Chapter 17 chapter 17

I have been a long way, but now I can answer the question which you asked me awhile ago. You asked me, you will remember, how without a belief in God which religion teaches_how can one make men, make the mass of humanity, follow and obey the moral rule which Confucius teaches in his State religion_the absolute duty of loyalty to the Emperor? I have shown you that it is not the belief in God taught by religion which really makes men obey moral rules or rules of moral conduct. you that religion is able to make men obey the rules of moral conduct principally by means of an organization called the Church which awakens and kindles in men an inspiration or living emotion necessary to make them to obey those rules. Now, in answer to your question I am going to tell you that the system of the teachings of Confucius, called Confucianism, the State Mencius, speaking of the two purest and most Christlike characters in Chinese history, said: "When men heard of the spirit and temper of Po-y i and Shu-ch*i, the dissolute ruffian became unselfish and the cowardly man had courage. " Mencius Bk. Ill, Part II, IX, religion in China, like the Church religion in other countries, makes men obey the rules of moral conduct also by means of an organization corresponding to the Church of the Church religion in other countries. This organization in the State religion of Confucianism in China is_the school. The school is the Church of the State religion of Confucius in China. As you know, the same word "chiao" in Chinese for religion is also the word for education. In fact, as the Church in China is the school, religion to the Chinese means education, culture. The aim and object of the school in China is not, as in modern Europe and America to-day, to teach men how to earn a living, how to make money, but, like the aim and object of the Church religion, to teach men to understand what Mr. Froude calls the primitive commandment, "Thou shalt not lie" and" Thou shall not steal" ;in fact,to teach men to be good. "Whether we provide for action or conversation," says Dr. Johnson. "whether we wish to be useful or pleasing, the first requisite is the religious and moral knowledge of right and wrong; the next, an acquaintance with the history of humanity and with those examples which may be said to embody truth and prove by events the reasonableness of opinions."

But then we have seen that the Church of the Church religion is able to make men obey the rules of moral conduct by awakening and kindling in men an inspiration or living emotion, and that it awakens and kindles this inspiration or living emotion principally by exciting and arousing the feeling and emotion of unbounded admiration, love, and enthusiasm for the character and person of the first Teacher and Founder of religion. Now, here there is a difference between the school_the Church of the State religion of Confucius in China_and the Church of the Church religion in other countries. The school_ the Church of the State religion in China_it is true, enables and makes men obey the rules of moral conduct, also like the Church of the Church religion, by awakening and kindling in men an inspiration or living emotion . But the means which the school in China uses to awake and kindle this inspiration or living emotion in men are different from those of the Church of the Church religion in o other countries. The school, the Church of the State religion of Confucius in China, does not awaken and kindle this inspiration or living emotion in men by exciting and arousing the feeling of unbounded admiration, love, and enthusiasm for Confucius. Confucius in his lifetime did indeed inspire in his immediate disciplines a feeling and emotion of unbounded admiration, love, and enthusiasm, and, after his death, has inspired the same feeling and emotion in all great men who have studied and understood him. But Confucius even while he lived did not inspire, and, after his death, has not inspired in the mass of mankind the same feeling and emotion of admiration, love, and enthusiasm which the founders of all the great religions in the world, as we know, have inspired. mass of the population in China do not adore and worship Confucius as the mass of the population in Mohammedan countries adore and worship Mohammed, or as the mass of the population in European countries adore and worshipJesus Christ. In this respect Confucius does not belong to the class of men called founders of a religion. In order to be a founder of a religion in the European sense of the word, a man must have an exceptionally or even an abnormally strong emotional nature. Confucius indeed was descended from a race of kings, the house of Shang, the dynasty which ruled over China before the dynasty under which Confucius lived_a race of men who had the strong emotional nature of the Hebrew people. But Confucius himself lived under the dynasty of the House of Chow_a race of men who had the fine intellectual nature of the Greeks, a race of whom the Duke of Chou, the founder, as I told you, of the pre-Confucian religion or religion of the old dispensation in China was a true representative. Thus Confucius was, if I may use a comparison, a Hebrew by birth, with the strong emotional nature of the Hebrew race, who was trained in the best intellectual culture, who had all that which the best intellectual c culture of the civilization of the Greeks could give him. In fact, like the great Goethe in modern Europe, the great Goethe whom the people of Europe will one day recognize as the most perfect type of humanity, the real European which the civilization of Europe has produced, as the Chinese have acknowledged Confucius to be the most perfect type of humanity, the real Chinaman, which the Chinese civilization has produced_like the great Goethe, I say, Confucius was too educated and cultured a man to belong to the class of men called founders of religion. Indeed, even while he lived Confucius was not known to be what he was, except by his most intimate and immediate disciples.

The school in China, I say, the Church of the State religion of Confucius, does not awaken and kindle the inspiration or living emotion necessary to make men obey the rules of moral conduct by exciting and arousing the feeling and emotion of admiration, love, and enthusiasm for Confucius. But then how does the school in China awake and kindle the inspiration or living emotion necessary to make man obey the rules of moral conduct? Confucius says: "In education the feeling and emotion is aroused by the study of poetry; the judgment is formed by the study of good taste and good manners; the education of the character is completed by the study of music. " The school_ the Church of the State religion in China wakens and kindles the inspiration or living emotion in men necessary to make them obey the rules of moral conduct by teaching them poetry_in fact, the works of all really great men in literature, which, as I told you, has the inspiration or living emotion that is in the rules of mo ral conduct of religion. Matthew Arnold, speaking of Homer and the quality of nobleness in his poetry, says: "The nobleness in the poetry of Homer and of the few great men in literature can refine the raw, natural man, can transmute him. " In fact, whatever things are true, whatever things are just, whatever things are pure, whatever things are lovely, whatever things are of good report, if there be any virtue and if there be any praise_the school, the Church of the State religion In China, makes men think on these things, and in making them think on these things, awakens and kindles the inspiration or living e-motion necessary to enable and make them obey the rules of moral conduct.