C — Catéchisme Chinois
Original French
O U
Entretiens de Cu-su, disciple de Confutzée, avec le Prince Kou, fils du Roi de Lou, tributaire de l'Empereur Chinois Gnen-van, 417 ans avant nôtre ère vulgaire. Traduit en Latin par le Père Fouquet, ci-devant exjésuite. Le manuscrit est dans la bibliothèque du Vatican, numero 42759.
KOU.
Que dois-je entendre quand on me dit d’adorer le ciel? (Chang-ti.)
CU-SU.
Ce n’est pas le ciel matériel que nous voyons; car ce ciel n’est autre chose que l’air, & cet air est composé de toutes les exhalaisons de la terre. Ce serait une folie bien absurde d’adorer des vapeurs.
KOU.
Je n’en serais pourtant pas surpris. Il me semble que les hommes ont fait des folies encor plus grandes.
CU-SU.
Il est vrai; mais vous êtes destiné à gouverner, vous devez être sage.
KOU.
Il y a tant de peuples qui adorent le ciel & les planètes!
CU-SU.
Les planètes ne sont que des terres comme la nôtre. La lune, par exemple, ferait aussi bien d’adorer notre sable & notre boue, que nous de nous mettre à genoux devant le sable & la boue de la lune.
KOU.
Que prétend-on quand on dit, le ciel & la terre, monter au ciel, être digne du ciel?
CU-SU.
On dit une énorme sotise;1 il n’y a point de ciel; chaque planète est entourée de son atmosphère, comme d’une coque, & roule dans l’espace autour de son soleil. Chaque soleil est le centre de plusieurs planètes, qui voyagent continuellement autour de lui. Il n’y a ni haut ni bas, ni montée ni descente. Vous sentez que si les habitans de la lune disaient qu’on monte à la terre, qu'il faut se rendre digne de la terre, ils diraient une extravagance. Nous prononçons de même un mot qui n’a pas de sens, quand nous disons qu’il faut se rendre digne du ciel; c’est comme si nous disions, Il faut se rendre digne de l'air, digne de la constellation du dragon, digne de l’espace.
KOU.
Je crois vous comprendre; il ne faut adorer que le Dieu qui a fait le ciel & la terre.
CU-SU.
Sans doute; il faut n’adorer que Dieu. Mais quand nous disons qu’il a fait le ciel & la terre, nous disons pieusement une grande pauvreté. Car si nous entendons par le ciel l’espace prodigieux dans lequel Dieu alluma tant de soleils, & fit tourner tant de mondes, il est beaucoup plus ridicule de dire, le ciel & la terre, que de dire, les montagnes & un grain de sable. Notre globe est infiniment moins qu’un grain de sable en comparaison de ces millions de milliasses d’univers, parmi lesquels nous disparaissons. Tout ce que nous pouvons faire, c’est de joindre ici notre faible voix à celle des êtres innombrables, qui rendent hommage à Dieu dans l’abîme de l'étendue.
KOU.
On nous a donc bien trompés, quand on nous a dit que Fo était descendu chez nous du quatriéme ciel, & avait paru en éléphant blanc.
CU-SU.
Ce sont des contes que les bonzes font aux enfans & aux vieilles: nous ne devons adorer que l’auteur éternel de tous les êtres.
KOU.
Mais comment un être a-t-il pu faire les autres?
CU-SU.
Regardez cette étoile; elle est à quinze cent mille millions de Li de nôtre petit globe. Il en part des rayons qui vont faire sur vos yeux deux angles égaux au sommet; ils font les mêmes angles sur les yeux de tous les animaux; ne voilà-t-il pas un dessein marqué? ne voilà-t-il pas une loi admirable? Or qui fait un ouvrage, sinon un ouvrier? Qui fait des loix, sinon un législateur? Il y a donc un ouvrier, un législateur éternel!
KOU.
Mais, qui a fait cet ouvrier? & comment est-il fait?
CU-SU.
Mon prince, je me promenais hier auprès du vaste palais qu’a bâti le Roi vôtre père. J’entendis deux grillons, dont l’un disait à l’autre, Voilà un terrible édifice. Oui, dit l’autre; tout glorieux que je suis, j'avoue que c’est quelqu'un de plus puissant que les grillons qui a fait ce prodige; mais je n’ai point d'idée de cet être là; je vois qu’il est, mais je ne sçais ce qu’il est.
KOU.
Je vous dis que vous êtes un grillon plus instruit que moi; & ce qui me plait en vous, c’est que vous ne prétendez pas sçavoir ce que vous ignorez.
SECOND ENTRETIEN.
CU-SU.
Vous convenez donc qu'il y a un être tout-puissant, existant par lui-même, suprême artisan de toute la nature?
KOU.
Oui; mais s’il existe par lui-même, rien ne peut donc le borner, il est donc partout? il existe donc dans toute la matière, dans toutes les parties de moi - même?
CU-SU.
Pourquoi non?
KOU.
Je serais donc moi-même une partie de la divinité?
CU-SU.
Ce n’est peut - être pas une conséquence. Ce morceau de verre est pénétré de toutes parts de la lumiére; est-il lumière cependant lui-même? ce n’est que du sable, & rien de plus; tout est en Dieu, sans doute; ce qui anime tout doit être partout. Dieu n’est pas comme l’empereur de la Chine qui habite son palais & qui envoye ses ordres par des Kolao. Dès là qu’il existe, il est nécessaire que son existence remplisse tout l’espace, & tous ses ouvrages; & puis qu’il est dans vous, c’est un avertissement continuel de ne rien faire dont vous puissiez rougir devant lui.
KOU.
Que faut-il faire pour oser ainsi se regarder soi-même sans répugnance & sans honte devant l’Etre suprême?
CU-SU.
Etre juste.
KOU.
Et quoi encore?
CU-SU.
Etre juste.
KOU.
Mais la secte de Laokium dit qu’il n’y a ni juste, ni injuste, ni vice, ni vertu.
CU-SU.
La secte de Laokium dit-elle qu’il n’y a ni santé, ni maladie?
KOU.
Non, elle ne dit point une si grande erreur.
CU-SU.
L'erreur de penser qu’il n’y a ni santé de l’ame, ni maladie de l’ame, ni vertu ni vice, est aussi grande & plus funeste. Ceux qui ont dit que tout est égal sont des monstres; est-il égal de nourrir son fils, ou de l’écraser sur la pierre? de secourir sa mère, ou de lui plonger un poignard dans le cœur?
KOU.
Vous me faites frémir; je déteste la secte de Laokium; mais il y a tant de nuances du juste & de l’injuste! on est souvent bien incertain. Quel homme sait précisément ce qui est permis, ou ce qui est défendu? qui pourra poser sûrement les bornes qui séparent le bien & le mal? quelle règle me donnerez-vous pour les discerner?
CU-SU.
Celles de Confutzée mon maître; vis comme en mourant tu voudrais avoir vécu; traite ton prochain comme tu veux qu’il te traite.
KOU.
Ces maximes, je l'avoue, doivent être le code du genre humain. Mais que m’importera en mourant d’avoir bien vécu? qu’y gagnerai- je? cette horloge quand elle sera détruite, sera-t-elle heureuse d’avoir bien sonné les heures?
CU-SU.
Cette horloge ne sent point, ne pense point, elle ne peut avoir des remords, & vous en avez quand vous vous sentez coupable.
KOU.
Mais si après avoir commis plusieurs crimes, je parviens à n'avoir plus de remords?
CU-SU.
Alors, il faudra vous étouffer; & soyez sûr que parmi les hommes qui n'aiment pas qu’on les opprime, il s’en trouvera qui vous mettront hors d’état de faire de nouveaux crimes.
KOU.
Ainsi Dieu qui est en eux leur permettra d’être méchants après m'avoir permis de l’être?
CU-SU.
Dieu vous a donné la raison, n’en abusez ni vous, ni eux; non seulement vous serez malheureux dans cette vie, mais qui vous a dit que vous ne le seriez pas dans une autre?
KOU.
Et qui vous a dit qu’il y a une autre vie?
CU-SU.
Dans le doute seul vous devez vous conduire comme s’il y en avait une.
KOU.
Mais, si je suis sûr qu’il n’y en a point?
CU-SU.
Je vous en défie.
TROISIEME ENTRETIEN.
KOU.
Vous me poussez, Cu-su. Pour que je puisse être récompensé ou puni quand je ne serai plus, il faut qu’il subsiste dans moi quelque chose qui sente, & qui pense après moi. Or, comme avant ma naissance, rien de moi n’avait ni sentiment ni pensée, pourquoi y en aurait-il après ma mort? que pourait être cette partie incompréhensible de moi-même? Le bourdonnement de cette abeille restera-t-il quand l’abeille ne sera plus? La végétation de cette plante subsiste-t-elle quand la plante est déracinée? La végétation n’est-elle pas un mot dont on se sert pour signifier la manière inexplicable dont l’être suprême a voulu que la plante tirat les sucs de la terre? L’ame est de même un mot inventé pour exprimer faiblement & obscurément les ressorts de nôtre vie. Tous les animaux se meuvent, & cette puissance de se mouvoir, on l’appelle force active; mais il n’y a pas un être distinct qui soit cette force. Nous avons des passions, de la mémoire, de la raison; mais ces passions, cette mémoire, cette raison, ne sont pas sans doute des choses à part, ce ne sont pas des êtres existans dans nous, ce ne sont pas de petites personnes qui ayent une existence particulière; ce sont des mots génériques, inventés pour fixer nos idées. L’ame qui signifie nôtre mémoire, nôtre raison, nos passions, n'est donc elle-même qu’un mot. Qui fait le mouvement dans la nature? c’est Dieu. Qui fait végéter toutes les plantes? c’est Dieu. Qui fait le mouvement dans les animaux? c’est Dieu. Qui fait la pensée de l'homme? c’est Dieu.
Si l'ame2 humaine était une petite personne renfermée dans nôtre corps qui en dirigeat les mouvements & les idées, cela ne marquerait-il pas dans l’éternel artisan du monde une impuissance & un artifice indigne de lui? il n’aurait donc pas été capable de faire des automates qui eussent dans eux - mêmes le don du mouvement & de la pensée. Vous m'avez appris le grec, vous m'avez fait lire Homère, je trouve Vulcain un divin forgeron quand il fait des trépieds d’or qui vont tous seuls au conseil des dieux: mais ce Vulcain me paraîtrait un misérable charlatan, s'il avait caché dans le corps de ces trépieds quelqu'un de ses garçons qui les fit mouvoir sans qu'on s’en aperçût.
Il y a de froids rêveurs qui ont pris pour une belle imagination l’idée de faire rouler des planètes par des génies qui les poussent sans cesse; mais Dieu n’a pas été réduit à cette pitoyable ressource: en un mot, pourquoi mettre deux ressorts à un ouvrage lorsqu’un seul suffit? Vous n’oserez pas nier que Dieu ait le pouvoir d'animer l’être peu connu que nous appellons matière, pourquoi donc se servirait-il d’un autre agent pour l’animer?
