ABSTRACT
Teachers of ethics and morals for the most part regard loyalty and filial piety as parallel virtues. They make them equally the two fundamental principles of ethics. They make these words the texts of their lectures on morals. This has always been the case up to the present. They cannot cast off this habitual error even to-day. This strikes me as very strange. In my opinion it is a great error to place filial piety on a level with loyalty. Filial piety should be placed in the same class as fraternal affection, domestic harmony, fidelity to one's friends, and the love of humanity, and should be enforced as equally obligatory with these. This I regard as the suitable order. There may formerly have been a reason for giving special importance to filial piety but it is certain that a great mistake has been made. Why should fraternal affection, domestic harmony, fidelity to one's friends, and humanitarian sentiments be so neglected? I should like to enquire whether the relation of filial piety itself does not depend upon the relation of domestic harmony? Again, is not domestic felicity the source of fidelity between friends, and the root of humanitarian feeling? Indeed, even from the point of view of time, if we realise that domestic felicity precedes filial piety, then to regard it as inferior is putting the cart before the horse. It would not be wrong to point out that the essential balance has been lost sight of in these teachings.
