He taught men also to regard each other as brethren, and even the golden rule, in its negative if not its positive form, is to be found in his writings.
Curiously enough, this teacher of reverence was distinguished by a remarkable lump on the top of his head, where the phrenologists have placed the organ of veneration.[13] Rooted in his organization, and strengthened by all his convictions, this element of adoration seemed to him the crown of the whole moral nature of man.

But, while full of veneration, he seems to have been deficient in the sense of spiritual things.

A personal God was unknown to him; so that his worship was directed, not to God, but to antiquity, to ancestors, to propriety and usage, to the state as father and mother of its subjects, to the ruler as in the place of authority.

Perfectly sincere, deeply and absolutely assured of all that he knew, he said nothing he did not believe.

His power came not only from the depth and clearness of his convictions, but from the absolute honesty of his soul.
Lao-tse, for twenty-eight years his contemporary, founder of one of the three existing religions of China,--Tao-ism,--was a man of perhaps equal intelligence.