micius), who taught an attractive
philosophy of his own in the fourth and fifth centuries B.C., show
inferentially that the question of whether there was or was not a
world of spirits was a frequent subject of debate among the learned.
Micius himself took the view that "there are heavenly spirits and there
are spirits of the hills and streams, and there are spirits of the
dead also." He hotly combated the view (which must have been widely
current) that no such spirits existed. The subject remained a stock
question for debate; indeed once it had been raised, how could it ever
have ceased to agitate men's minds? The philosopher Wang Ch'ung (first
century A.D.) was a materialist, and besides flouting many prevalent
superstitions, such as those relating to virgin-births and other
prodigies, he entered the lists against those who sought to prove that
dead men continue to have a conscious existence or can exercise any
control or influence over their living descendants.
[331] Both of these enlightening observations are quoted with evident
approval by the Rev. H. C. Du Bose in his work _The Dragon, Image and
Demon_ (New York: 1887), pp. 87-8.
[332] O. K. Davis in the _Century Illustrated Magazine_, November 1904.
This is quoted by Prof. H. A. Giles in _Adversaria Sinica_, p. 202.
[333] Nobushige Hozumi in _Ancestor-Worship and Japanese Law_, p. 2.