Il y a bien plus; que serait cette ame que vous donnez si libéralement à nôtre corps? d’où viendrait-elle? quand viendrait-elle? faudrait-il que le créateur de l’univers fût continuellement à l’affût de l’accouplement des hommes & des femmes, qu’il remarquât attentivement le moment où un germe sort du corps d’un homme, & entre dans le corps d’une femme, & qu'alors il envoyât vite une ame dans ce germe? & si ce germe meurt, que deviendra cette ame? elle aura donc été créée inutilement, ou elle attendra une autre occasion.
Voilà, je vous l’avouë, une étrange occupation pour le maître du monde; & non-seulement, il faut qu’il prenne garde continuellement à la copulation de l’espèce humaine, mais il faut qu’il en fasse autant avec tous les animaux, car ils ont tous comme nous de la mémoire, des idées, des passions; & si une ame est nécessaire pour former ces sentimens, cette mémoire, ces idées, ces passions, il faut que Dieu travaille perpétuellement à forger des ames pour les éléphans, & pour les puces, pour les hibous, pour les poissons, & pour les bonzes.
Quelle idée me donneriez-vous de l’architecte de tant de millions de mondes, qui serait obligé de faire continuellement des chevilles invisibles pour perpétuer son ouvrage!
Voilà une très petite partie des raisons qui peuvent me faire douter de l’existence de l’ame.
CU-SU.
Vous raisonnez de bonne foi; & ce sentiment vertueux, quand même il serait erroné, serait agréable à l’être suprême. Vous pouvez vous tromper, mais vous ne cherchez pas à vous tromper, & dès-lors vous êtes excuable. Mais songez que vous ne m'avez proposé que des doutes, & que ces doutes sont tristes. Admettez des vraisemblances plus consolantes; il est dûr d’être anéanti; espérez de vivre. Vous sçavez qu’une pensée n’est point matière, vous sçavez qu’elle n’a nul rapport avec la matière, pourquoi donc vous serait-il si difficile de croire que Dieu a mis dans vous un principe divin, qui ne pouvant être dissous, ne peut être sujet à la mort? oseriez-vous dire qu'il est impossible que vous ayez une ame? non sans doute; & si cela est possible, n’est-il pas très vraisemblable que vous en avez une? pouriez-vous rejetter un système si beau & si nécessaire au genre humain? & quelques difficultés vous rebuteront-elles?
KOU.
Je voudrais embrasser ce système, mais je voudrais qu'il me fût prouvé. Je ne suis pas le maître de croire quand je n’ai pas d’évidence. Je suis toujours frappé de cette grande idée que Dieu a tout fait, qu’il est partout, qu’il pénètre tout, qu’il donne le mouvement & la vie à tout; & s’il est dans toutes les parties de mon être, comme il est dans toutes les parties de la nature, je ne vois pas quel besoin j'ai d'une ame. Qu’ai-je à faire de ce petit être subalterne, quand je suis animé par Dieu même? à quoi me servirait cette ame? Ce n’est pas nous qui nous donnons nos idées, car nous les avons presque toujours malgré nous; nous en avons quand nous sommes endormis; tout se fait en nous sans que nous nous en mêlions. L’ame aurait beau dire au sang & aux esprits animaux, Courez, je vous prie, de cette façon pour me faire plaisir, ils circuleront toujours de la manière que Dieu leur a prescrite. J'aime mieux être la machine d’un Dieu qui m’est démontré, que d’être la machine d’une ame dont je doute.
CU-SU.
Eh bien, si Dieu même vous anime, ne souillez jamais par des crimes ce Dieu qui est en vous; & s’il vous a donné une ame, que cette ame ne l’offense jamais. Dans l’un & dans l’autre système vous avez une volonté, vous êtes libre, c’est- à -dire, vous avez le pouvoir de faire ce que vous voulez; servez vous de ce pouvoir pour servir ce Dieu qui vous l’a donné. Il est bon que vous soyez philosophe, mais il est nécessaire que vous soyez juste. Vous le serez encor plus quand vous croirez avoir une ame immortelle.
Daignez me répondre: n’est-il pas vrai que Dieu est la souveraine justice?
KOU.
Sans doute; & s’il était possible qu’il cessat de l’être, (ce qui est un blasphême ) je voudrais moi agir avec équité.
CU-SU.
N’est-il pas vrai que vôtre devoir sera de récompenser les actions vertueuses, & de punir les criminelles quand vous serez sur le trône? Voudriez-vous que Dieu ne fit pas ce que vous-même êtes tenu de faire? Vous sçavez qu’il est, & qu’il sera toujours dans cette vie des vertus malheureuses, & des crimes impunis; il est donc nécessaire que le bien & le mal trouvent leur jugement dans une autre vie. C’est cette idée si simple, si naturelle, si générale, qui a établi chez tant de nations la créance de l'immortalité de nos ames, & de la justice divine qui les juge, quand elles ont abandonné leur dépouille mortelle. Y a-t-il un système plus raisonnable, plus convenable à la divinité, & plus utile au genre humain?
KOU.
Pourquoi donc plusieurs nations n’ont-elles point embrassé ce système? Vous sçavez que nous avons dans nôtre province environ deux cent familles d’anciens Sinous qui ont autrefois habité une partie de l’Arabie pétrée; ni elles, ni leurs ancêtres n’ont jamais crû l’ame immortelle: ils ont leurs cinq livres, comme nous avons nos cinq King; j'en ai lu la traduction; leurs loix nécessairement semblables à celles de tous les autres peuples, leur ordonnent de respecter leurs pères, de ne point voler, de ne point mentir, de n'être ni adultères, ni homicides; mais ces mêmes loix ne leur parlent ni de récompenses ni de châtiments dans une autre vie.
CU-SU.
Si cette idée n’est pas encor dévelopée chez ce pauvre peuple, elle le sera sans doute un jour. Mais que nous importe une malheureuse petite nation, tandis que les Babiloniens, les Egyptiens, les Indiens, & toutes les nations policées ont reçu ce dogme salutaire? Si vous étiez malade, rejetteriez - vous un remède aprouvé par tous les Chinois, sous prétexte que quelques barbares des montagnes n’auraient pas voulu s’en servir? Dieu vous a donné la raison, elle vous dit que l’ame doit être immortelle, c’est donc Dieu qui vous le dit lui-même.
KOU.
Mais comment pourai -je être récompensé, ou puni, quand je ne serai plus moi -même, quand je n’aurai plus rien de ce qui aura constitué ma personne? Ce n’est que par ma mémoire que je suis toujours moi. Je perds ma mémoire dans ma dernière maladie; il faudra donc après ma mort un miracle pour me la rendre, pour me faire rentrer dans mon existence que j'aurai perdue?
CU-SU.
C’est-à- dire que si un prince avait égorgé sa famille pour régner, s’il avait tirannisé ses sujets, il en serait quitte pour dire à Dieu, Ce n’est pas moi, j’ai perdu la mémoire, vous vous méprenez, je ne suis plus la même personne; pensez-vous que Dieu fût bien content de ce sophisme?
KOU.
Eh bien soit, je me rends; je voulais faire le bien pour moi-même, je le ferai aussi pour plaire à l’être suprême. Je pensais qu’il suffisait que mon ame fût juste dans cette vie, j'espérerai qu’elle sera heureuse dans une autre. Je vois que cette opinion est bonne pour les peuples & pour les princes, mais le culte de Dieu m’embarrasse.
QUATRIEME ENTRETIEN.
CU-SU.
Que trouvez-vous de choquant dans nôtre Chu - King, ce premier livre canonique, si respecté de tous les empereurs Chinois? Vous labourez un champ de vos mains royales pour donner l’exemple au peuple, & vous en offrez les prémices au Chang-ti, au Tien, à l'être suprême; vous lui sacrifiez quatre fois l’année; vous êtes roi & pontife; vous promettez à Dieu de faire tout le bien qui sera en vôtre pouvoir; y a-t-il là quelque chose qui répugne?
KOU.
Je suis bien loin d’y trouver à redire; je sais que Dieu n’a nul besoin de nos sacrifices, ni de nos prières, mais nous avons besoin de lui en faire; son culte n’est pas établi pour lui, mais pour nous. J'aime fort à faire des prières, je veux surtout qu’elles ne soient point ridicules; car quand j'aurai bien crié que la montagne du Chang-ti est une montagne grasse, & qu’il ne faut point regarder les montagnes grasses, quand j'aurai fait enfuir le Soleil, & sécher la Lune, ce galimatias sera-t-il agréable à l’être suprême, utile à mes sujets & à moi-même?
Je ne peux surtout souffrir la démence des sectes qui nous environnent: d’un côté je vois Laotzé que sa mère conçut par l'union du ciel & de la terre, & dont elle fut grosse quatre-vingt ans. Je n’ai pas plus de foi à sa doctrine de l’anéantissement & du dépouillement universel, qu’aux cheveux blancs avec lesquels il nâquit, & à la vache noire sur laquelle il monta pour aller prêcher sa doctrine.
Le Dieu Fo ne m'en impose pas davantage, quoiqu’il ait eu pour père un éléphant blanc, & qu’il promette une vie immortelle.
Ce qui me déplait surtout, c’est que de telles rêveries sont continuellement prêchées par les bonzes qui séduisent le peuple pour le gouverner; ils se rendent respectables par des mortifications qui effrayent la nature. Les uns se privent toute leur vie des aliments les plus salutaires, comme si on ne pouvait plaire à Dieu que par un mauvais régime. Les autres se mettent au cou un carcan, dont quelquefois ils se rendent très dignes; ils s’enfoncent des cloux dans les cuisses, comme si leurs cuisses étaient des planches; le peuple les suit en foule. Si un roi donne quelque édit qui leur déplaît, ils vous disent froidement que cet édit ne se trouve pas dans le commentaire du dieu Fo, & qu’il vaut mieux obéir à Dieu qu'aux hommes. Comment remédier à une maladie populaire si extravagante, & si dangereuse? Vous sçavez que la tolérance est le principe du gouvernement de la Chine, & de tous ceux de l’Asie: mais cette indulgence n’est -elle pas bien funeste, quand elle expose un empire à être bouleversé pour des opinions fanatiques?
CU-SU.
Que le Chang-ti me préserve de vouloir éteindre en vous cet esprit de tolérance, cette vertu si respectable, qui est aux ames ce que la permission de manger est aux corps. La loi naturelle permet à chacun de croire ce qu’il veut, comme de se nourrir de ce qu’il veut. Un médecin n’a pas le droit de tuer ses malades parce qu’ils n'auront pas observé la diète qu’il leur a prescrite. Un prince n’a pas le droit de faire pendre ceux de ses sujets qui n'auront pas pensé comme lui; mais il a le droit d’empêcher les troubles; & s’il est sage, il lui sera très-aisé de déraciner les superstitions. Vous sçavez ce qui arriva à Daon, sixiéme roi de la Chaldée, il y a quelques quatre mille ans?
