[137] Confucian Analects (The Chinese Classics, 2d ed., vol. i), bk. xvii, chap. ii. The student of biology will see in this view an anticipation of the latest teaching of modern science in respect to the relative importance of heredity and education in the determining of character.
[138] “There is nothing in this world so dangerous for the national safety, public health and welfare as heterodoxy, which means acts, institutions, doctrines not based upon the classics.”—De Groot, The Religion of the Chinese (1910), p. 48.
[139] Confucius thus describes himself: “A transmitter and not a maker, believing in and loving the ancients” (Confucian Analects, bk. vii, chap. i).
[140] The Religions of China (1881), p. 255.
[141] Chinese literature bears unique testimony to the high consideration in which the virtue of filial devotion and reverence is held. It abounds in anecdotes exalting this virtue, holding up great exemplars of it for imitation by the Chinese youth. See Doolittle, Social Life of the Chinese.
[142] The Hsiao King (Sacred Books of the East, vol. iii), chap. xviii.
[143] Ibid. chap. xi.
[144] Doolittle, Social Life of the Chinese (1868), p. 103.
[145] Ibid. p. 103.
[146] China in Law and Commerce (1905), p. 34.