Rectitude is a twin brother to Valor, another martial virtue.
But before proceeding to speak of Valor, let me linger a little while on
what I may term a derivation from Rectitude, which, at first deviating
slightly from its original, became more and more removed from it, until
its meaning was perverted in the popular acceptance. I speak of _Gi-ri_,
literally the Right Reason, but which came in time to mean a vague sense
of duty which public opinion expected an incumbent to fulfil. In its
original and unalloyed sense, it meant duty, pure and simple,--hence,
we speak of the _Giri_ we owe to parents, to superiors, to inferiors, to
society at large, and so forth. In these instances _Giri_ is duty; for
what else is duty than what Right Reason demands and commands us to do.
Should not Right Reason be our categorical imperative?

_Giri_ primarily meant no more than duty, and I dare say its etymology
was derived from the fact that in our conduct, say to our parents,
though love should be the only motive, lacking that, there must be
some other authority to enforce filial piety; and they formulated
this authority in _Giri_. Very rightly did they formulate this
authority--_Giri--since if love does not rush to deeds of virtue,
recourse must be had to man's intellect and his reason must be quickened
to convince him of the necessity of acting aright. The same is true of
any other moral obligation. The instant Duty becomes onerous. Right
Reason steps in to prevent our shirking it. _Giri_ thus understood is a
severe taskmaster, with a birch-rod in his hand to make sluggards
perform their part. It is a secondary power in ethics; as a motive it
is infinitely inferior to the Christian doctrine of love, which should
be _the_ law. I deem it a product of the conditions of an artificial
society--of a society in which accident of birth and unmerited favour
instituted class distinctions, in which the family was the social unit,
in which seniority of age was of more account than superiority of
talents, in which natural affections had often to succumb before
arbitrary man-made customs. Because of this very artificiality, _Giri_
in time degenerated into a vague sense of propriety called up to explain
this and sanction that,--as, for example, why a mother must, if need be,
sacrifice all her other children in order to save the first-born; or why
a daughter must sell her chastity to get funds to pay for the father's
dissipation, and the like. Starting