KOU.
Non, je n’en sçais rien, vous me ferez plaisir de me l’apprendre.
CU-SU.
Les prêtres Chaldéens s’étaient avisés d’adorer les brochets de l’Euphrate. Ils prétendaient qu’un fameux brochet nommé Oannès leur avait autrefois apris la théologie, que ce brochet était immortel, qu’il avait trois pieds de long, & un petit croissant sur la queüe. C’était par respect pour cet Oannès, qu’il était défendu de manger du brochet. Il s’éleva une grande dispute entre les théologiens, pour sçavoir si le brochet Oannès était laité, ou œuvé. Les deux partis s’excommunièrent réciproquement, & on en vint plusieurs fois aux mains. Voici comme le roi Daon s’y prit pour faire cesser ce désordre.
Il commanda un jeûne rigoureux de trois jours aux deux partis; après quoi il fit venir les partisans du brochet aux œufs, qui assistèrent à son diner; il se fit apporter un brochet de trois pieds, auquel on avait mis un petit croissant sur la queüe. Est-ce là vôtre Dieu? dit-il aux Docteurs. Oui, sire, lui répondirent-ils, car il a un croissant sur la queüe, & surement il a des œufs. Le roi commanda qu’on ouvrit le brochet, qui avait la plus belle laite du monde. Vous voyez bien, dit-il, que ce n’est pas là vôtre dieu, puisqu’il est laité; & le brochet fut mangé par le roi & par ses satrapes, au grand contentement des théologiens des œufs, qui voyaient qu’on avait fri le dieu de leurs adversaires.
On envoya chercher aussi-tôt les docteurs du parti contraire: on leur montra un dieu de trois pieds qui avait des œufs & un croissant sur la queüe; ils assurèrent que c'était là le dieu Oannès, & qu’il était laité; il fut fri comme l’autre, & reconnu œuvé. Alors les deux partis étant également sots, & n’ayant pas déjeuné, le bon roi Daon leur dit qu’il n’avait que des brochets à leur donner pour leur diner, ils en mangèrent goulument, soit œuvés, soit laités. La guerre civile finit, chacun bénit le bon roi Daon; & les citoyens depuis ce temps firent servir à leur diner tant de brochets qu’ils voulurent.
KOU.
J'aime fort le roi Daon, & je promets bien de l’imiter à la première occasion qui s’offrira. J'empêcherai toujours autant que je le pourrai ( sans faire violence à personne ) qu’on adore des Fo, & des brochets.
Je sçais que dans le Pégu & dans le Tonquin il y a de petits dieux & de petits Talapoins qui font descendre la lune dans le décours, & qui prédisent clairement l’avenir; c’est-à-dire, qui voyent clairement ce qui n’est pas, car l’avenir n’est point. J’empêcherai autant que je le pourrai que les Talapoins ne viennent chez moi prendre le futur pour le présent & faire descendre la lune.
Quelle pitié qu’il y ait des sectes qui aillent de ville en ville débiter leurs rêveries, comme des charlatans qui vendent leurs drogues! quelle honte pour l’esprit humain que de petites nations pensent que la vérité n’est que pour elles, & que le vaste empire de la Chine est livré à l'erreur! L’être éternel ne serait-il que le Dieu de l’île Formose ou de l’île Borneo? Abandonnerait-il le reste de l’univers? Mon cher Cu-su, il est le père de tous les hommes; il permet à tous de manger du brochet: le plus digne hommage qu’on puisse lui rendre est d’être vertueux; un cœur pur est le plus beau de tous ses temples, comme disait le grand empereur Hiao.
CINQUIEME ENTRETIEN.
CU-SU.
Puisque vous aimez la vertu, comment la pratiquerez-vous quand vous serez roi?
KOU.
En n’étant injuste ni envers mes voisins, ni envers mes peuples.
CU-SU.
Ce n’est pas assez de ne point faire de mal; vous ferez du bien, vous nourrirez les pauvres en les occupant à des travaux utiles, & non pas en dotant la fainéantise. Vous embellirez les grands chemins, vous creuserez des canaux, vous éléverez des édifices publics, vous encouragerez tous les arts, vous récompenserez le mérite en tout genre, vous pardonnerez les fautes involontaires.
KOU.
C’est ce que j’appelle n’être point injuste, ce sont là autant de devoirs.
CU-SU.
Vous pensez en véritable roi; mais il y a le roi & l’homme, la vie publique, & la vie privée. Vous allez bientôt vous marier; combien comptez-vous avoir de femmes?
KOU.
Mais je crois qu’une douzaine me suffira; un plus grand nombre pourait me dérober un temps destiné aux affaires. Je n’aime point ces Rois qui ont des trois cent femmes, & des sept cent concubines, & des milliers d’eunuques pour les servir. Cette manie des eunuques me paraît surtout un trop grand outrage à la nature humaine. Je pardonne tout au plus qu’on chaponne des coqs, ils en sont meilleurs à manger, mais on n’a point encor fait mettre d’eunuques à la broche. A quoi sert leur mutilation? Le Dalai-Lama en a cinquante pour chanter dans sa pagode. Je voudrais bien sçavoir si le Chang-ti se plait beaucoup à entendre les voix claires de ces cinquante hongres?
Je trouve encor très-ridicule qu’il y ait des bonzes qui ne se marient point; ils se vantent d’être plus sages que les autres Chinois: eh bien, qu’ils fassent donc des enfans sages. Voilà une plaisante manière d’honorer le Chang-ti que de le priver d’adorateurs! Voilà une singulière façon de servir le genre humain que de donner l’exemple d’anéantir le genre humain! Le bon petit Lama nommé Stelca isant Erepi, soulait dire que tout prêtre devait faire le plus d’enfans qu’il pourait; il prêchait d’exemple, & a été fort utile en son temps. Pour moi, je marierai tous les Lamas & bonzes, & Lamesses & bonzesses qui auront de la vocation pour ce saint œuvre; ils en seront certainement meilleurs citoyens, & je croirai faire en cela un grand bien au royaume de Lou.
CU-SU.
Oh! le bon prince que nous aurons là! Vous me faites pleurer de joye. Vous ne vous contenterez pas d’avoir des femmes & des sujets; car enfin, on ne peut pas passer sa journée à faire des édits & des enfans, vous aurez sans doute des amis.
KOU.
J'en ai déja, & de bons, qui m’avertissent de mes défauts; je me donne la liberté de reprendre les leurs; ils me consolent, & je les console; l’amitié est le baume de la vie, il vaut mieux que celui du chimiste Erueil, & même que les sachets du grand Ranoud. Je suis étonné qu’on n’ait pas fait de l’amitié un précepte de religion; j’ai envie de l’insérer dans nôtre rituel.
CU-SU.
Gardez vous en bien, l’amitié est assez sacrée d’ellemême, ne la commandez jamais, il faut que le cœur soit libre; & puis, si vous faisiez de l'amitié un précepte, un mystère, un rite, une cérémonie, il y aurait mille bonzes qui en prêchant & en écrivant leurs rêveries, rendraient l’amitié ridicule, il ne faut pas l’exposer à cette profanation.
Mais comment en userez - vous avec vos ennemis? Confutzée recommande en vingt endroits de les aimer; cela ne vous paraît-il pas un peu difficile?
KOU.
Aimer ses ennemis! Eh mon Dieu, rien n’est si commun.
CU-SU.
Comment l’entendez- vous?
KOU.
Mais comme il faut, je crois, l’entendre. J’ai fait l’aprentissage de la guerre sous le prince de Décon contre le prince du Vis-Brunk: dès qu’un de nos ennemis était blessé & tombait entre nos mains, nous avions soin de lui comme s’il eût été nôtre frère; nous avons souvent donné nôtre propre lit à nos ennemis blessés & prisonniers, & nous avons couché auprès d’eux sur des peaux de tigres étendues à terre; nous les avons servis nous-mêmes: que voulez-vous de plus? que nous les aimions comme on aime sa maîtresse?
CU-SU.
Je suis très édifié de tout ce que vous me dites, & je voudrais que toutes les nations vous entendissent. Car on m’assure qu’il y a des peuples assez impertinents pour oser dire que nous ne connaissons pas la vraye vertu, que nos bonnes actions ne sont que des péchés splendides, que nous avons besoin des leçons de leurs Talapoins pour nous faire de bons principes. Hélas les malheureux! ce n’est que d’hier qu’ils sçavent lire & écrire, & ils prétendent enseigner leurs maîtres!
SIXIEME ENTRETIEN.
CU-SU.
Je ne vous répéterai pas tous les lieux communs qu’on débite parmi nous depuis cinq ou six mille ans sur toutes les vertus. Il y en a qui ne sont que pour nous-mêmes, comme la prudence pour conduire nos ames, la tempérance pour gouverner nos corps; ce sont des préceptes de politique & de santé. Les véritables vertus sont celles qui sont utiles à la société, comme la fidélité, la magnanimité, la bienfaisance, la tolérance &c. Grace au ciel, il n’y a point de vieille qui n’enseigne parmi nous toutes ces vertus à ses petits enfans; c’est le rudiment de nôtre jeunesse au village comme à la ville; mais il y a une grande vertu qui commence à être de peu d’usage, & j’en suis fâché.
KOU.
Quelle est-elle? nommez la vite, je tâcherai de la ranimer.
CU-SU.
C’est l’hospitalité, cette vertu si sociale, ce lien sacré des hommes commence à se relâcher depuis que nous avons des cabarets. Cette pernicieuse institution nous est venue, à ce qu’on dit, de certains sauvages d'Occident. Ces misérables apparemment n’ont point de maisons pour accueillir les voyageurs. Quel plaisir de recevoir dans la grande ville de Lou, dans la belle place Honchan, dans ma maison Ki, un généreux étranger qui arrive de Samarcande, pour qui je deviens dès ce moment un homme sacré, & qui est obligé par toutes les loix divines & humaines de me recevoir chez lui quand je voyagerai en Tartarie, & d’être mon ami intime!
Les Sauvages dont je vous parle ne reçoivent les étrangers que pour de l’argent dans des cabanes dégoutantes, ils vendent cher cet accueil infame, & avec cela, j'entends dire que ces pauvres gens se croyent au dessus de nous, qu’ils se vantent d’avoir une morale plus pure. Ils prétendent que leurs prédicateurs prêchent mieux que Confutzée, qu’enfin, c’est à eux de nous enseigner la justice, parce qu’ils vendent de mauvais vin sur les grands chemins, que leurs femmes vont comme des folles dans les rues, & qu’elles dansent pendant que les nôtres cultivent des vers à soye.
