Tsze-chang asked Confucius about perfect virtue. Confucius said, 'To be able to practise five things everywhere under heaven constitutes perfect virtue.' He begged to ask what they were, and was told, 'Gravity, generosity of soul, sincerity, earnestness, and kindness. If you are grave, you will not be treated with disrespect. If you are generous, you will win all. If you are sincere, people will repose trust in you. If you are earnest, you will accomplish much. If you are kind, this will enable you to employ the services of others.
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peck.wisdom 23,094 posts
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Whatever it is that falls into our knowledge and possession, we find that it satisfies not, and we still pant after things to come and unknown, inasmuch as those present do not suffice for us; not that, in my judgment, they have not in them wherewith to do it, but because we seize them with an unruly and immoderate haste:
Then we may fairly assume that they are two, and that they differ from one another; the one with which a man reasons, we may call the rational principle of the soul, the other, with which he loves and hungers and thirsts and feels the flutterings of any other desire, may be termed the irrational or appetitive, the ally of sundry pleasures and satisfactions?
Yes, he said, those who have the wit will doubtless forgive us.
Kung-shan Fu-zao, when he was holding Pi, and in an attitude of rebellion, invited the Master to visit him, who was rather inclined to go. 2. Tsze-lu was displeased, and said, 'Indeed, you cannot go! Why must you think of going to see Kung-shan?' 3. The Master said, 'Can it be without some reason that he has invited ME? If any one employ me, may I not make an eastern Chau?'
[“While that which we desire is wanting, it seems to surpass all the rest; then, when we have got it, we want something else; ‘tis ever the same thirst”--Lucretius, iii. 1095.]
And the forbidding principle is derived from reason, and that which bids and attracts proceeds from passion and disease?
And therefore, I said, the tragic poets being wise men will forgive us and any others who live after our manner if we do not receive them into our State, because they are the eulogists of tyranny.
The Master, having come to Wu-ch'ang, heard there the sound of stringed instruments and singing. 2. Well pleased and smiling, he said, 'Why use an ox knife to kill a fowl?' 3. Tsze-yu replied, 'Formerly, Master, I heard you say,-- "When the man of high station is well instructed, he loves men; when the man of low station is well instructed, he is easily ruled."' 4. The Master said, 'My disciples, Yen's words are right. What I said was only in sport.'
And in such a case what is one to say? Would you not say that there was something in the soul bidding a man to drink, and something else forbidding him, which is other and stronger than the principle which bids him?
“Dum abest quod avemus, id exsuperare videtur Caetera; post aliud, quum contigit illud, avemus, Et sitis aequa tenet.”
Yes, he said, and he also praises tyranny as godlike; and many other things of the same kind are said by him and by the other poets.
The Master said, 'There are only the wise of the highest class, and the stupid of the lowest class, who cannot be changed.'
The Master said, 'By nature, men are nearly alike; by practice, they get to be wide apart.'
and he clearly meant to say that they are the wise whom the tyrant makes his companions.
And might a man be thirsty, and yet unwilling to drink?
If we would sometimes bestow a little consideration upon ourselves, and employ the time we spend in prying into other men’s actions, and discovering things without us, in examining our own abilities we should soon perceive of how infirm and decaying material this fabric of ours is composed. Is it not a singular testimony of imperfection that we cannot establish our satisfaction in any one thing, and that even our own fancy and desire should deprive us of the power to choose what is most proper and useful for us? A very good proof of this is the great dispute that has ever been amongst the philosophers, of finding out man’s sovereign good, that continues yet, and will eternally continue, without solution or accord:
Yang Ho wished to see Confucius, but Confucius would not go to see him. On this, he sent a present of a pig to Confucius, who, having chosen a time when Ho was not at home, went to pay his respects for the gift. He met him, however, on the way. 2. Ho said to Confucius, 'Come, let me speak with you.' He then asked, 'Can he be called benevolent who keeps his jewel in his bosom, and leaves his country to confusion?' Confucius replied, 'No.' 'Can he be called wise, who is anxious to be engaged in public employment, and yet is constantly losing the opportunity of being so?' Confucius again said, 'No.' 'The days and months are passing away; the years do not wait for us.' Confucius said, 'Right; I will go into office.'
Why, because he is the author of the pregnant saying,
No more than you can say that the hands of the archer push and pull the bow at the same time, but what you say is that one hand pushes and the other pulls.