DOI Artikel:
Waley, Arthur: Confucius
DOI Seite / Zitierlink: https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.29343#0013
/
Supenor and alone Confucius stood,
JVho taught thal useful science, to be good.—pope
is curious that,to thosewho,
lacking religion, yet possess
some kind of moral code, the
morals of the world past and
present should seem so much
more mysterious than its
mysticisms. Bodhidharma, San Juan de la
Cruz, the Sufis, George Herbert, Father Hop-
kins . . . to all these an irreligious but imagin-
ative man needs no clue. But the minds of
Confucius,Pussyfoot, Alderman Clark, a fairly
moral man cannot, even with the aid of recent
psychology, attempt to fathom.
THERE is an assthetic quality in religion
whichmakes it durable, while old morals
fade as quickly as old ]okes. Sometimes
indeed discarded morals are funny, but only
slightly. My aim is here not to amuse, but
to show what strange pre-occupations may
possess the human mind. Confucius seldom
laughed, but even he would not have viewed
without a smile the spectacle of 20th century
morality. He indeed narrowed down the field of
morals to two kindred duties, respect for parents
and propitiation of the dead. We have reduced.
it to the compass of a single problem, the ques-
tion of sexual conduct which hardly worried
Confucius at all. Why should it? He was at
9
Supenor and alone Confucius stood,
JVho taught thal useful science, to be good.—pope
is curious that,to thosewho,
lacking religion, yet possess
some kind of moral code, the
morals of the world past and
present should seem so much
more mysterious than its
mysticisms. Bodhidharma, San Juan de la
Cruz, the Sufis, George Herbert, Father Hop-
kins . . . to all these an irreligious but imagin-
ative man needs no clue. But the minds of
Confucius,Pussyfoot, Alderman Clark, a fairly
moral man cannot, even with the aid of recent
psychology, attempt to fathom.
THERE is an assthetic quality in religion
whichmakes it durable, while old morals
fade as quickly as old ]okes. Sometimes
indeed discarded morals are funny, but only
slightly. My aim is here not to amuse, but
to show what strange pre-occupations may
possess the human mind. Confucius seldom
laughed, but even he would not have viewed
without a smile the spectacle of 20th century
morality. He indeed narrowed down the field of
morals to two kindred duties, respect for parents
and propitiation of the dead. We have reduced.
it to the compass of a single problem, the ques-
tion of sexual conduct which hardly worried
Confucius at all. Why should it? He was at
9