KOU.
Je trouve l’hospitalité fort bonne, je l’exerce avec plaisir, mais je crains l'abus. Il y a des gens vers le grand Thibet qui sont fort mal logés, qui aiment à courir, & qui voyageraient pour rien d’un bout du monde à l’autre; & quand vous irez au grand Thibet, jouir chez eux du droit de l'hospitalité, vous ne trouverez ni lit, ni pot au feu; cela peut dégouter de la politesse.
CU-SU.
L'inconvénient est petit, il est aisé d’y remédier en ne recevant que des personnes bien recommandées. Il n'y a point de vertu qui n'ait ses dangers, & c’est parce qu’elles en ont qu’il est beau de les embrasser.
Que nôtre Confutzée est sage & saint! il n’est aucune vertu qu’il n’inspire; le bonheur des hommes est attaché à chacune de ses sentences: en voici une qui me revient dans la mémoire, c’est la cinquante - troisième.
Reconnais les bienfaits par des bienfaits, & ne te venge jamais des injures.
Quelle maxime, quelle loi les peuples de l’occident pouraient- ils opposer à une morale si pure? en combien d’endroits Confutzée recommande -t-il l’humilité? si on pratiquait cette vertu, il n’y aurait jamais de querelles sur la terre.
KOU.
J’ai lû tout ce que Confutzée & les sages des siècles antérieurs ont écrit sur l'humilité; mais il me semble qu'ils n’en ont jamais donné une définition assez exacte; il y a peu d’humilité peut-être à oser les reprendre; mais j’ai au moins l’humilité d’avouer que je ne les ai pas entendus. Dites moi ce que vous en pensez.
CU-SU.
J’obéirai humblement. Je crois que l’humilité est la modestie de l’ame; car la modestie extérieure n’est que de la civilité. L’humilité ne peut pas consister à se nier à soi-même la supériorité qu’on peut avoir acquise sur un autre. Un bon médecin ne peut se dissimuler qu’il en sçait davantage que son malade en délire. Celui qui enseigne l’astronomie doit s’avouer qu’il est plus sçavant que ses disciples; il ne peut s'empêcher de le croire, mais il ne doit pas s’en faire acroire. L’humilité n’est pas l’abjection; elle est le correctif de l’amour propre, comme la modestie est le correctif de l’orgueil.
KOU.
Eh bien, c’est dans l'exercice de toutes ces vertus, & dans le culte d’un Dieu simple & universel, que je veux vivre, loin des chimères des sophistes, & des illusions des faux prophètes. L'amour du prochain sera ma vertu sur le trône, & l’amour de Dieu ma religion. Je mépriserai le Dieu Fo, & Laotzée, & Vitsnou qui s’est incarné tant de fois chez les Indiens, & Sammonocodom qui descendit du ciel pour venir jouer au cerf-volant chez les Siamois, & les Camis qui arrivèrent de la Lune au Japon.
Malheur à un peuple assez imbécile & assez barbare pour penser qu’il y a un Dieu pour sa seule province: c’est un blasphême. Quoi? la lumiére du soleil éclaire tous les yeux, & la lumiére de Dieu n’éclairerait qu’une petite & chétive nation dans un coin de ce globe! quelle horreur! & quelle sotise! La divinité parle au cœur de tous les hommes, & les liens de la charité doivent les unir d’un bout de l’univers à l’autre.
CU-SU.
O sage Kou! vous avez parlé comme un homme inspiré par le Chang-ti même; vous serez un digne prince. J’ai été vôtre docteur, & vous êtes devenu le mien.
1 Voyez l’article du Ciel.
2 Voyez l’article Ame.
Musean translation
Mouseia’s complete machine-assisted Musean translation of the 73 articles in the 1764 first edition, made directly from the French and reviewed against the scan-collated French text. The author’s notes, quotations and verse are retained. Historical ethnic labels, including offensive terms, are retained from the 1764 text.
Or
Conversations of Cu-su, disciple of Confucius, with Prince Kou, son of the king of Lou, tributary of the Chinese emperor Gnen-van, 417 years before our common era. Translated into Latin by Father Fouquet, formerly an ex-Jesuit. The manuscript is in the Vatican Library, number 42759.
Kou.
What am I to understand when I am told to worship heaven? (Chang-ti.)
Cu-su.
Not the material sky we see; for that sky is nothing but air, and that air is composed of all the earth’s exhalations. Worshiping vapors would be absurd folly.
Kou.
Yet it would not surprise me. Men seem to me to have committed even greater follies.
Cu-su.
True; but you are destined to govern: you must be wise.
Kou.
So many peoples worship heaven and the planets!
Cu-su.
The planets are merely earths like ours. The moon, for example, would do as well to worship our sand and mud as we would to kneel before the moon’s sand and mud.
Kou.
What do people mean when they say “heaven and earth,” “go up to heaven,” “be worthy of heaven”?
Cu-su.
They are saying something enormously foolish.1 There is no heaven. Each planet is surrounded by its atmosphere as by a shell, and rolls through space around its sun. Each sun is the center of several planets that travel continually around it. There is neither up nor down, neither ascent nor descent. You can see that if the inhabitants of the moon said one goes up to earth, that one must make oneself worthy of earth, they would be talking wildly. We too utter a meaningless word when we say one must make oneself worthy of heaven; it is as though we said one must make oneself worthy of the air, worthy of the constellation of the Dragon, worthy of space.
Kou.
I think I understand you: we must worship only the God who made heaven and earth.
Cu-su.
Certainly: we must worship God alone. But when we say he made heaven and earth, we are piously uttering a great paltriness. For if by heaven we mean the prodigious space in which God kindled so many suns and set so many worlds revolving, it is far more ridiculous to say “heaven and earth” than to say “the mountains and a grain of sand.” Our globe is infinitely less than a grain of sand beside those millions of billions of universes among which we disappear. All we can do here is join our feeble voice to that of the innumerable beings who pay homage to God in the abyss of space.
Kou.
Then we were thoroughly deceived when we were told that Fo had descended to us from the fourth heaven and appeared as a white elephant.
Cu-su.
Those are stories the bonzes tell children and old women. We must worship only the eternal author of all beings.
Kou.
But how could one being have made the others?
Cu-su.
Look at that star: it is fifteen hundred thousand million li from our little globe. Rays leave it and form two vertically opposite, equal angles on your eyes; they form the same angles on the eyes of all animals. Is that not a manifest design? Is that not an admirable law? Now who makes a work, if not a worker? Who makes laws, if not a legislator? There is therefore an eternal worker, an eternal legislator!
Kou.
But who made this worker? And how is he made?
Cu-su.
My prince, yesterday I was walking beside the vast palace built by the king your father. I heard two crickets, one of whom said to the other, “What a tremendous building!” “Yes,” said the other; “proud as I am, I admit that someone more powerful than crickets made this marvel. But I have no conception of that being; I see that he exists, but I do not know what he is.”
Kou.
I tell you that you are a better-instructed cricket than I am; and what I like in you is that you do not claim to know what you do not know.
Second Conversation.
Cu-su.
You agree, then, that there is an almighty being, self-existent, the supreme craftsman of all nature?
Kou.
Yes; but if he exists of himself, nothing can limit him: is he therefore everywhere? Does he therefore exist in all matter, in every part of me?
Cu-su.
Why not?
Kou.
Then would I myself be a part of the divinity?
Cu-su.
That may not follow. This piece of glass is penetrated on every side by light; yet is it itself light? It is merely sand, and nothing more. Everything is in God, undoubtedly; what animates everything must be everywhere. God is not like the emperor of China, who lives in his palace and sends out orders through the Kolao. From the very fact that he exists, his existence must fill all space and all his works; and since he is within you, that is a continual warning to do nothing you could blush for before him.
Kou.
What must one do to dare look at oneself in this way, without disgust or shame before the Supreme Being?
Cu-su.
Be just.
Kou.
And what else?
Cu-su.
Be just.
Kou.
But the sect of Laokium says there is neither justice nor injustice, neither vice nor virtue.
Cu-su.
Does the sect of Laokium say there is neither health nor sickness?
Kou.
No, it does not utter so great an error.
Cu-su.
The error of thinking there is neither health nor sickness of the soul, neither virtue nor vice, is as great and more disastrous. Those who have said everything is equal are monsters. Is it the same to feed one’s son or smash him against a stone? To help one’s mother or plunge a dagger into her heart?
Kou.
You make me shudder. I detest the sect of Laokium; but there are so many shades of justice and injustice! One is often very uncertain. What man knows precisely what is permitted or forbidden? Who can confidently fix the boundaries separating good and evil? What rule will you give me to distinguish them?
Cu-su.
Those of Confucius, my master: Live as, when dying, you will wish you had lived; treat your neighbor as you want him to treat you.
Kou.
These maxims, I admit, ought to be the code of the human race. But what will it matter to me, when I die, to have lived well? What shall I gain by it? When this clock is destroyed, will it be happy to have struck the hours correctly?
Cu-su.
This clock neither feels nor thinks; it cannot feel remorse, and you do when you feel guilty.
Kou.
But if, after committing several crimes, I manage to feel no more remorse?
Cu-su.
Then you will have to be smothered; and you may be sure that among men who do not like being oppressed, some will be found to put you beyond the power of committing further crimes.
Kou.
Thus God, who is in them, will allow them to be wicked after allowing me to be so?
Cu-su.
God has given you reason: neither you nor they should abuse it. Not only will you be unhappy in this life, but who has told you that you will not be unhappy in another?
Kou.
And who has told you there is another life?
Cu-su.
Doubt alone obliges you to behave as though there were one.
Kou.
But if I am certain there is none?
Cu-su.
I defy you to be certain.
Third Conversation.
Kou.
You press me, Cu-su. For me to be rewarded or punished when I no longer exist, something must survive in me that feels and thinks after me. Now, since before my birth nothing of me had either feeling or thought, why should there be any after my death? What could this incomprehensible part of myself be? Will this bee’s buzzing remain when the bee is no more? Does this plant’s growth survive when the plant is uprooted? Is not growth a word used to signify the inexplicable manner in which the Supreme Being has willed that a plant should draw juices from the earth? The soul is likewise a word invented to express, feebly and obscurely, the springs of our life. All animals move, and this power of moving is called active force; but there is no distinct being that is this force. We have passions, memory, reason; but these passions, this memory, this reason are surely not things apart, not beings existing in us, not little persons with a separate existence. They are generic words invented to fix our ideas. The soul, which signifies our memory, our reason, our passions, is therefore itself only a word. Who produces motion in nature? God. Who makes all plants grow? God. Who produces motion in animals? God. Who produces man’s thought? God.
