her is not enthusiastic; he does not set himself up as a
prophet; he does not say that he is inspired by the gods. Thus I shall
not put in the rank of philosophers either the ancient Zarathustra, or
Hermes, or the ancient Orpheus, or any of those legislators of whom the
nations of Chaldea, Persia, Syria, Egypt and Greece boasted. Those who
styled themselves children of the gods were the fathers of imposture;
and if they used lies for the teaching of truths, they were unworthy of
teaching them; they were not philosophers; they were at best very
prudent liars.

By what fatality, shameful maybe for the Western peoples, is it
necessary to go to the far Orient to find a wise man who is simple,
unostentatious, free from imposture, who taught men to live happily six
hundred years before our vulgar era, at a time when the whole of the
North was ignorant of the usage of letters, and when the Greeks were
barely beginning to distinguish themselves by their wisdom?

This wise man is Confucius, who being legislator never wanted to
deceive men. What more beautiful rule of conduct has ever been given
since him in the whole world?

"Rule a state as you rule a family; one can only govern one's family
well by setting the example.

"Virtue should be common to both husbandman and monarch.

"Apply thyself to the trouble of preventing crimes in order to lessen
the trouble of punishing them.

"Under the good kings Yao and Xu the Chinese were good; under the bad
kings Kie and Chu they were wicked.

"Do to others as to thyself.

"Love all men; but cherish honest people. Forget injuries, and never
kindnesses.

"I have seen men incapable of study; I have never seen them incapable of
virtue."

Let us admit that there is no legislator who has proclaimed truths more
useful to the human race.

A host of Greek philosophers have since taught an equally pure moral
philosophy. If they had limited themselves to their empty systems of
natural philosophy, their names would be pronounced to-day in mockery
only. If they are still respected, it is because they were just and that
they taught men to be so.

One cannot read certain passages of Plato, and notably the admirable
exordium of the laws of Zaleucus, without feeling in one's heart the
love of honourable and generous actions. The Romans have their Cicero,
who alone is worth perhaps all the philosophers of Greece. After him
come men still more worthy of respect, but whom one almost despairs