The Good Book (26 page)

19. Someone asked the master, ‘What do you say of the principle that injury should be recompensed with kindness?’

20. The master replied, ‘With what then will you recompense kindness?

21. ‘Recompense injury with justice, and kindness with kindness.’

Chapter 6

  1. The master was one day playing on a musical drum by a river, when a man carrying a straw basket passed by.

  2. The man said, ‘His heart is full who so beats the musical drum!’

  3. The master said, ‘Deep water must be crossed with one’s clothes on;

  4. ‘Shallow water may be crossed with one’s clothes held up.

  5. ‘He who requires more from himself than from others, will keep himself from being an object of resentment.

  6. ‘When a person is not in the habit of saying, “What do I think of this? What shall I do in this case?” there is indeed little hope for him.

  7. ‘When a number of people are together for a whole day without their conversation turning to questions about the good, theirs is a hard case.’

  8. The master said, ‘To do one’s best with humility and sincerity: that is what it is to be a superior man.

  9. ‘The superior man is distressed by his want of ability. He is not distressed by being unknown.

10. ‘What the superior man seeks is in himself. What the inferior man seeks is in others.

11. ‘The superior man is not a partisan. He seeks to grasp all things with justice.

12. ‘The superior man dislikes not having a good reputation after his death.

13. ‘The superior man does not value others solely on account of their words,

14. ‘Nor does he put aside good words on account of their speaker’s reputation, even if it is bad.

15. ‘The superior man cannot be known in little matters; he is proved by great things.

16. ‘The inferior man cannot be entrusted with great things; his failings will be seen in little matters.’

17. The master said, ‘In my dealings with others, whose evil do I blame, whose goodness do I praise, beyond what is just?

18. ‘If sometimes I give high praise, there must be grounds for it in my examination of that individual.’

19. The master said, ‘False words undo virtue. Want of forbearance in small things undoes great things.

20. ‘When the multitude hate a man, it is necessary to examine the case.

21. ‘When the multitude love a man, it is necessary to examine the case.

22. ‘For the multitude can hate what should be loved, and love what should be hated.’

Chapter 7

  1. What is it to have faults? It is to have faults and not to reform them.

  2. The master said, ‘Rightness is more to man than fire or water.

  3. ‘I have seen men die from treading on water or fire, but I have never seen a man die from treading the course of rightness.

  4. ‘There are three friendships which are advantageous. These are friendships with the upright, with the sincere, and with those of much observation.

  5. ‘There are three friendships which are injurious. These are friendships with those of specious airs, those who are insinuatingly soft, and those with glib tongues.

  6. ‘There are three kinds of enjoyment which are advantageous. These are discriminating studies, speaking of the goodness of others, and possessing worthy friends.

  7. ‘There are three kinds of enjoyment which are injurious. These are extravagant pleasures, idleness and sauntering about, and feasting.

  8. ‘Three errors are committed by those who stand in the presence of a man of virtue and station.

  9. ‘One is speaking out of turn, this is rashness.

10. ‘Another is keeping silent when it is time to speak, this is concealment.

11. ‘A third is speaking without looking interlocutors in the eye, this is prevarication.

12. ‘There are three things that the superior person guards against.

13. ‘In youth, he guards against excess. In the vigour of maturity, he guards against quarrelsomeness. In old age, he guards against covetousness.

14. ‘There are three things of which the superior man stands in awe. He stands in awe of the command of reason. He stands in awe of great men. He stands in awe of the wisdom of sages.

15. ‘The inferior person stands in awe only of what has power to harm his advantage, whether it is good or bad.

16. ‘In youth he indulges in excess, in maturity he is quarrelsome, in old age covetous.

17. ‘He speaks out of turn, conceals his meaning, looks no one in the eye.

18. ‘He is idle and indulgent, and his poor choice of friends confirms him in the ways of vice and inferiority.’

Chapter 8

  1. The master said, ‘Most people cannot bear to see the sufferings of
others; this is the good in our nature.

  2. ‘If someone should see a child about to fall into a well, he will feel alarm and distress,

  3. ‘Not to gain favour with the child’s parents, nor to seek the praise of their neighbours,

  4. ‘Nor from fear of a reputation for being unmoved by such a thing.

  5. ‘From this we may perceive that commiseration is essential to man, that feelings of shame and dislike are essential to man,

  6. ‘That feelings of modesty and complaisance are essential to man, and that the feeling of approving and disapproving is essential to man.    

  7. ‘The feeling of commiseration is the principle of benevolence.

  8. ‘The feeling of shame and dislike is the principle of righteousness.

  9. ‘The feeling of modesty and complaisance is the principle of propriety.

10. ‘The feeling of approving and disapproving is the principle of knowledge.    

11. ‘Men have these four principles just as they have four limbs.

12. ‘When men wilfully do not live according to these principles, they play the thief with themselves; they steal away their own better nature.

13.   ‘Since all men have these four principles in themselves, let them give full development and completion to them,

14. ‘And the result will be like a fire which has begun to burn, or a spring which has begun to flow.

15. ‘Let the principles have their complete development, and they will suffice to love and protect all.

16. ‘Let them be denied development, and they will not suffice for a man even to honour his parents.’

