The Analects

by Confucius

  19.3 Followers of Zixia asked Zizhang about the way of making friends [jiao]. Zizhang said, “What did Zixia say?” They responded, “Zixia said, ‘Associate with those who are acceptable. Reject those who are not.’”

  Zizhang said, “This is not what I have heard. [I have heard that] the gentleman respects the worthy and is charitable to the common lot. He applauds the good and is compassionate toward those who have a hard time trying to be good. If I am a person of great worth, why would I not be charitable to people? If I am not a person of worth, others for sure will reject me, and so how can I reject them?”

  Two Han scholars, Bao Xian and Zheng Xuan, understand jiao to mean social interactions, and so, they say, when Zixia and Zizhang talk here about jiao, Zixia is referring to friendship while Zizhang is referring to “a wide range of relations,” from one’s relationship to “men of great worth” to one’s relationship to “the common lot.” Zixia and Zizhang each claimed that he had learned about the correct way in social relations from their teacher, Confucius. They both could be right if we accept the explanation of the Han scholars. For Confucius says in 1.8 and 9.25 that one “should stay close to those who do their best and are trustworthy” and “should not befriend those who are not one’s equals,” yet he also says in 1.6 that in one’s youth one should be taught to “cherish all people” but to “stay close to the most humane.” It is also possible to read Zizhang’s statement here as an elaboration of what he says in 19.2, because to invite the common lot into the idea of friendship could be seen as an example of making virtue grand. What this implies, of course, is that Zixia’s idea of friendship is smaller and narrower, and that Zixia himself is overly scrupulous, which is consistent with how we find him in the Analects.

  19.4 Zixi said, “There must be a lot to see along the byways, but do not wander off, because you might get bogged down if you have to journey a long way. This is why the gentleman does not take the byways.”

  “Byways,” xiaodao, could mean any of these things: heterodox ways, trivial diversions, or training in the technical skills of, say, a farmer, an artisan, a diviner, or a doctor. Zixia does not deny the fact that there are merits in these “byways,” but, he says, a gentleman, having set his goal high, will stay on his course because he knows that he cannot afford to be “bogged down” by interests on the side or interests that might take him to the wrong path.

  19.5 Zixia said, “To be aware each day of what you still don’t know and to remember after a month what you were able to absorb—this is proof of your love for learning.”

  A person who wants to learn has to be aware of his deficiencies all the time, every day, if he intends to make progress. And to have a real love for learning, he must not forget what he has learned even after a month. In the words of the Ming dynasty scholar Liu Zongzhou, the proof of one’s love for learning is in what he fears, that “he will never learn enough” and that “he will forget what he has learned.”

  19.6 Zixia said, “Learn broadly and be constant in your effort. [With the knowledge you have gained,] ask questions that are pressing to you, and reflect on things close at hand—humaneness is found in this.”

  As in 19.5, Zixia emphasizes the importance of embodying the knowledge you have acquired. Make it your own, he says, so that you are able to call upon what you have learned and to reflect on questions that are immediate to you—“humaneness is found in this.”

  19.7 Zixia said, “Artisans live in their shops in order to master their craft; the gentleman steeps himself in learning in order to perfect the Way.”

  One could read Zixia’s comment here as a restatement of 19.5 and 19.6, that a person must steep himself in learning “in order to perfect the Way” just as artisans need to live in their shop “to master their craft.” This remark could also suggest that Zixia was an artisan kind of gentleman—that he rarely left the shop of learning; that he rarely came up for air.

  19.8 Zixia said, “When a petty man makes a mistake, it’s certain that he will try to gloss it over.”

  Everyone makes mistakes, even the Duke of Zhou, Mencius observes, but “the gentleman of antiquity would let his mistake be seen by all the people like the eclipse of the moon and the sun,” and “when he corrected his mistake, people looked up to him.” Men of today are another matter, Mencius says: they not only “persist in their mistakes,” but they will “try to explain the mistakes away.”

