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PT. III. SECT. III. THE WRITINGS OF KWANG-BZE.
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the same time to Heaven and bewailing his lot, while I said, “My son, my son, you have been one of the first to suffer from the great calamities that afflict the world ?." (Lâo Tan) said', '(It is said), “Do not rob. Do not kill.” (But) in the setting up of (the ideas of) glory and disgrace, we see the cause of those evils; in the accumulation of property and wealth, we see the causes of strife and contention. If now you set up the things against which men fret; if you accumulate what produces strife and contention among them; if you put their persons in such a state of distress, that they have no rest or ease, although you may wish that they should not come to the end of those (criminals), can your wish be realised ?
•The superior men (and rulers) of old considered that the success (of their government) was to be found in the state of) the people, and its failure to be sought in themselves; that the right might be with the people, and the wrong in themselves. Thus it was that if but a single person lost his life, they retired and blamed themselves. Now, however, it is not so. (Rulers) conceal what they want done, and hold those who do not know it to be stupid; they require what is very difficult, and condemn those who do not dare to undertake it ; they impose heavy burdens, and punish those who are unequal to them; they require men to go far, and put them to death when they cannot accomplish the distance. When the people know that the utmost of their
1 There are two E here, and the difficulty in translating is to determine the subject of each.
• The of the text here is taken as =P
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