Page:The Spirit of the Chinese People.djvu/100

54 Nevertheless Confucius says we can know what the law of the gentleman is, if we will study and try to acquire the fine feeling or good taste of the gentleman. The word in Chinese li (禮) for good taste in the teaching of Confucius has been variously translated as ceremony, propriety, and good manners, but the word means really good taste. Now this good taste, the fine feeling and good taste of a gentleman, when applied to moral action, is what, in European language, is called the sense of honour. In fact, the law of the gentleman of Confucius is nothing else but the sense of honour. This sense of honour, called by Confucius the law of the gentleman, is not like the moral law of the philosopher and moralist, a dry, dead knowledge of the form or formula of right and wrong, but like the Righteousness of the Bible in Christianity, an instinctive, living, vivid perception of the indefinable, absolute essence of right and wrong or justice, the life and soul of justice called Honour.

Now, we can answer the question: How did the man and woman who first recognised the relation of husband and wife, discover the secret, the secret of Goethe, the law of the gentleman of Confucius? The man and woman who discovered this secret, discovered it because they had the fine feeling, the good taste of the gentleman, called when applied to moral action the sense of honour, which made them see the undefinable, absolute essence of right and wrong or justice, the life and soul of justice called Honour. But then what gave, what inspired the man and woman to have