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The certainty that this is the best system of human thought as regards the relations of man to man is as much a part of the thinking of every educated Chinese as his vertebrae are a part of his skeleton; and the same may be said of the uneducated Chinese when the word feeling is substituted for thinking.*18
I have italicized the latter part of Dr. Smith's statement, because my experience of country people from the 1950s to the 1970s has led me to the certainty that this way of thinking was still very strong among older villagers without much education. It was even more alive among their leaders, and again as much the result of feeling as of education and upbringing. Among the educated class, and in particular the scholar-gentry and scholar-officials, its intensity had been extreme. The scholar-official father of Yang Kang, the novelist, said this; the intensity of his words can stand for the heart-felt beliefs of his whole class:
"Confucianism is in our hair, our marrow. The entire body of the Chinese people is Confucianism. What can you offer to replace it? Without Confucianism there will be no China, no Chinese people. Without Confucianism the country and the people will fall to pieces. Nothing worse could happen. You understand me, children?"*19
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2. Backed by the Legal Codes
Not that the authorities had left all to the example set by Emperors Yao and Shun, or to Confucius and the Chinese Classics either. The moral code to which Dr. Smith referred was, in successive dynasties, ever strongly reinforced by the Legal Code. The contents of Ch'ing law, in particular, provide interesting social commentary on some of the subject matter in this chapter. There is the strong support given to family interests, with punishments prescribed for failure to observe the customary rites and social observances due to family members in the major events during life and in death. There is, too, abundant evidence for the importance of ritual in government and social life as contributing to and sustaining the desired fabric of society. This was all part of the pattern of obligations and expectations, from government to people and people to government and among themselves, that formed the basis of an ordered society and moved it forward on an