The first environment of the human soul is that of the family. Before we can become good subjects, before we can aspire to study nature and mould ourselves upon the laws of heaven and earth, we must first of all learn to become good sons, to complete the unity of family life. All things will be added in their due course. To the Chinese mind the successful policy in life is a policy of adjustment. This policy runs from highest to lowest, and back again from lowest to highest. The Emperor adjusts himself to the requirements of his great Ministers, they in their turn to the provincial governors, they in their turn to the local magistrates, and so on down the scale of social order. So this policy of adjustment works equally upwards from the youngest son of the meanest family to the Emperor himself, who adjusts his methods to those employed by his August Father. As _The Book of Odes_ says: That great and noble Prince displayed The sense of right in all he wrought; Adjusting justly, grade by grade, The spirit of his wisdom swayed Peasant and peer; the crowd, the court. It is for this reason that _The Book of Filial Duty_ commences with a chapter on “Filial Piety in the Son of Heaven.” The Emperor is, the Emperor always has been, the father of the greatest family on earth—the Chinese nation. II. THE TWENTY-FOUR EXAMPLES OF FILIAL DUTY Instead of the _Hsiao Hsüeh_, or _Teaching for the Young_, which is usually grouped with _The Book of Filial Duty_, I have chosen _The Twenty-four Examples of Filial Duty_ by way of illustration to the _Hsiao Ching_. They are naïve and terse, and yet not without their simple charm. Even where they lend themselves to exaggeration, as in the story of the old gentleman who dressed himself in gay garments and frisked in front of his very venerable parents, they are not meaningless nor devoid of humanity. The lesson to be drawn is that our duty towards our parents is the first obligation in life, and that we should go, if necessary, to all lengths to fulfil it. Nothing is known of the authorship of these stories, or the time in which they are written. Each story is accompanied by its commentary, and probably the stories themselves originated during the Ming dynasty (A.D. 1368-1644), the commentaries belonging mostly to the latter years of that dynasty. The period dealt with in these tales is a very wide one, and ranges from the time of the great Emperor Shun (_circa_ 2300 B.C.) down to the Sung dynasty (A.D. 900-1200). There have been many editions of _The Twenty-four Examples_ in Chinese, mostly embellished with quaint and original woodcuts, of which the figure on the cover of the present volume, kindly supplied by Mrs. Lionel Giles, is an example. III. FILIAL DUTY AND PARENTAL LOVE