If the human soul2 were a little person enclosed in our body, directing its movements and ideas, would that not imply in the eternal craftsman of the world a weakness and an artifice unworthy of him? Would he not then have been incapable of making automatons endowed in themselves with movement and thought? You taught me Greek; you had me read Homer. I find Vulcan a divine smith when he makes golden tripods that go to the council of the gods all by themselves; but this Vulcan would seem a miserable charlatan if he had hidden one of his apprentices inside these tripods to move them unnoticed.
Some dull dreamers have thought it a fine invention to make planets roll by means of spirits continually pushing them; but God was not reduced to this pitiful expedient. In a word, why put two springs into a work when one is enough? You would not dare deny that God has the power to animate the little-known being we call matter; why, then, should he use another agent to animate it?
There is much more: what would this soul be, which you so generously give our body? Where would it come from? When would it arrive? Would the creator of the universe have to be continually watching for men and women to mate, carefully noting the moment when a germ leaves a man’s body and enters a woman’s, and then quickly sending a soul into that germ? And if the germ dies, what becomes of this soul? It will have been created uselessly, or it will wait for another opportunity.
That, I confess, is a strange occupation for the master of the world; and not only must he continually attend to the copulation of the human species, he must do as much for all animals. For they all have memory, ideas, and passions like us; and if a soul is necessary to form these feelings, this memory, these ideas, these passions, God must work perpetually at forging souls for elephants and fleas, for owls, fish, and bonzes.
What conception would you give me of the architect of so many millions of worlds, obliged to keep making invisible pegs to perpetuate his work?
Here is a very small part of the reasons that may lead me to doubt the soul’s existence.
Cu-su.
You reason in good faith; and that virtuous disposition, even if mistaken, would please the Supreme Being. You may be deceiving yourself, but you do not seek to deceive yourself, and therefore you are excusable. But remember that you have offered me only doubts, and that these doubts are sad. Admit more consoling probabilities. It is hard to be annihilated: hope to live. You know that a thought is not matter, that it has no relation to matter; why, then, should you find it so difficult to believe that God has placed within you a divine principle which, being incapable of dissolution, cannot be subject to death? Would you dare say it is impossible for you to have a soul? Surely not. And if it is possible, is it not very likely that you have one? Could you reject a system so beautiful and so necessary to the human race? Will a few difficulties repel you?
Kou.
I should like to embrace this system, but I should like it proved to me. I cannot choose to believe when I have no evidence. I am always struck by that great idea that God made everything, that he is everywhere, that he penetrates everything, that he gives movement and life to everything; and if he is in every part of my being, as he is in every part of nature, I do not see what need I have of a soul. What use have I for this little subordinate being when God himself animates me? What purpose would this soul serve? We do not give ourselves our ideas, for we almost always have them in spite of ourselves; we have them when we are asleep. Everything happens within us without our intervention. The soul might tell the blood and animal spirits, “Please flow this way to oblige me”; they will always circulate in the manner God has prescribed for them. I would rather be the machine of a God whose existence is proved to me than the machine of a soul I doubt.
Cu-su.
Well then, if God himself animates you, never stain this God within you with crimes; and if he has given you a soul, let that soul never offend him. In either system you have a will, you are free—that is, you have the power to do what you wish. Use this power to serve the God who gave it to you. It is good for you to be a philosopher, but necessary for you to be just. You will be all the more just when you believe you have an immortal soul.
Please answer me: is it not true that God is supreme justice?
Kou.
Certainly; and if it were possible for him to cease being so—which is blasphemy—I should still wish to act equitably.
Cu-su.
Is it not true that when you are on the throne, your duty will be to reward virtuous actions and punish criminal ones? Would you wish God not to do what you yourself are bound to do? You know that in this life there are, and always will be, unhappy virtues and unpunished crimes. Good and evil must therefore meet their judgment in another life. It is this idea, so simple, so natural, so general, that has established among so many nations belief in the immortality of our souls and in the divine justice that judges them when they have abandoned their mortal remains. Is there any system more reasonable, more fitting to the divinity, more useful to the human race?
Kou.
Why, then, have several nations not embraced this system? You know that in our province we have about two hundred families of ancient Sinous, who once inhabited part of Arabia Petraea. Neither they nor their ancestors ever believed the soul immortal. They have their five books, as we have our Five Classics; I have read the translation. Their laws, necessarily like those of all other peoples, order them to respect their fathers, not to steal, not to lie, to be neither adulterers nor murderers; but these same laws say nothing to them of rewards or punishments in another life.
Cu-su.
If this idea has not yet developed among that poor people, it doubtless will one day. But what is one wretched little nation to us, when the Babylonians, Egyptians, Indians, and all civilized nations have accepted this salutary doctrine? If you were ill, would you reject a remedy approved by all the Chinese on the pretext that a few mountain barbarians had refused to use it? God gave you reason; it tells you the soul must be immortal: it is therefore God himself who tells you so.
Kou.
But how can I be rewarded or punished when I am no longer myself, when I have nothing left of what constituted my person? It is only through my memory that I remain myself. I lose my memory in my last illness: will a miracle therefore be needed after my death to restore it, to bring me back into the existence I shall have lost?
Cu-su.
That is to say, if a prince had slaughtered his family to reign, if he had tyrannized over his subjects, he would escape merely by telling God, “It was not me; I have lost my memory; you are mistaken; I am no longer the same person.” Do you think God would be quite satisfied with that sophism?
Kou.
Very well, I surrender. I wished to do good for my own sake; I shall also do it to please the Supreme Being. I thought it enough for my soul to be just in this life; I shall hope it will be happy in another. I see that this opinion is good for peoples and princes; but the worship of God troubles me.
Fourth Conversation.
Cu-su.
What do you find objectionable in our Chu-King, that first canonical book so revered by all Chinese emperors? You plow a field with your royal hands to set the people an example, and offer its first fruits to Chang-ti, to Tien, to the Supreme Being. You sacrifice to him four times a year; you are king and pontiff; you promise God to do all the good in your power. Is there anything repugnant in that?
Kou.
I am very far from finding fault with it. I know that God has no need of our sacrifices or prayers, but we need to offer them to him. His worship is established not for him, but for us. I very much like to pray; above all, I want my prayers not to be ridiculous. For when I have shouted that the mountain of Chang-ti is a fat mountain, and that one must not look at fat mountains, when I have made the sun flee and the moon dry up, will this gibberish please the Supreme Being or benefit my subjects and myself?
Above all I cannot endure the madness of the sects around us. On one side I see Laotze, whom his mother conceived through the union of heaven and earth, and with whom she was pregnant for eighty years. I have no more faith in the doctrine of annihilation and universal stripping-away than in the white hair with which he was born, or the black cow he mounted to go and preach his doctrine.
The god Fo impresses me no more, though his father was a white elephant and he promises immortal life.
What displeases me most is that such fantasies are continually preached by the bonzes, who delude the people to govern them. They make themselves revered through mortifications that terrify nature. Some deprive themselves all their lives of the most wholesome foods, as though one could please God only by a bad diet. Others put an iron collar around their necks, which they sometimes richly deserve. They drive nails into their thighs as though their thighs were planks; the people follow them in crowds. If a king issues an edict that displeases them, they calmly tell you this edict is not in the commentary on the god Fo, and that it is better to obey God than men. How can one remedy so extravagant and dangerous a popular disease? You know that tolerance is the principle of China’s government and of every government in Asia; but is this indulgence not disastrous when it exposes an empire to upheaval over fanatical opinions?
Cu-su.
May Chang-ti preserve me from wishing to extinguish in you this spirit of tolerance, this most venerable virtue, which is to souls what permission to eat is to bodies. Natural law allows everyone to believe what he wishes, just as it allows him to eat what he wishes. A doctor has no right to kill his patients because they have not followed the diet he prescribed. A prince has no right to hang those subjects who have not thought as he does; but he has the right to prevent disturbances, and if he is wise, he will find it very easy to uproot superstitions. Do you know what happened to Daon, sixth king of Chaldea, some four thousand years ago?
Kou.
No, I know nothing about it; you will oblige me by telling me.
Cu-su.
The Chaldean priests had taken it into their heads to worship the pike of the Euphrates. They claimed that a famous pike named Oannes had once taught them theology; that this pike was immortal, three feet long, with a little crescent on its tail. Out of respect for this Oannes, eating pike was forbidden. A great dispute arose among the theologians over whether the pike Oannes carried milt or roe. The two parties excommunicated each other and several times came to blows. Here is how King Daon set about ending the disorder.
He ordered both parties to observe a strict three-day fast, after which he summoned the supporters of the pike with roe to attend his dinner. He had a three-foot pike brought in, with a little crescent attached to its tail. “Is this your god?” he asked the doctors. “Yes, Sire,” they answered, “for he has a crescent on his tail and surely carries roe.” The king ordered the pike cut open: it had the finest milt in the world. “You see perfectly well,” he said, “that this is not your god, since it carries milt.” And the king and his satraps ate the pike, to the great satisfaction of the theologians of the roe, who saw that their adversaries’ god had been fried.
The doctors of the opposite party were immediately sent for. They were shown a three-foot god with roe and a crescent on its tail. They declared that this was the god Oannes and that it carried milt. It was fried like the other and found to carry roe. Then, both parties being equally foolish and having had no breakfast, good King Daon told them he had nothing but pike to give them for dinner. They ate greedily of it, whether with roe or milt. The civil war ended, everyone blessed good King Daon, and from that time forward the citizens had as many pike served at dinner as they pleased.
Kou.
I like King Daon very much, and solemnly promise to imitate him at the first opportunity. I shall always prevent, as far as I can, without doing violence to anyone, the worship of Fos and pike.
I know that in Pegu and Tonkin there are little gods and little Talapoins who bring down the waning moon and clearly predict the future—that is, clearly see what does not exist, for the future does not exist. I shall do all I can to prevent the Talapoins from coming to my country to take the future for the present and bring down the moon.
What a pity that there are sects going from town to town peddling their fantasies like quacks selling their drugs! What a disgrace to the human mind that little nations should think truth belongs to them alone, and that the vast empire of China is abandoned to error! Would the eternal being be only the God of the island of Formosa or the island of Borneo? Would he abandon the rest of the universe? My dear Cu-su, he is the father of all men; he allows them all to eat pike. The worthiest homage we can pay him is to be virtuous. A pure heart is the most beautiful of all his temples, as the great emperor Hiao said.
Fifth Conversation.
Cu-su.
Since you love virtue, how will you practice it when you are king?
Kou.
By being unjust neither to my neighbors nor to my peoples.
Cu-su.
It is not enough to do no harm. You will do good: you will feed the poor by employing them in useful work, not by endowing idleness. You will improve the highways, dig canals, raise public buildings, encourage all the arts, reward merit of every kind, forgive involuntary faults.
Kou.
That is what I call not being unjust: those are so many duties.
Cu-su.
