[233] Although the Chinese do not “shake hands” in our sense of the term, it is a sign of affection to seize the hand of a parting or returning friend. “The Book of Rites,” however, lays down the rule that persons of opposite sexes should not, in passing things from one to the other, let their hands touch; and the question was gravely put to Mencius (Book IV.) as to whether a man might even pull his drowning sister-in-law out of the water. Mencius replied that it was indeed a general principle that a man should avoid touching a woman’s hand, but that he who could not make an exception in such a case would be no better than a wolf. Neither, according to the Chinese rule, should men and women hang their clothes on the same rack, which reminds one of the French prude who would not allow male and female authors to be ranged upon the same bookshelf.
[return to footnote anchor 233]
[return to footnote 489]
[return to footnote 581]
[234] The Pæonia albiflora.
[return to text]
[235] The various subdivisions of the animal and vegetable kingdoms are each believed by the Chinese to be under the sway of a ruler holding his commission from and responsible to the one Supreme Power or God, fully in accordance with the general scheme of supernatural Government accepted in other and less civilized communities.
[return to text]
[236] This is by no means uncommon. The debt of gratitude between pupil and teacher is second only to that existing between child and parent; and a successful student soon has it in his power to more than repay any such act of kindness as that here mentioned.
[return to text]
[237] Which form the unvarying curriculum of a Chinese education. These are (1) the Four Books, consisting of the teachings of Confucius and Mencius; and (2) the Five Canons (in the ecclesiastical sense of the word) or the Canons of Changes, History, Poetry, the Record of Rites, and Spring and Autumn. The Four Books consist of:—
(1) The Book of Wisdom, attributed by Chu Hi to Confucius. It is a disquisition upon virtue and the moral elevation of the people.
(2) The Chung Yung, or Gospel of Tzŭ Ssŭ (the grandson of Confucius) wherein the ruling motives of human conduct are traced from their psychological source.
(3) The Confucian Gospels, being discourses of the Sage with his disciples on miscellaneous topics.
(4) The Gospels of Mencius.
The Canon of Changes contains a fanciful system of philosophy based upon the combinations of eight diagrams said to have been copied from the lines on the back of a tortoise. Ascribed to B.C. 1150.