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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from The Soul of the Far East by Percival Lowell: injunction constitutes at least one half of the Confucian precepts.
To the Chinese child all the parental commands are not simply law to
the letter, they are to be anticipated in the spirit. To do what he
is told is but the merest fraction of his duty; theoretically his
only thought is how to serve his sire. The pious Aeneas escaping
from Troy exemplifies his conduct when it comes to a question of
domestic precedence,--whose first care, it will be remembered, was
for his father, his next for his son, and his last for his wife.
He lost his wife, it may be noted in passing. Filial piety is the
greatest of Chinese virtues. Indeed, an undutiful son is a
monstrosity, a case of moral deformity. It could now hardly be
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