uperstition and fanaticism, as we perform a ritual of high moral and social importance. This ritual, in fact, is demanded by filial piety, which in the political-moral system of Confucius, is the basic of all virtues, the foundation of family morals, and consequently of society and of the empire. Under these conditions, how is it necessary to honor the dead, and of all the dead, those which concern us most directly, our ancestors? The Book of Rites credited Confucius with this saying: "To treat the dead as dead would be inhuman. One must not do it. But to treat them as living would be foolish. One must not do it." One is not then to treat the dead as dead, that is to say to concern oneself no more with them, but to forget them, one is not to treat them as living either, and that is to believe that they really live. In fact, they do live in our memory, by the intensity of the sentiment that is called filial piety and which leads to the worship of those to whom one owes one's life and one's conscience to carry on. And to perpetuate their memory, to pass on the cult indefinitely to our descendents, giving us the illusion, a salutary illusion, of the continuity, perenniality and immortality, of this phantom existence, in this passing world. The cult of the ancestors, which has no connection with religious faith, exerts a profound influence on the daily life of the Chinese people. The recollection of the ancestors, the fear of offending them or soiling their reputations, coupled with the desire to please them, are sources of inspiration, which guide the actions of the descendants. Even for a hardened sinner, to lack respect for the ancestors is the worst offense imaginable. Here is how the intimate thought of the master should be interpreted. Respectful of tradition and of rituals, he did not wish to explain himself fully on this subject. But such should be his thought. The cult of the dead is, in his eyes, the cult of memory, based upon fi...