You think like a true king; but there is the king and the man, public life and private life. You will soon marry: how many wives do you intend to have?
Kou.
Well, I think a dozen will be enough. A larger number might steal time meant for affairs of state. I do not like those kings who have three hundred wives and seven hundred concubines, and thousands of eunuchs to serve them. This mania for eunuchs seems to me above all too great an outrage against human nature. At most, I forgive caponizing roosters: they are better to eat for it. But no one has yet had eunuchs put on a spit. What use is their mutilation? The Dalai Lama has fifty to sing in his pagoda. I should very much like to know whether Chang-ti takes great pleasure in hearing the clear voices of those fifty geldings.
I also find it very ridiculous that some bonzes do not marry. They boast of being wiser than other Chinese: very well, let them make wise children. What an amusing way to honor Chang-ti, to deprive him of worshipers! What a singular way to serve the human race, to set an example of annihilating it! The good little lama named Stelca isant Erepi used to say that every priest should make as many children as he could. He preached by example and was very useful in his time. For my part, I shall marry off all the lamas and bonzes, and the lamesses and bonzesses, who feel a calling to this holy work. They will certainly be better citizens for it, and I shall think I have done the kingdom of Lou a great service.
Cu-su.
Oh, what a good prince we shall have! You make me weep for joy. You will not be content with having wives and subjects; after all, one cannot spend the whole day making edicts and children. You will surely have friends.
Kou.
I already have them, and good ones, who warn me of my faults; I allow myself the liberty of correcting theirs. They console me, and I console them. Friendship is the balm of life, better than that of the chemist Erueil, and even than the sachets of the great Ranoud. I am astonished that friendship has not been made a religious precept; I am inclined to insert it into our ritual.
Cu-su.
Take care not to do so. Friendship is sacred enough in itself; never command it. The heart must be free. Besides, if you made friendship a precept, a mystery, a rite, a ceremony, a thousand bonzes would preach about it and write their fantasies, making friendship ridiculous. We must not expose it to such profanation.
But how will you deal with your enemies? Confucius recommends loving them in twenty passages: does that not seem a little difficult?
Kou.
Love one’s enemies! Good God, nothing is more common.
Cu-su.
How do you understand that?
Kou.
As I think it ought to be understood. I learned the art of war under the prince of Décon against the prince of Vis-Brunk. As soon as one of our enemies was wounded and fell into our hands, we cared for him as though he were our brother. We often gave our own beds to our wounded enemies and prisoners, and slept beside them on tiger skins spread on the ground. We served them ourselves. What more do you want? That we should love them as we love our mistress?
Cu-su.
I am greatly edified by everything you tell me, and wish all nations could hear you. For I am assured that some peoples are impertinent enough to dare say we do not know true virtue, that our good actions are merely splendid sins, that we need lessons from their Talapoins to give us sound principles. Alas, the wretches! They only learned to read and write yesterday, and they claim to teach their masters!
Sixth Conversation.
Cu-su.
I shall not repeat all the commonplaces that have been retailed among us for five or six thousand years about all the virtues. Some are only for ourselves, such as prudence to guide our souls and temperance to govern our bodies: these are precepts of policy and health. True virtues are those useful to society, such as fidelity, magnanimity, beneficence, tolerance, etc. Thank heaven, there is not an old woman among us who does not teach all these virtues to her little children; they are the rudiments of our youth in village and city alike. But one great virtue is beginning to fall out of practice, and I am sorry for it.
Kou.
What is it? Name it quickly: I shall try to revive it.
Cu-su.
Hospitality. This most social virtue, this sacred bond between men, has begun to loosen since we have had inns. This pernicious institution came to us, they say, from certain savages of the West. Apparently those wretches have no houses in which to welcome travelers. What a pleasure to receive, in the great city of Lou, in the beautiful Honchan square, in my house Ki, a generous stranger arriving from Samarkand, to whom I become from that moment a sacred person, and who is bound by every divine and human law to welcome me into his home when I travel in Tartary, and to be my intimate friend!
The savages I speak of receive strangers only for money, in disgusting hovels; they charge dearly for this infamous welcome. And yet I hear that these poor people think themselves above us, that they boast of having a purer morality. They claim that their preachers preach better than Confucius; that, in short, it is for them to teach us justice because they sell bad wine along the highways, and their women run like madwomen through the streets and dance while ours cultivate silkworms.
Kou.
I find hospitality excellent and practice it with pleasure, but I fear abuse. There are people near Great Tibet who are very poorly housed, who love roaming, and who would travel from one end of the world to the other for nothing. And when you go to Great Tibet to enjoy the right of hospitality in their homes, you will find neither a bed nor a pot on the fire. That can put one off politeness.
Cu-su.
The inconvenience is slight; it is easy to remedy by receiving only people who come well recommended. There is no virtue without its dangers, and it is because they have dangers that embracing them is beautiful.
How wise and holy our Confucius is! There is no virtue he does not inspire; human happiness is attached to each of his sayings. Here is one that comes to mind, the fifty-third:
Repay benefits with benefits, and never avenge injuries.
What maxim, what law could the peoples of the West oppose to so pure a morality? In how many places does Confucius recommend humility? If this virtue were practiced, there would never be quarrels on earth.
Kou.
I have read everything Confucius and the sages of earlier centuries wrote about humility; but it seems to me they never gave a sufficiently exact definition of it. Perhaps there is little humility in daring to criticize them; but at least I have the humility to admit that I have not understood them. Tell me what you think.
Cu-su.
I shall humbly obey. I think humility is modesty of soul; for outward modesty is only civility. Humility cannot consist in denying to oneself a superiority one may have acquired over another. A good doctor cannot conceal from himself that he knows more than his delirious patient. A teacher of astronomy must admit to himself that he is more learned than his disciples; he cannot help believing it, but he must not be conceited about it. Humility is not abasement; it is the corrective to self-love, as modesty is the corrective to pride.
Kou.
Well then, it is in the practice of all these virtues and in the worship of a simple and universal God that I wish to live, far from the chimeras of sophists and the illusions of false prophets. Love of my neighbor will be my virtue on the throne, and love of God my religion. I shall despise the god Fo, and Laotze, and Vishnu, who has become incarnate so many times among the Indians, and Sammonocodom, who descended from heaven to fly a kite among the Siamese, and the Camis, who came from the moon to Japan.
Woe to a people foolish and barbarous enough to think there is a God for its province alone! It is blasphemy. What! The sunlight shines on every eye, and God’s light would shine only on one small, paltry nation in a corner of this globe! What horror, and what folly! The divinity speaks to the hearts of all men, and the bonds of charity must unite them from one end of the universe to the other.
Cu-su.
Wise Kou! You have spoken like a man inspired by Chang-ti himself. You will be a worthy prince. I have been your teacher, and you have become mine.
1 See the article on Heaven.
2 See the article Soul.
Plain English translation
Mouseia’s complete machine-assisted Plain English translation of the same 73 articles, made directly from the French and reviewed against the scan-collated French text. The author’s notes, quotations and verse are retained. Historical ethnic labels, including offensive terms, are retained from the 1764 text.
Or
Talks between Cu-su, a student of Confucius, and Prince Kou, son of the king of Lou, who paid tribute to the Chinese emperor Gnen-van, 417 years before our common era. Father Fouquet, formerly a Jesuit, translated this into Latin. The Vatican Library holds the manuscript, number 42759.
Kou.
When someone tells me to worship heaven, what does that mean? (Chang-ti.)
Cu-su.
Not the sky that we can actually see. That’s just air, made of everything that rises from the earth as vapor. Worshiping vapor would be a completely crazy thing to do.
Kou.
Even so, that wouldn’t surprise me. I think people have done much crazier things.
Cu-su.
They have. But you’re meant to rule, and you need wisdom.
Kou.
But so many nations worship the sky and planets!
Cu-su.
Planets are simply other earths, like this one. Think of the moon worshiping the sand and mud here. That would make as much sense as our kneeling to its sand and mud.
Kou.
What’s meant by “heaven and earth,” then? What about “going up to heaven” or “deserving heaven”?
Cu-su.
It’s dreadful nonsense.1 There’s no such place as heaven. A shell of atmosphere surrounds each planet. The planet travels through space, circling its sun. Several planets keep circling each sun, with the sun at their center. There’s no above or below, no going up or down. Suppose the moon’s inhabitants spoke of going up to earth. Suppose they said they had to deserve earth. You see how absurd that would sound. Saying we must deserve heaven means just as little. We might as well say, “We must deserve the air, or the constellation Draco, or space.”
Kou.
I think I see. Only God deserves our worship, the God who created heaven and earth.
Cu-su.
Yes, God alone should have our worship. But calling him the maker of heaven and earth is a very silly pious remark. What do we mean by heaven? That huge space where God kindled so many suns and set so many worlds turning? If so, heaven and earth is much more ridiculous than mountains and a grain of sand. Next to those millions upon billions of universes, our globe is infinitely smaller than a sand grain. We vanish among them. Here, we can only add our feeble voice to those of countless beings. They pay God their respects in the vast depths of space.
Kou.
So they really fooled us with that story about Fo. They said he’d come to us from the fourth heaven, appearing as a white elephant.
Cu-su.
The bonzes make up those stories for children and old women. Our worship belongs only to the eternal creator of everything that exists.
Kou.
But how was it possible for a being to create other beings?
Cu-su.
See that star? Our little globe is fifteen hundred billion li away from it. Its rays reach your eyes, forming two equal angles opposite each other at their meeting point. They make those same angles in the eyes of every animal. Doesn’t that show a clear plan, a wonderful law? Something made must have someone to make it. Laws must have someone to lay them down. So there must be an eternal maker who lays down laws!
Kou.
But who made the maker? How is he made?
Cu-su.
Prince, yesterday I walked by the enormous palace your father the king built. I heard a pair of crickets talking. “That’s quite a building,” said one. “Yes,” the other said. “Proud as I am, I admit this marvel took someone stronger than crickets to make. But I can’t picture that being at all. I can tell he exists. I don’t know what he is.”
Kou.
Well, you’re a better-informed cricket than I am. Here’s what I like about you. When you don’t know something, you don’t claim you do.
Second conversation.
Cu-su.
Then you accept an all-powerful being who exists by himself? A maker above all others, who made the whole of nature?
Kou.
Yes. But if his existence depends on nothing, nothing can set limits to him. Doesn’t that put him everywhere? In all matter, and in every bit of me?
Cu-su.
Why shouldn’t it?
Kou.
Wouldn’t that make me part of God?
Cu-su.
Perhaps not. Look at this bit of glass. Light fills it right through, but does that make it light? It’s still just sand, nothing else. Of course everything is in God. Whatever gives everything life must be present everywhere. China’s emperor sits in his palace, sending orders through Kolao. God doesn’t work like that. If he exists, his presence must fill all space and everything he has made. His presence inside you is a constant warning. Don’t do anything you’d blush for in front of him.
