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BK. XXX.
BZE 1.
363
It is said in the Hsiao Yå (II, iïi, ode 5, 8), “Well does our lord become his place,
And high the deeds his reign have crowned.” It is said to the Prince Shih (Sha, V, xvi, 11), “Aforetime, when God beheld the virtue of king Wăn in the fields of Kâu, he made the great decree light on his person.”'
25. The Master said, 'The people of the south have a saying that “A man without constancy cannot be a diviner either with the tortoise-shell or the stalks." This was probably a saying handed down from antiquity. If such a man cannot know the tortoise-shell and stalks, how much less can he know other men?? It is said in the Book of Poetry (II, v, ode 1, 3), “Our tortoise-shells are wearied out,
And will not tell us anything about the plans.” The Charge to Yüeh says (Shủ, IV, viii, sect. 2, 5, 11), “ Dignities should not be conferred on men of evil practices. (If they be), how can the people set themselves to correct their ways ? If this be sought merely by sacrifices, it will be disrespectful (to the spirits). When affairs come to be troublesome, there ensues disorder; when the spirits are served so, difficulties ensue."
It is said in the YI, “When one does not conti
I cannot make anything but this of this sentence, though Khung Ying-tå takes it differently. The whole paragraph is evidently very corrupt, and even the Khien-lung editors have put forth all their strength upon it in vain.
. We have here a quotation from the Sha, IV, viii, sect. 2; but it is very different from the textus receptus. All the commentators and critics are at fault upon it; see vol. iii, pp. 115, 116.
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