The Chinese are quite satisfied that so long as they behave in a filial manner (the word "filial" being taken in its widest possible signification) they have nothing whatever to fear from their ghostly ancestors. To be truly filial a Chinese must not merely behave with dutiful obedience towards his parents when they are alive and with dutiful reverence towards their manes when they are dead, but he must also act in such a way as to reflect no speck of discredit upon them by his own misdeeds. If his parents are themselves guilty of wrongdoing he is entitled to remonstrate with them, because after all his parents as well as himself owe filial reverence to their common ancestors. If the wrongdoing is all his own he is twice guilty, for he has committed an action which is in itself intrinsically wrong, and by degrading his own moral nature he has brought disgrace on his parents. According to this theory, the Chinese who commits a dishonourable action is unfilial; if he breaks the law he is unfilial; if he does not discharge all his dead father's obligations he is unfilial; if he ruins his own health through immorality or excesses of any kind he is unfilial; if he fails to bring up legitimate offspring (to continue the family and carry on the ancestral rites) he is unfilial.[325] Needless to say there is no such person as a perfectly filial son in all China--or anywhere else in the world for that matter: but that fact no more justifies us in attempting to disparage the noble and lofty Chinese ideal of filial piety than the failure of Christian men and Christian Governments to act in accordance with the doctrines of the Sermon on the Mount justifies us in disparaging the highest ethical ideal of Christianity. If the ideal--in either the Christian or the Chinese system--were actually attainable, it would become necessary to form a new ideal to take the place of that which had ceased as such to exist or had been seen to "fade into the light of common day." Some Western observers are apt to think that the Chinese doctrine of filial piety is too one-sided to be practical: that it makes the son the slave of his parents and gives the parents at the same time the position of irresponsible tyrants. No greater mistake could possibly be made. The responsibilities of the parent are correlative to the duties of the child. The _locus classicus_ for this is a famous story told of Confucius himself. When he was Minister of Crime in his native state a father brought an accusation against his own son. Confucius sent them both to gaol, and when he was questioned as to why he punished the father as well as the son and did not rather condemn the son for the gross crime of disobeying his father, he replied thus: "Am I to punish for unfilial conduct one who has not been taught filial duties? Is not he who fails to teach his son his duties equally guilty with the son who fails to fulfil them?"[326]