17. The master said, ‘All things are already complete in us. There is no greater delight than to be conscious of sincerity when one examines oneself.

18. ‘Let a man not do what his own sense of rightness tells him not to do, and let him not desire what his sense of rightness tells him not to desire: to act thus is all he has to do.

19. ‘Benevolence is the natural state of our minds, and rightness is our path.

20. ‘How lamentable is it to neglect the path, and not pursue it; to lose this benevolence, and not know how to seek it again!    

21. ‘When men’s dogs or sheep are lost, they know enough to look for them; but if they lose their virtue, they either do not know how to find it again, or do not care.

22. ‘The great end of learning is nothing else but to seek to know oneself and to maintain one’s understanding of rightness.’

Chapter 9

  1. The master said, ‘The trees of the mountain were once beautiful.

  2. ‘But being situated on the borders of a large state, they were hewn down with axes.

  3. ‘Could they still retain their beauty? And yet, through the powers of life,

  4. ‘Day and night, and with the nourishing influence of rain and dew,

  5. ‘Their stumps produced buds and sprouts springing forth.

  6. ‘But then came cattle and goats, and browsed upon the succulent sprouts, stripping them.

  7. ‘To these things is owed the bare appearance of the mountain
which, when people see it, they think was never finely wooded.

  8. ‘But is what they see the nature of the mountain?

  9. ‘And so also of what properly belongs to man: shall it be said that the mind of anyone was originally without the possibility of benevolence and rightness?

10. ‘The way in which a man loses his proper goodness is like the way that the trees are felled by axes.

11. ‘When its principles are hewn down day after day, can the mind retain its beauty?

12. ‘But there is a development of its life day and night,

13. ‘And in the calm air of the morning, just between night and day, the mind feels something of those desires and aversions which are proper to humanity;

14. ‘But the feeling is not strong, and it is hindered and destroyed by what takes place during the day.

15. ‘This destruction taking place again and again, the restorative influence of quiet times is not sufficient to preserve the mind’s proper goodness.

16. ‘And when this proves insufficient, man’s nature ceases to be much different from that of the irrational animals.

17. ‘When they see this, people think that the mind never had powers of natural goodness.

18. ‘But does this condition represent the feelings proper to humanity ?

19. ‘If it receive its proper nourishment, there is nothing which will not grow.

20. ‘If it lose its proper nourishment, there is nothing which will not decay away.

21. ‘So it is with the minds and feelings of people, and their principles of benevolence and rightness.’

Chapter 10

  1. The master said, ‘In good years the children of the people are mostly good, while in bad years most of them abandon themselves to evil.

  2. ‘It is not owing to any difference of the powers conferred by nature that they are thus different. The abandonment to evil is owing to circumstances
.

  3. ‘Consider what happens to barley. Let it be sown and covered: if the ground and the time of sowing are the same, it grows rapidly anywhere;

  4. ‘And when its full time is come, it is found to be ripe.

  5. ‘If there are inequalities in different fields of barley, they are owing to the difference of the soil,

  6. ‘To the unequal nourishment of rains and dews, to the different ways in which farmers have gone about their work.

  7. ‘Thus all things which are the same in kind are like one another.

  8. ‘Why should we be in doubt with regard to man, as if he were a solitary exception to this rule?

  9. ‘The sage and we are the same in kind, if we allow the possibility of wisdom to flourish within us.

10. ‘If a man made hempen sandals without knowing the size of his customers’ feet, yet I know that he will not make them like baskets.

11. ‘As the feet of men are more or less the same size, neither like the feet of a mouse nor the feet of an elephant,

12. ‘So are the pleasures of their mouths in sweet and salt savours, and of their ears in the harmonies of music;

13. ‘So do most people enjoy the mild weather of autumn, and the beauty of the maidens as they bring water from the well.

14. ‘What is it that most people approve in the behaviour of their neighbours and friends?

15. ‘I say it is the four principles of our nature, and the guidance of rightness.

16. ‘The sages knew before I was born what my mind approves, along with the majority of other men, so that we can live in harmony.

17. ‘Therefore the principles of our nature and the determinations of righteousness are agreeable to my mind,

18. ‘Just as sweet and savoury delicacies are agreeable to my mouth.’

Chapter   11

  1. The master said, ‘If a man loves others but no affection is shown to him in return, let him turn inwards and examine his own benevolence.

  2. ‘If he is charged with governing others, and his rule is unsuccessful, let him turn inwards and examine his wisdom.

  3. ‘If he treats others politely, and they do not return his politeness, let him turn inwards and examine his own feeling of respect.      

  4. ‘When we do not, by what we do, realise what we desire, we must turn inwards, and examine ourselves in every point.’

  5. The master was asked, ‘All are equally men, but some are great men, and some are little men. How is this?’

  6. He replied, ‘Those who follow that part of themselves which is great are great men; those who follow that part which is little are little men.’

  7. The master was then asked, ‘All are equally men, but some follow that part of themselves which is great, and some follow that part which is little. How is this?’

  8. The master answered, ‘The senses of hearing and seeing do not think, and are obscured by external things.

  9. ‘When one thing comes into contact with another, as a matter of course one leads the other away.