Kou.
How can I look at myself in front of the Supreme Being without feeling disgust or shame? What must I do?
Cu-su.
Act fairly.
Kou.
What else must I do?
Cu-su.
Act fairly.
Kou.
Laokium’s followers say nothing is fair or unfair. They say there’s no such thing as vice or virtue.
Cu-su.
Do Laokium’s followers say people can’t be healthy or sick?
Kou.
No. They don’t get things that badly wrong.
Cu-su.
Saying the soul can’t be healthy or sick is just as wrong. So is denying vice and virtue, and it does more damage. Anyone who says all acts are alike is a monster. Is feeding your boy the same as crushing him against a stone? Is giving your mother help the same as stabbing her through the heart?
Kou.
That makes me shiver. I loathe Laokium’s followers. But there are so many shades of right and wrong! It’s often very hard to be sure. Can anyone say exactly what we may and may not do? Can anyone safely mark where good ends and evil begins? How would you tell me to judge between them?
Cu-su.
My teacher Confucius gives these rules: Live the way you’ll want to have lived when death comes. Treat other people the way you want them to treat you.
Kou.
I agree. Everyone should live by those rules. But what use will a good life be to me as I die? How will I be better off? Destroy this clock. Will it then feel happy about having struck the hours correctly?
Cu-su.
The clock can’t think or feel anything. It can’t regret its wrongdoing. You do, whenever you feel guilty.
Kou.
What if I do crime after crime and end up feeling no guilt at all?
Cu-su.
Then you’ll have to be strangled. People don’t enjoy having someone crush them. You can count on some of them making sure you can’t commit any more crimes.
Kou.
So God is inside them too. After allowing my wickedness, he’ll allow theirs?
Cu-su.
God has given you the ability to reason. You mustn’t misuse it, and neither must they. You won’t just suffer in this life. How do you know you won’t suffer in a life after this?
Kou.
How do you know there’s a life after this at all?
Cu-su.
The mere doubt should make you live as though there is.
Kou.
What if I know for certain there isn’t?
Cu-su.
You can’t know that. I challenge you to try.
Third conversation.
Kou.
You’re putting pressure on me, Cu-su. How can I get a reward or punishment after I’m gone? Something within me would have to go on feeling and thinking after me. Before my birth, though, no part of me felt or thought. Why would any part do that after I die? What could this part of me be that I can’t understand? Once that bee is gone, will its buzzing carry on? Pull that plant up, and does it keep growing? “Growth” is just our word for something we can’t explain, isn’t it? The Supreme Being arranged for a plant to draw juices from the soil. “Soul” is another word we’ve made up. It vaguely and dimly describes the workings that keep us alive. Every animal moves, and we name its power to move “active force.” But no separate being exists that is this force. We have strong feelings, memories, and the ability to reason. Surely these aren’t things apart from us. They aren’t beings that live inside us. They aren’t little people with a separate existence. They’re general terms we’ve invented to pin down our ideas. So “soul,” which means our memory, reason, and passions, is just a word itself. What makes things move in nature? God. What makes all plants grow? God. What makes animals move? God. What makes human beings think? God.
What if the human soul2 were a little person locked in our body? It would control how we move and what we think. Wouldn’t that suggest that the world’s eternal maker lacked power? Wouldn’t it be an unworthy trick for him to play? He couldn’t, then, have made machines with their own power to move and think. You’ve taught me Greek and made me read Homer. I think Vulcan is a godlike metalworker when he makes golden tripods that go by themselves to the gods’ council. But what if he’d hidden an apprentice inside them? If the apprentice moved them secretly, Vulcan would look like a wretched trickster.
Some dreary dreamers thought they’d had a brilliant idea. Spirits could keep pushing planets along to make them turn. God wasn’t forced to fall back on such a sorry device. Why fit a piece of work with two mechanisms if it needs only one? You wouldn’t dare say God lacks the power to bring matter to life. We hardly know what this thing called matter is. Why would he need another agent to bring it to life?
There’s more, too. What is this soul you hand out so freely to our bodies? Where does it come from, and when does it come? Must the creator of everything constantly watch for men and women having sex? Must he watch carefully for the moment a seed passes from a man’s body into a woman’s? Must he then hurry a soul into that seed? What happens to the soul if the seed dies? Either he’s made it for nothing, or it must wait for another chance.
I must say, that’s an odd job for the world’s master. He’d have to keep watching not just people mating, but all the animals too. They have memories, ideas, and passions, just as we do. If a soul is needed to create those feelings, memories, ideas, and passions, God can never stop making souls. He must make them for elephants, fleas, owls, fish, and bonzes.
What a picture you’d give me of the designer of so many millions of worlds! Must he go on making invisible pegs forever to keep his creation working?
That’s just a tiny share of the reasons I have for doubting there’s a soul.
Cu-su.
You’re arguing honestly. That’s a good attitude, and it would please the Supreme Being even if it led you astray. You might be mistaken, but you aren’t trying to fool yourself. That excuses you. Still, remember what you’ve put to me: doubts, nothing more. And they’re gloomy doubts. Accept some more comforting possibilities that seem likely. Being wiped out is a grim prospect. Hope that you’ll live on. You know a thought isn’t a piece of matter. You know it has nothing in common with matter. Why struggle to believe God has put a divine source of life inside you? It can’t break apart, and so it can’t die. Would you claim that having a soul is impossible? Surely you wouldn’t. If it’s possible, isn’t it highly likely you have one? Would you turn down such a beautiful belief, so necessary for humanity? Would a few difficulties make you give it up?
Kou.
I’d be glad to accept that belief. But I want proof. Without clear evidence, I can’t make myself believe. This great thought keeps striking me: God has made it all. He’s present everywhere and reaches into everything. Everything gets its movement and life from him. He’s in every part of my being, just as he’s in every part of nature. So why would I need a soul? God himself keeps me alive. What use is that little being under him? What could a soul do for me? We don’t supply our own ideas. They nearly always come whether we want them or not. They even come in our sleep. Everything inside us happens without our having a hand in it. Imagine the soul telling the blood and animal spirits, “Please, to oblige me, flow this way.” They’ll still flow just as God has told them to. I have proof that God exists, but I doubt the soul. I’d rather be God’s machine than the soul’s.
Cu-su.
All right. If God himself gives you life, don’t stain his presence in you by committing crimes. If he’s given you a soul, don’t let it wrong him. Either way, you have a will and you’re free. That means you can do what you want to do. Use that ability in the service of God, who gave it to you. It’s good to think things through as a philosopher. But you must act fairly. Believing your soul can’t die will make you fairer still.
Tell me this: isn’t God perfectly just?
Kou.
Of course. Even if he could stop being just—a blasphemous thought—I’d still want to be fair.
Cu-su.
Once you’re king, won’t you have to reward good deeds and punish crimes? Would you want God not to do what duty requires of you? You know good people suffer in this life. You know crimes go without punishment. That’s how things are, and always will be. So good and evil need to be judged after this life. This idea is simple, natural, and widespread. It’s led so many nations to believe our souls live forever. When souls leave their mortal bodies, God judges them justly. Is there a more reasonable belief, one that better suits God or does humanity more good?
Kou.
Then why haven’t several nations accepted it? Take the roughly two hundred families of ancient Sinous in our province. You know they used to live in part of Arabia Petraea. They’ve never believed the soul lives forever, and neither did their ancestors. Like our five King, they have five books. I’ve read them in translation. Their laws are necessarily like everyone else’s. They tell people to respect their fathers, not to steal or lie, and not to commit adultery or murder. Yet those very laws say nothing about a reward or punishment after death.
Cu-su.
If those poor people haven’t worked that idea out yet, they surely will someday. But why bother about one miserable little nation? Babylonians, Egyptians, Indians, and all civilized peoples have accepted this belief, which does us so much good. Think of being ill. Would you refuse a remedy all the Chinese had approved because a few mountain barbarians wouldn’t use it? God gave you the power to reason. Your reason says the soul must live forever. That means God himself is telling you so.
Kou.
How can I receive a reward or punishment when I’m no longer me? Nothing that made up my person will remain. My memory alone keeps me the same self. Suppose my last illness takes my memory away. After death, wouldn’t I need a miracle to get it back? Wouldn’t it take a miracle to bring me back to the existence I’d lost?
Cu-su.
So a prince might slaughter his family to become king. He might make his subjects suffer under his tyranny. And then he’d get away with saying to God, “You’ve got the wrong person. I’ve lost my memory. That wasn’t me. I’m not that person anymore.” Would God be happy with that bit of false reasoning, do you think?
Kou.
All right, you win. I wanted to do good for my own sake. I’ll do it to please the Supreme Being too. I’d thought a just soul in this life was enough. Now I’ll hope my soul will be happy after death. I can see how this belief helps both rulers and peoples. But I’m still puzzled about worshiping God.
Fourth conversation.
Cu-su.
What do you object to in the Chu-King? It’s our first sacred book, and every Chinese emperor deeply respects it. You work a field with your own kingly hands as an example to the people. You give the first part of its harvest to Chang-ti, to Tien, to the Supreme Being. Four times each year you offer him sacrifices. You act as both king and high priest. You promise God you’ll do as much good as you can. What is there to dislike?
Kou.
Nothing at all, as far as I’m concerned. God doesn’t need us to pray or offer sacrifices. I know that. But we need to make those offerings. Worship was set up to meet our needs, not his. I enjoy praying very much. I just don’t want to say ridiculous prayers. Suppose I shout and shout that Chang-ti’s mountain is a fat mountain, and you mustn’t look at fat mountains. Suppose I’ve made the sun run away and dried up the moon. Does that jumble of words please the Supreme Being? Does it do me or my subjects any good?
Most of all, I can’t bear the craziness of the sects all around us. There’s Laotze. His mother conceived him when heaven and earth joined together. She carried him for eighty years. He teaches that we should lose everything and cease to exist. I don’t believe his teaching any more than his birth with white hair. Or the black cow he rode off on to preach it.
Fo, the god, doesn’t impress me any more than that. His father may have been a white elephant. He may promise life without end.
Here’s what bothers me most. Bonzes keep preaching these fantasies to fool people and gain control over them. They win respect by hurting their own bodies in horrifying, unnatural ways. Some go their whole lives without the foods best for their health. You’d think God only liked people with bad diets. Others wear a heavy iron collar round their necks. Sometimes they thoroughly deserve one. They hammer nails into their thighs, as though they were planks of wood. Crowds of people follow them. When a king makes a law they dislike, their reply is quite calm. The god Fo’s commentary doesn’t contain that law. Better to obey God than human beings, they say. How do we treat this crazy, dangerous sickness among the people? Tolerance, as you know, is the basis of government in China and throughout Asia. But is such leniency not terribly harmful when it leaves an empire at risk of being torn apart over fanatical beliefs?
