Confucius declined absolutely to discuss the supernatural in any form or shape, his one object being to improve human conduct in this life, without attempting to probe that state from which man is divided by death.  At the same time, he was no scoffer; for although he declared that “the study of the supernatural is injurious indeed,” and somewhat cynically bade his followers “show respect to spiritual beings, but keep them at a distance,” yet in another passage we read:  “He who offends against God has no one to whom he can pray.”  Again, when he was seriously ill, a disciple asked if he might offer up prayer.  Confucius demurred to this, pointing out that he himself had been praying for a considerable period; meaning thereby that his life had been one long prayer.

CHAPTER XII—­THE OUTLOOK

There is a very common statement made by persons who have lived in China—­among the people, but not of them—­and the more superficial the acquaintance, the more emphatically is the statement made, that the ordinary Chinaman, be he prince or peasant, offers to the Western observer an insoluble puzzle in every department of his life.  He is, in fact, a standing enigma; a human being, it may be granted, but one who can no more be classed than his unique monosyllabic language, which still stands isolated and alone.

This estimate is largely based upon some exceedingly false inferences.  It seems to be argued that because, in a great many matters, the Chinaman takes a diametrically opposite view to our own, he must necessarily be a very eccentric fellow; but as these are mostly matters of convention, the argument is just as valid against us as against him.  “Strange people, those foreigners,” he may say, and actually does say; “they make their compass point north instead of south.  They take off their hats in company instead of keeping them on.  They mount a horse on its left instead of on its right side.  They begin dinner with soup instead of dessert, and end it with dessert instead of soup.  They drink their wine cold instead of hot.  Their books all open at the wrong end, and the lines in a page are horizontal instead of vertical.  They put their guests on the right instead of on the left, though it is true that we did that until several hundred years ago.  Their music, too, is so funny, it is more like noise; and as for their singing, it is only very loud talking.  Then their women are so immodest; striding about in ball-rooms with very little on, and embracing strange men in a whirligig which they call dancing, but very unlike the dignified movements which our male dancers exhibit in the Confucian temple.  Their men and women shake hands, though know from our sacred Book of Rites that men and women should not even pass things from one to another, for fear their hands should touch.  Then, again, all foreigners, sometimes the women also, carry sticks, which can only be for beating innocent people; and their so-called mandarins and others ride races and row boats, instead of having coolies to do these things for them.  They are strange people indeed; very clever at cunning, mechanical devices, such as fire-ships, fire-carriages, and air-cars; but extremely ferocious and almost entirely uncivilized.”