[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.)
[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.