Page:The Spirit of the Chinese People.djvu/76

 When I was in Japan last year the ex-Minister of Education, Baron Kikuchi, asked me to translate four Chinese characters taken from the book in which, as I said, Confucius taught this State religion of his. The four characters were Ming fen ta yi. (名分大義) I translated them as the Great Principle of Honour and Duty. It is for this reason that the Chinese make a special distinction between Confucianism and all other religions by calling the system of teaching taught by Confucius not a chiao (教)—the general term in Chinese for religion with which they designate other religions, such as Buddhism, Mohammedanism and Christianity—but the ming chiao (教名名教 [sic])—the religion of Honour. Again the term chun tzu chih tao (君子之道) in the teachings of Confucius, translated by Dr. Legge as "the way of the superior man," for which the nearest equivalent in the European languages is moral law—means literally, the way—the Law of the Gentleman. In fact, the whole system of philosophy and morality taught by Confucius may be summed up in one word: the Law of the Gentleman. Now Confucius codified this law of the gentleman and made it a Religion,—a State religion. The first Article of Faith in this State Religion is Ming fen ta yi—the Principle of Honour and Duty —which may thus be called: A Code of Honour.

In this State religion Confucius taught that the only true, rational, permanent and absolute basis, not only of a State, but of all Society and civilisation, is this law of the gentleman, the sense of honour in man.