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:28 THE ANALECTS: INTRODUCTION.
not sit on it." He was a punctilious gentleman of the
old school, to whom our modern laxity, not to say
flippancy of manner, would have amounted to immorality.
As to his mental and moral attitude we find him, as
may be surmised from his habits just referred to, first
and foremost a formalist. This word indeed sublimates
his character. His power of self-control was admirable,
and duty was ever his lodestone. Of l eligious instincts
from his childhood religious he remained throughout his
days. With too evenly balanced a mind to sympathise
with the fantasies of the superstitious, he maintained a
me,atal attitude towards the unseen wo,ld which was
respectful but never familiar, reverent but never felvent.
Knowing God only as a Majesty and never as a Father,
the spring of his affections could not bubble joyously
forth, indeed such joy would have seemed to him frivolity,
and while he was not without true affection, as witness
his poignant distress on more than one occasion, yet
expression of affection he deemed it the pa,t of a philo
sopher to rigorously ,epress.
To a rigid and estimable code of honour he united
an urbanity and courtesy, which made a profound impression
upon his followers, and which failed not to
influence men in more exalted station; I. l o; but his
honour ever prevented his courtesy from degenerating
into sycophancy, for the sake of advancing his public
principles, much less his private welfare. His moral life
remained untainted in the midst of a corrupt generation,
in which vice flaunted itself in the open, and virtue shrank
away abashed and in despair.