________________
PT. 11. SECT. VI. THE WRITINGS OF KWANG-3ZE
337
tions. The good and the able, and those inferior to them, sincerely did their best. Their ability was distributed ; the duties implied in their official names were fulfilled. In this way did they serve their superiors, nourish their inferiors, regulate things, and cultivate their persons. They did not call their knowledge and schemes into requisition ; they were required to fall back upon (the method of) Heaven :—this was what is called the Perfection of the Rule of Great Peace. Hence it is said in the Book 1, ‘There are objects and there are their names.' Objects and their names the ancients had; but they did not put them in the foremost place.
When the ancients spoke of the Great Tâo, it was only after four other steps that they gave a place to 'Objects and their Names,' and after eight steps that they gave a place to 'Rewards and Penalties. If they had all at once spoken of 'Objects and their Names,' they would have shown an ignorance of what is the Root (of government); if they had all at once spoken of 'Rewards and Penalties,' they would have shown an ignorance of the first steps of it. Those whose words are thus an inversion of the (proper) course, or in opposition to it, are (only fit to be) ruled by others ;-how can they rule others ? To speak all at once of Objects and their Names,' and of Rewards and Penalties,' only shows that the speaker knows the instruments of government, but does not know the method of it, is fit to be used as an instrument in the world, but not fit to use others as his instruments:-he is what we call a mere sophist, a man of one small idea.
1 We cannot tell what book or books.
[39]
Digitized by Google
