The Good Book_ A Secular Bible - A. C. Grayling [78]
12. ‘And the inferior part will not be able to take it from him. It is simply this which makes the great man.’
Chapter 12
1. The master was asked, ‘Since you say the will is chief and the natural passions are subordinate,
2. ‘How can we keep the will firm without doing violence to our natural passions?’
3. The master replied, ‘When the will alone is active, it moves the passions. When passions alone are active, they move the will.
4. ‘Natural passions are great, and exceedingly strong. If nourished by rectitude, they are the helpmates and assistants of rightness and reason.
5. ‘Natural passions are directed by the accumulation of right deeds; this is not obtained by accidental acts of rightness.
6. ‘There must be a constant practice of rightness. Yet let us not be like the farmer who grieved that his growing corn was not higher, and therefore tried to pull it longer;
7. ‘Returning home he said, “I am tired today. I have been helping the corn to grow long.”
8. ‘His son ran to look at the field and found the corn broken and withered.
9. ‘There are few in the world who do not deal with their passions as if they were assisting the corn to grow long.
10. ‘What they do is not only of no benefit to the passions, but injures them.
11. ‘Others make the opposite mistake and consider the passions of no benefit, and let them alone; they do not weed their corn.
12. ‘We must learn that the passions directed by reason can be part of our better selves, and must be allowed their due, but in proportion to rightness and benevolence.’
Chapter 13
1. The master said, ‘What distinguishes the superior man from others is what he preserves in his heart: namely, benevolence and a sense of the right.
2. ‘The benevolent man loves others. The man of rightness shows respect to others.
3. ‘He who loves others is more often loved by them than he who hates them.
4. ‘He who respects others is more often respected in return than is the disrespectful man.
5. ‘Consider: here is a man who treats another in a perverse and unreasonable manner.
6. ‘The superior man in such a case will say, “I must have been wanting in benevolence; I must have been wanting in propriety: how should this have happened otherwise?”
7. ‘He examines himself, and is especially benevolent. He turns to consider himself, and is especially observant of propriety.
8. ‘Suppose the perversity and unreasonableness of the other, however, remain the same.
9. ‘The superior man will again rebuke himself: “I must have been failing to do my utmost.”
10. ‘Not often has there been anyone of complete sincerity who failed to move others.
11. ‘Not often has there been one who lacked sincerity who was often able to move others.
12. ‘The great man is he who does not lose a child’s heart, the original good heart with which every man is born.’
13. A disciple said, ‘Your principles are lofty and admirable, but learning them may well be likened to climbing on the clouds – something which cannot be achieved.
14. ‘Why not adapt your teachings so that those who wish to follow them can consider them attainable, and so daily exert themselves?’
15. The master said, ‘A great artificer does not, for the sake of a stupid workman, alter or do away with the marking line.
16. ‘A skilled instructor of archery does not, for the sake of an inept archer, change his rule for drawing the bow.
17. ‘The superior man draws the bow, but does not discharge the arrow. Such is his standing exactly in the middle of the right path.
18. ‘Those who are able to follow him will follow him.’
Chapter 14
1. The master said, ‘The superior man gives thoughtful consideration to nine things.
2. ‘In regard to the use of his eyes, he wishes to see clearly.
3. ‘In regard to the use of his ears, he wishes to hear distinctly.
4. ‘In regard to his attitude towards others, he is keen to be benign.
5. ‘In regard to his prevailing mood, he wishes it to be calm.
6. ‘In regard to his speech,