The significant thing here is not so much the fact that these things were done, as the fact that the king exults in having done them and thinks to immortalize himself by portraying them upon imperishable stone. The careful way in which to-day all reference to atrocities of this character, when in the fury of battle they are inflicted upon a savage enemy, are suppressed by those responsible for them, and the indignant condemnation of them by the public opinion of the civilized world, measures the moral progress humanity has made even along those lines on which progress has been so painfully slow and halting.[116]
CHAPTER V
CHINESE MORALS: AN IDEAL OF FILIAL PIETY
I. Ideas, Institutions, and Historical Circumstances determining the Cast of the Moral Ideal
Introductory
With the exception of the teachers of the ancient Hebrews, the leaders of thought of no people have so insistently interpreted life and history in terms of ethics as have the sages of the Chinese race. And, excepting the Hebrew teachers, no moralists have so emphasized duties while leaving rights—upon which the Western world in modern times has laid such stress—to take care of themselves.[117]
It cannot fail to enhance our interest in a study of the ideal upheld by these teachers of morality, if we recall that this ideal of character has for upwards of three thousand years exercised an incalculable influence upon the moral life of probably a fourth of the human race and is the cement of a social structure that has outlasted all others of the ancient world.
The cast of this moral ideal affords a good illustration of the way in which the moral type of a people is molded by religious and philosophical ideas, social institutions, race experiences, and physical environment. Following our usual method of exposition we shall begin our examination of Chinese morality by first casting a glance at some of the agencies which have been especially influential in the creation of the ethical standard.
Confucianism: the state worship of Heaven and the popular worship of ancestors
There are two religious elements in Confucianism which have special significance for Chinese morality. These are, first, the state worship of Heaven and of the lesser gods of the sky and earth; and second, the popular cult of ancestral spirits.
The worship of Heaven, the supreme deity, is a state function; that is, it is a matter which is left entirely to the Emperor and the magistrates. Consequently those duties to God, that is, to a being looked upon as Creator and Father,—duties of reverence, love, and worship, which fill so large a place in the moral ideals of Judaism and Christianity,—find scarcely any place among the duties enjoined upon the multitude by Confucianism.[118]