Page:The Spirit of the Chinese People.djvu/35

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INTRODUCTION.

The Religion of Good-citizenship

Sage, thun wir nicht recht? Wir üssen den Pöbel betrügen,
Sich nur, wie ungeschickt, sich nur wie wild er sich zeight!
Ungeschick und wild sind alle rohen Betrogenen;
Seid nur redlich und fuhrt ihn zum Menschlichen an.
[1]

Goethe.

THE great war at the present moment is absorbing all the attention of the world exclusive of everything else. But then I think this war itself must make serious thinking people turn their attention to the great problem of civilisation. All civilisation begins by the conquest of Nature, i.e. by subduing and controlling the terrific physical forces in Nature so that they can do no harm to men. The modern civilisation of Europe to-day has succeeded in the conquest of Nature with a success, it must be admitted, hitherto not attained by any other civilisation. But there is in this world a force more terrible even than the terrific physical forces in Nature and that is the passions in the heart of man. The harm which the physical forces of Nature can do to mankind, is nothing compared with the harm which human passions can do. Until therefore this terrible force,—the human passions—is properly regulated and controlled, there can be, it is evident, not only no civilisation, but even no life possible for human beings.

In the first early and rude stage of society, mankind had to use physical force to subdue and sub-

  1. Arein't we just doing the right thing? the mob we must befool them;
    See, now, how shiftless! and look now how wild! for such is the mob!
    Shiftless and wild all sons of Adam are when you be fool them;
    Be but honest and true, and thus make human, them all.