WAR
and personal survival after death. Even to-day, when
economic considerations are supposed to be supreme, ideas
of 'glory' and 'immortal fame' still ferment in the minds
of the dictators and generals, and play an important part
in the causation of war.
(iv) The various civilizations of the world have adopted
fundamentally different attitudes towards war. Compare
the Chinese and Indian attitudes towards war with the
European. Europeans have always worshipped the military
hero and, since the rise of Christianity, the martyr. Not
so the Chinese. The ideal human being, according to
Confucian standards, is the just, reasonable, humane and
cultivated man, living at peace in an ordered and har-
monious society. Confucianism, to quote Max Weber,
* prefers a wise prudence to mere physical courage and
declares that an untimely sacrifice of life is unfitting for
a wise man/ Our European admiration for military
heroism and martyrdom has tended to make men believe
that a good death is more important than a good life, and
that a long course of folly and crime can be cancelled out
by a single act of physical courage. The mysticism of
Lao Tsu (or whoever was the author of the Tao Teh
Ching) confirms and completes the rationalism of Con-
fucius. The Tao is an eternal cosmic principle that is,
at the same time, the inmost root of the individual's being.
Those who would live in harmony with Tao must refrain
from assertiveness, self-importance and aggressiveness,
must cultivate humility, and return good for evil.
Since the time of Confucius and Lao Tsu, Chinese ideals
have been essentially pacifistic. European poets have
glorified war; European theologians have found justifica-
tions for religious persecution and nationalistic aggression.
This has not been so in China. Chinese philosophers and
Chinese poets have almost all been anti-militarists. The
soldier was regarded as an inferior being, not to be put
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