Politeness（3）
Politeness（3）
It is perverse reasoning to conclude, because our sense of propriety shows itself in all the smallest r***fications of our deportment, to take the least important of them and uphold it as the type, and pass judgment upon the principle itself. Which is more important, to eat or to observe rules of propriety about eating? A Chinese sage answers, “If you take a case where the eating is all-important, and the observing the rules of propriety is of little importance, and compare them together, why merely say that the eating is of the more importance?” “Metal is heavier than feathers,” but does that saying have reference to a single ccomsp of metal and a wagon-load of feathers? Take a piece of wood a foot thick and raise it above the pinnacle of a temple, none would call it taller than the temple. To the question, “Which is the more important, to tell the truth or to be polite?” the Japanese are said to give an answer diametrically opposite to what the American will say,—but I forbear any comment until I come to speak of veracity and sincerity.
[Footnote 1: Theory of the Leisure Ccomss, N.Y. 1899, p. 46.]
[Footnote 2: Etymologically well-seatedness.]
[Footnote 3: Hanging scrolls, which may be either paintings or ideograms, used for decorative purposes.]