40 DESTINY, FATE 



"It has been said that, when the granaries and store- 

 houses are full, people know the rules of propriety, and when 

 •clothes and food suffice, people are sensible of honour and 

 disgrace. Altruism grows from opulence, and strife springs 

 from indigence." 



"Good and bad actions are not the upshot of human 

 character, but of the state of the year, its dearth and 

 affluence, and these are determined by fate." 



"From this point of view, moral conduct is conditional 

 by the grain supply, and the grain harvest depends on the 

 year. When a year is conspicuous by floods or droughts, 

 the Five Grains do not grow. The government is not res- 

 ponsible for this, but time and circumstances. If inunda- 

 tions and dryness be held to be the result of government, 

 there were never worse rulers than Chieh and Chou. In 

 their time there ought to have been constant floods and 

 droughts, but their reigns were not visited with famine and 

 dearth. Calamities such as these have their periods which 

 sometimes, contrariwise, just fall in the reigns of wise 

 sovereigns." 



"Human diseases and death are not a retribution for 

 evil doing, and so the disorder and the ruin of a State have 

 nothing to do with the goodness or the badness of its govern- 

 ment. Bad characters are often strong and reach old age; 

 iniquitous governments enjoy peace and remain unharmed. 

 Consequently, it is plain that misfortunes and disasters are 

 not sufficient indications of depravity, and happiness and 

 lucky auguries are inadequate proofs of virtue." 



Such a doctrine must affect in a deleterious way, the 

 conduct of man. It is inevitable. 



Some might say that under the determining control of 

 destiny inertia is inevitable, much the same as a similar 

 result ensues on the Christian theory of predestination. 

 There is, however, a distinction to be observed. Complex as 

 is the doctrine of predestination it is accompanied by the 

 demand to make "your election and calling sure" by supreme 

 effort. Even in the realm of Catholic theology, where the 

 Church becomes the guardian destiny, and the loyal adherent 

 is called on to resign everything, body, soul, and spirit to the 

 Church, which undertakes to guarantee a successful end, 

 the forces of piety are set in motion. This phase again is 

 similar to the Confucius' school of Confucianism. 



If Dreyfesdale in the Abbot be taken as a true represen- 

 tation of the gloomy outcome of the doctrine of predestina- 

 tion, it were hard indeed to see a way out. 



