Why The Chinese Cheat
Table of Contents
Chapter 19: How this Union of Religion, Laws, Manners, and Customs among the Chinese was effected
The principal object of government which the Chinese legislators had in view was the peace and tranquillity of the empire.
Subordination appeared to them as the most proper means to maintain it.
And so they believed their duty was to inspire a respect for parents.
They exerted all their power to effect it.
They established an infinite number of rites and ceremonies to do them honour when living, and after their death.
It was impossible for them to pay such honours to deceased parents without being led to reverence the living.
The ceremonies at the death of a father were more nearly related to religion; those for a living parent had a greater relation to the laws, manners, and customs: however, these were only parts of the same code; but this code was very extensive.
A veneration for their parents was necessarily connected with a suitable respect for all who represented them; such as old men, masters, magistrates, and the sovereign.
This respect for parents supposed a return of love towards children, and consequently the same return from old men to the young, from magistrates to those who were under their jurisdiction, and from the emperor to his subjects. This formed the rites, and these rites the general spirit of the nation.
We shall now show the relation which things in appearance the most indifferent may bear to the fundamental constitution of China.
This empire is formed on the plan of a government of a family.
If you diminish the paternal authority, or even if you retrench the ceremonies which express your respect for it, you weaken the reverence due to magistrates, who are considered as fathers.
Nor would the magistrates have the same care of the people, whom they ought to look upon as their children; and that tender relation which subsists between the prince and his subjects would insensibly be lost. Retrench but one of these habits and you overturn the state.
It is a thing in itself very indifferent whether the daughter-in-law rises every morning to pay such and such duties to her mother-in-law.
But if we consider that these exterior habits incessantly revive an idea necessary to be imprinted on all minds — an idea that forms the ruling spirit of the empire — we shall see that it is necessary that such or such a particular action be performed.
Chapter 20: Explanation of a Paradox relating to the Chinese.
It is very remarkable that the Chinese, whose lives are guided by rites, are nevertheless the greatest cheats upon earth.*
Superphysics Note
This appears chiefly in their trade, which, in spite of its natural tendency, has never been able to make them honest.
Anyone who buys of them should carry with him his own weights.
Every merchant has 3 sorts:
- The one heavy for buying
- Another light for selling
- Another of the true standard for those who are on their guard
The legislators of China had 2 objects in view. They wanted the people to be:
- Submissive and peaceful
- Laborious and industrious
Their subsistence is very precarious because of the nature of the soil and climate which needs to be secured by industry and labour.
When every one obeys, and every one is employed, the state is in a happy situation.
It is necessity, and perhaps the nature of the climate, that has given to the Chinese an inconceivable greediness for gain, and laws have never been made to restrain it.
- Everything acquired by acts of violence is forbidden
- Everything obtained by artifice or labour is permitted
Let us not then compare the morals of China with those of Europe.
Every one in China is obliged to be attentive to what will be for his advantage.
If the cheat has been watchful over his own interest, he who is the dupe ought to be attentive to his.
At Sparta they were permitted to steal. In China, they are suffered to deceive.