Note 150.2 — PSYCHE’S TASK

In China respect for human life is enforced by fear of ghosts. This faith of the Chinese in the existence and power of the dead, we are informed, “indubitably exercises a mighty and salutary influence upon morals. It enforces respect for human life and a charitable treatment of the infirm, the aged and the sick, especially if they stand on the brink of the grave. Benevolence and humanity, thus based on fears and selfishness, may have little ethical value in our eye; but for all that, their existence in a country where culture has not yet taught man to cultivate good for the sake of good alone, may be greeted as a blessing. Those virtues are even extended to animals, for, in fact, these too have souls which may work vengeance or bring reward. But the firm belief in ghosts and their retributive justice has still other effects. It deters from grievous and provoking injustice, because the wronged party, thoroughly sure of the avenging power of his own spirit when disembodied, will not always shrink from converting himself into a wrathful ghost by committing suicide,” in order to wreak in death that vengeance on his oppressor which he could not exact in life. Cases of suicide committed with this intention are said to be far from rare in China.150.2 “This simple complex of tenets,” says Professor de Groot, “lays disrespect for human lives under great restraint. In particular, the fear of ghosts acts as a check on the practice of infanticide. Most salutarily also they work upon female infanticide, a monstrous custom practised extensively among the poor in Amoy and the surrounding farming districts, as in many other parts of the Empire. The fear that the souls of the murdered little ones may bring misfortune, induces many a father or mother to lay the girls they are unwilling to bring up, in the street for adoption into some family or into a foundling-hospital.” Humane and well-to-do people take advantage of these superstitious fears to inculcate a merciful treatment of female infants; for they print and circulate gratuitously tracts which set forth many gruesome examples of punishments inflicted upon unnatural fathers and mothers by the ghosts of their murdered daughters. These highly-coloured narratives, though they bear all the marks of a florid fancy, are said to answer their benevolent purpose perfectly; for they sink deep into the credulous minds to which they are addressed: they touch the seared conscience and the callous heart which no appeal to mere natural affection could move to pity.151.1