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Kiang, 'Nourish in your mind a great agreement (with the primal ether). (Things) return to their root, and do not know (that they are doing so). As to what you say, that "the mysterious operations of Heaven are not accomplished, that the birds all sing at night, that vegetation withers under calamity, and that insects are all overtaken by disaster:-about all these things there is no occasion for anxiety." While you do nothing, rest in the promptings of your human nature, and do not interfere with the minds of men ;-such is the genial influence that attracts and gathers all things round itself (par. 2).'
BK. XI. ANALYSES OF BOOKS OF KWANG-3ZE.
But the Superior man's letting the world have its own course in this generous way;-this is what the ordinary men of the world cannot fathom. When such men speak about governing, they examine carefully between others and themselves, and are very earnest to distinguish between differing and agreeing. Their only quest is to find how they may overcome others, and the end is that they are always overcome by others. They do not know that in order to reduce others to the level of things, there must be those who cannot be reduced by others to that level. Those are said to be the sole possessors of the power (par. 6).
The teaching of the Great man, however, is not of this nature. He responds to others according to their qualities, without any selfish purpose. Although he is the sole possessor of the power, that power comes to be nothing in his view. Between having and not having there is to him no difference in the use. Doing nothing, and yet sometimes obliged to act, he forthwith does so; when he acts, yet no one sees that he has acted, and it is the same as if he did not act. So it is according to the Tâo; but therein there are both the Heavenly and the Human elements. In accordance with this there are (in actual government) the Lord and the Minister (par. 7). When one discerns this, and knows which element is to be preferred, convinced that it is doing nothing which is valuable, what difficulty has he in governing the world?
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