Cu-su.
May Chang-ti never let me wish to kill your tolerant spirit. Tolerance is a virtue that deserves deep respect. Souls need it as bodies need the freedom to eat. Nature’s law lets everyone believe what they choose, just as they may eat what they choose. A patient doesn’t follow a doctor’s prescribed diet. Does that give the doctor the right to kill him? A ruler can’t hang subjects simply for disagreeing with him, either. But he does have the right to stop unrest. A wise ruler will find superstitions very easy to root out. Have you heard what happened to Chaldea’s sixth king, Daon, about four thousand years back?
Kou.
I haven’t heard anything about it. I’d be glad if you told me.
Cu-su.
Chaldea’s priests had decided to worship the Euphrates’ pike. A famous pike, Oannes, had taught them about God long ago, they said. It could never die. It measured three feet and had a small crescent on its tail. Respect for Oannes meant nobody was allowed to eat pike. Then the theologians had a huge argument. Did Oannes the pike carry milt, or did it carry eggs? Each side threw the other out of the religious community. Several times they actually fought. King Daon stopped the trouble this way.
He made both sides go on a strict three-day fast. Next he called in those who believed the pike had eggs. They watched him eat dinner. A pike three feet long was brought to him. Someone had fixed a small crescent to its tail. He asked the scholars, “Is this your god?” “Yes, sire,” they answered. “It has that crescent on its tail, and we’re sure it has eggs.” He had the fish opened up. Inside was the finest milt you could imagine. “There, you see,” he said. “It can’t be your god. It has milt.” He and his satraps ate it. The theologians who believed in eggs were very pleased. Their opponents’ god had been fried.
The other side’s scholars were called in straightaway. A three-foot god with eggs and a crescent on its tail was shown to them. They insisted this was Oannes and that it had milt. Like the first fish, it was fried. It turned out to have eggs. Now both sides looked equally silly, and they’d had no breakfast. Good King Daon said he could offer them only pike for dinner. They gobbled it down, eggs or milt alike. That ended the civil war. Everybody blessed the good king. After that, citizens had all the pike they wanted served for dinner.
Kou.
King Daon is very much to my liking. At my first chance, I promise to copy him. I’ll do whatever I can to stop people worshiping Fos and pike, but I won’t force anyone.
I know about the little gods and little talapoins in Pegu and Tonkin. They bring down the waning moon and see the future clearly. In other words, they clearly see something that doesn’t exist. The future doesn’t exist. I’ll try my best to stop talapoins coming here to mistake the future for the present and bring down the moon.
What a sorry sight these sects are! They go from town to town selling their fantasies like quacks selling drugs. What a disgrace to human reason! Tiny nations think they alone have the truth. They think the great Chinese empire is sunk in error. Could the eternal being belong only to the island of Formosa or the island of Borneo? Would he desert the rest of creation? Dear Cu-su, he’s everyone’s father. He lets us all eat pike. Living a good life is the best honor we can give him. As the great emperor Hiao said, a pure heart makes the finest temple for him.
Fifth conversation.
Cu-su.
You love virtue. Once you become king, how will you put it into practice?
Kou.
By treating my neighbors and my people fairly.
Cu-su.
You need to do more than avoid hurting people. You must help them. Give poor people useful jobs so they can eat. Don’t pay them to stay idle. Make the main roads look better, dig canals, and put up public buildings. Support all the arts. Reward people for every kind of merit. Forgive people’s mistakes when they didn’t mean to make them.
Kou.
That’s what I mean by treating people fairly. Every one of those things is a duty.
Cu-su.
That’s how a real king thinks. But you’ll be a man as well as a king. There’s private life as well as public life. You’re getting married soon. How many wives are you thinking of having?
Kou.
I’d say twelve should do. Any more might eat into the time I need for government. I don’t like those kings with three hundred wives and seven hundred concubines. They have thousands of eunuchs waiting on them. That craze for eunuchs seems an especially cruel insult to human nature. I can just about forgive castrating roosters. It makes them better to eat. But nobody’s had eunuchs roasted on a spit yet. Why mutilate them, then? The Dalai Lama keeps fifty to sing in his pagoda. Does Chang-ti really enjoy those fifty castrated men’s high, clear voices? I’d like to know.
Another thing strikes me as ridiculous: bonzes who don’t marry. They claim to be wiser than the rest of the Chinese. Well, why not have wise children, then? What a way of honoring Chang-ti, denying him worshipers! What a way of helping humanity, setting an example that would end the human race! The good little lama Stelca isant Erepi used to say every priest should have all the children he possibly could. He showed the way himself and did a lot of good in his day. I’ll arrange marriages for all lamas and bonzes, women as well as men, who feel drawn to that holy task. They’ll surely make better citizens for it. I’ll think I’ve done the kingdom of Lou a great deal of good.
Cu-su.
What a fine prince we’re going to have! I’m crying with happiness at what you say. Still, wives and subjects won’t be all you have. You can’t spend the whole day producing laws and babies. You’ll surely want friends too.
Kou.
I’ve already got good friends. They tell me my faults, and I freely point out theirs. We comfort each other. Friendship soothes life better than any balm. It beats the chemist Erueil’s balm, even the great Ranoud’s little bags of remedies. Why hasn’t anyone made friendship a rule of religion? That surprises me. I’m tempted to put it into our ritual.
Cu-su.
Don’t do that, whatever you do. Friendship needs nothing to make it sacred. You must never order people to be friends. Their hearts must stay free. Make it a rule, a mystery, a rite, a ceremony, and what will happen? A thousand bonzes will preach and write nonsense about it. They’ll turn friendship into a joke. Don’t leave something sacred open to that kind of abuse.
And what about enemies? How will you treat them? Confucius says to love them in twenty different places. Wouldn’t that be a bit hard?
Kou.
Loving your enemies? Good God, people do it all the time.
Cu-su.
What do you mean by loving them?
Kou.
What I think we ought to mean. I trained for war with the prince of Décon, fighting the prince of Vis-Brunk. If an enemy was wounded and we captured him, we looked after him like our own brother. We often gave wounded enemy prisoners our beds. We slept next to them on tiger skins on the floor. We cared for them with our own hands. What else would you ask? That we love them the way we love a mistress?
Cu-su.
What you’ve told me sets a wonderful example. I wish the whole world could hear you. I’m told some nations are cheeky enough to say we don’t know what real virtue is. Our good deeds, they claim, are only splendid sins. We need their talapoins to teach us good principles. The poor fools! They’ve only just learned to read and write. Already they want to teach the people who taught them!
Sixth conversation.
Cu-su.
I won’t go over all the stock sayings about virtue. We’ve been hearing them here for five or six thousand years. Some virtues help only the person who has them. Careful judgment guides our souls, and self-control governs our bodies. Those are rules for managing life and keeping healthy. Real virtues help society: loyalty, a generous spirit, helping others, tolerance, and the like. Thank heaven, every grandmother here teaches them to her grandchildren. They’re the first things our young people learn, in town and country. But there’s one great virtue that’s getting neglected. It makes me sad.
Kou.
Which virtue? Quick, tell me. I’ll try to bring it back.
Cu-su.
Hospitality. It brings people together and forms a sacred bond between them. That bond has begun to loosen since inns appeared here. We’re told this harmful invention came from some western savages. Those wretches apparently have no homes to welcome travelers into. Think what a pleasure it is to welcome a generous stranger from Samarkand! He comes to my house Ki, on lovely Honchan square in the great city of Lou. At once, he must hold me sacred. All laws, divine and human, require him to welcome me in his turn when I visit Tartary. They require him to become my close friend.
Those savages only take strangers in if they pay. They put them in disgusting huts and charge a lot for that shameful treatment. Yet I hear the poor things consider themselves better than us. They boast that their morals are purer. Their preachers, they say, preach better than Confucius. They’re the ones to teach us justice, apparently. Why? Because they sell bad wine on the highways! Because their women wander through the streets like lunatics, dancing while our women tend silkworms!
Kou.
I approve of hospitality and enjoy offering it. But I’m afraid people might take advantage. Around Greater Tibet, some people live in very poor houses and love to roam. Give them free lodging, and they’d travel the whole world. Then you go to Greater Tibet to enjoy their hospitality. At their place there’s no bed and no pot cooking on the fire. That could put you off being polite.
Cu-su.
That’s a minor drawback and easy to fix. Only welcome people who come well recommended. Every virtue carries risks. Taking those risks is what makes practicing virtue admirable.
Our Confucius is so wise and holy! He encourages every virtue. Each saying of his holds the key to human happiness. I’ve just remembered one, his fifty-third:
Return good deeds with good deeds. Never take revenge for wrongs.
Could western peoples offer any rule or law to match such pure morals? Confucius urges humility again and again. If people lived by that virtue, nobody on earth would ever quarrel.
Kou.
I’ve read all that Confucius wrote about humility. I’ve read what wise men wrote in earlier ages too. Still, I don’t think they ever defined it quite clearly enough. Daring to criticize them may not be very humble of me. But at least I can humbly admit I haven’t understood them. What’s your view?
Cu-su.
I’ll do as you ask, humbly. Humility, I think, means being modest inside. Merely looking modest on the outside is just good manners. It can’t mean pretending to yourself that you haven’t become better at something than someone else. A capable doctor can’t hide his greater knowledge from himself when his patient is delirious. An astronomy teacher must recognize that he knows more than his students. He can’t help thinking so. But he mustn’t get a swollen head about it. Humility doesn’t mean putting yourself down. It keeps self-love in check, just as modesty checks pride.
Kou.
Well, that’s how I want to live: practicing all these virtues and worshiping a simple God who belongs to everyone. I’ll keep clear of the fantasies of people who twist arguments, and of false prophets’ illusions. As king, I’ll make love for other people my virtue. Loving God will be my religion. I’ll have nothing but contempt for Fo and Laotze, and for Vishnu, who’s taken bodily form so often among the Indians. The same goes for Sammonocodom, who came from heaven to fly kites among the Siamese, and the Camis, who came from the moon to Japan.
Shame on any people that foolish and brutal! They think there’s a God just for their province. It’s an insult to God. What, sunlight reaches everyone’s eyes, but God’s light reaches only some tiny, wretched nation tucked into a corner of the globe? That’s horrible and stupid! God speaks in everyone’s heart. Love must bind all people together, from end to end of the universe.
Cu-su.
Wise Kou, that sounds as though Chang-ti himself inspired you! You’ll make a worthy ruler. I used to teach you. Now you’re teaching me.
1 See the article Ciel.
2 See the article Ame.
About this section
C — Catéchisme Chinois is part of Pocket Philosophical Dictionary by Voltaire. This page sets the French original beside 2 direct-source translations, so any line can be checked against the source. It is article 26 of 73 in the work, which is kept in the European tradition.
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