but involves the right principles from which all true etiquette and politeness spring.”
One of the most satisfactory methods to ascertain the Chinese view of filial piety would be to trace the instruction which is contained on this subject in the Four Books, and in the other Classics, especially in the “Filial Piety Classic.” Our present object is merely to direct attention to the doctrine as put into practice by the Chinese, of whom filial piety, in the sense in which they understand it, is not merely a characteristic but a peculiarity. It must be remembered that Chinese filial piety is many-sided, and the same things are not to be seen in all situations or by all observers.
At the Missionary Conference held in Shanghai in the year 1877, a paper was read by Dr. Yates on “Ancestral Worship,” in which he embodied the results of his thirty years’ experience in China. In one of the opening sentences of this elaborate essay, the author, after speaking of ancestral worship considered merely as a manifestation of filial piety, continues: “The term ‘filial’ is misleading, and we should guard against being deceived by it. Of all the people of whom we have any knowledge, the sons of the Chinese are most unfilial, disobedient to parents, and pertinacious in having their own way from the time they are able to make known their wants.”
Dr. Legge, the distinguished translator of the Chinese Classics, who retired from China after thirty-three years’ experience, has quoted this passage from Dr. Yates, for the purpose of most emphatically dissenting from it, declaring that his experience of the Chinese has been totally different. This merely illustrates the familiar truth that there is room for honest difference of opinion among men, as among thermometers, and that a correct view can only be reached by combining results that appear to be absolutely inharmonious into a whole that shall be even more comprehensive than either of its parts.
