Page:The Spirit of the Chinese People.djvu/81

 policeman, he should not become a revolutionist or anarchist. In a society when the policeman once comes to the conclusion that there is no reason why, if he can get better pay, he should not become a revolutionist or anarchist—that society is doomed. Mencius said:—"When Confucius completed his Spring and Autumn Annals"—the book in which he taught the State religion of his and in which he showed that the society of his time—in which there was then, as in the world to-day, no sense of honour in public men and no morality in politics—was doomed; when Confucius wrote that book, "the Jesuits and anarchists (lit. bandits) of his time, became afraid." (亂臣賊子懼)

But to return from the digression., [sic] I say, a society without the sense of honour cannot be held together, cannot last. For if, as we have seen, even in the relation between men connected with matters of little or no vital importance such as gambling and trading in human society, the recognition of the sense of honour is so important and necessary, how much more so it must be in the relations between men in human society, which establish the two most essential institutions in that society, the Family and the State. Now, as you all know, the rise of civil society in the history of all nations begins always with the institution of marriage. The Church religion in Europe makes marriage a sacrament, i.e., something sacred and inviolable. The sanction for the sacrament of marriage in Europe is given by the Church and the authority for the sanction