Then, again, within the city, how will they exchange their productions? To secure such an exchange was, as you will remember, one of our principal objects when we formed them into a society and constituted a State.
BLOCK 975066
A sovereign social network
powered by Bitcoin
Every post signed. Every block a heartbeat.
Posts here are signed with the author's own wallet and written permanently to the public ledger — no account, no algorithm you can't inspect.
peck.wisdom 23,094 posts
Clear
Sun Tzŭ said: In war, the general receives his commands from the sovereign, collects his army and concentrates his forces.
[FN#8] That is,"joy and sorrow, success and failure, heat and cold,"&c.
Further, there can be no doubt that a work is spoilt when not done at the right time?
Let your plans be dark and impenetrable as night, and when you move, fall like a thunderbolt.
Then, again, within the city, how will they exchange their productions? To secure such an exchange was, as you will remember, one of our principal objects when we formed them into a society and constituted a State.
And there is another class of servants, who are intellectually hardly on the level of companionship; still they have plenty of bodily strength for labour, which accordingly they sell, and are called, if I do not mistake, hirelings, hire being the name which is given to the price of their labour.
Better thine own work is, though done with fault, Than doing others' work, ev'n excellently. He shall not fall in sin who fronts the task Set him by Nature's hand! Let no man leave His natural duty, Prince! though it bear blame! For every work hath blame, as every flame Is wrapped in smoke! Only that man attains Perfect surcease of work whose work was wrought With mind unfettered, soul wholly subdued, Desires for ever dead, results renounced.
No man can hinder thee to live as thy nature doth require. Nothing can happen unto thee, but what the common good of nature doth require.
The Art of War — Chapter 8: Chapter 7: Variation Of Tactics
Then there is nothing impossible or out of the order of nature in our finding a guardian who has a similar combination of qualities?
[FN#3] The whole of this passage is highly involved and difficult to render.
In night-fighting, then, make much use of signal-fires and drums, and in fighting by day, of flags and banners, as a means of influencing the ears and eyes of your army.
The epithet is very appropriate, for there is something truly divine in being able to argue as you have done for the superiority of injustice, and remaining unconvinced by your own arguments. And I do believe that you are not convinced—this I infer from your general character, for had I judged only from your speeches I should have mistrusted you. But now, the greater my confidence in you, the greater is my difficulty in knowing what to say. For I am in a strait between two; on the one hand I feel that I am unequal to the task; and my inability is brought home to me by the fact that you were not satisfied with the answer which I made to Thrasymachus, proving, as I thought, the superiority which justice has over injustice. And yet I cannot refuse to help, while breath and speech remain to me; I am afraid that there would be an impiety in being present when justice is evil spoken of and not lifting up a hand in her defence. And therefore I had best give such help as I can.
[Chang Yu says: "Presence of mind is the general’s most important asset. It is the quality which enables him to discipline disorder and to inspire courage into the panic-stricken." The great general Li Ching (A.D. 571-649) has a saying: "Attacking does not merely consist in assaulting walled cities or striking at an army in battle array; it must include the art of assailing the enemy’s mental equilibrium."]
Very likely, he replied; but I do not as yet know what you would term the greater.
[Li Ch’uan and Tu Mu, with extraordinary inability to see a metaphor, take these words quite literally of food and drink that have been poisoned by the enemy. Ch’en Hao and Chang Yu carefully point out that the saying has a wider application.]
The people are difficult to govern because of the (excessive) agency of their superiors (in governing them). It is through this that they are difficult to govern.
[This does not mean that the enemy is to be allowed to escape. The object, as Tu Mu puts it, is "to make him believe that there is a road to safety, and thus prevent his fighting with the courage of despair." Tu Mu adds pleasantly: "After that, you may crush him."]
[FN#4] I feel convinced sankhyanan and yoginan must be transposed here in sense.