  19.9 Zixia said, “The gentleman has three changes of appearance. From a distance, he is respectful and dignified. When you see him more closely, he is gentle and affable. When you listen to his words, [you realize that] he is forceful and perceptive.”

  The gentleman does not really change, but as we move closer to him, we begin to see the depth and range of his character, which only adds to but does not contradict our first impression of him.

  19.10 Zixia said, “The gentleman earns the trust of his people first, before he subjects them to arduous labor. If he does not have their trust, they will think that he is trying to abuse them. He earns the trust [of his ruler] before he remonstrates with him. If he does not have [this man’s trust], the ruler will think that he is trying to malign him.”

  The sixth-century scholar Huang Kan says, “People will have complete trust in a person who insists on conducting himself with integrity, and they will know that the labor and the hardship asked of them are not meant to serve his private interests. But if they do not trust their superior, then they will consider his demands as a form of abuse and as part of his attempt to have them serve his interests.” Huang also says, “A person who has not gained the trust of his ruler will not be able to carry out his remonstrance; moreover, when seeing this man in the evening light, one would often find him pressing his hand against his sword.” Thus, Huang concludes, “it only goes to show that without the other person’s complete trust one should not give remonstrance lightly.” The Ming scholar Lin Xiyuan points out that without trust, “people could be intolerant of their superior even when he does not subject them to arduous labor,” and without trust, “a ruler could be intolerant of his counselor even when the counselor chooses not to remonstrate with him.”

  19.11 Zixia said, “Do not overstep the line when it comes to matters that involve important principles of integrity. But allow yourself some leeway in matters that involve minor infringements.”

  Confucius’ judgment of Guan Zhong in 14.16 and 14.17 illustrates Zixia’s point here. The counselor Zichan from the state of Zheng is another example. Confucius described him as generous and fair and a skillful administrator, but we know from the history of the Spring and Autumn period that when Zichan first assumed his position as the prime minister of Zheng, he bribed the powerful to keep them happy so that they would be willing to work for him. But there is no uniform view in the early Chinese sources, not even in the Confucian canon, about matters involving major and minor principles. Liu Baonan sees a gradual transformation: the founders of the Zhou, he says, taught that there should be consistency in one’s conduct irrespective of the moral weight of a question; a thousand years later, in the Western Han, the Confucian thinker Dong Zhongshu wrote that in certain situations it was all right “to act against constant principles [jing] because of expediency [quan]”; and between the founders of the Zhou and Dong Zhongshu, there was Confucius, who, speaking through Zixia here, thought that it was important to allow oneself “some leeway,” “some coming and going,” “in matters that involve minor infringements” of integrity.

  19.12 Ziyou said, “Followers of Zixia are capable of such tasks as sprinkling and sweeping, responding to calls and replying to questions, advancing and retiring [when there are guests]. But these are only details. Ask them about the fundamentals, they do not seem to know anything. How can that be?” When Zixia heard this, he said, “Ah, Yan You [Ziyou] is mistaken! As for the way of the gentleman, [how would a teacher know] who is ready to understand it at the beginning [of the lesson] and who [will get frustrated if it is introduced too early and
thereby] will lose interest after a while? As with planting grass and trees [in a garden], one has to separate [the students] into different categories. How can one mishandle [the transmission of] the way of the gentleman? Only the sage is able to tackle it [whether he is introduced to the teaching] at the beginning or toward the end.”

  Some scholars understand the second sentence of Zixia’s response to say: “As for the way of the gentleman, how can it be right to introduce [the fundamentals] at the beginning, and then to leave to the end details that one is too tired to teach?” Teaching is the subject in this interpretation, not disciples, as in my translation; yet both readings converge on the same point: human intelligence varies from one person to the next; therefore, if a person wants to transmit “the way of the gentleman” to a whole group of students, why not start with simple skills so that no one will be left behind? This, the scholars agree, is what Zixia tried to tell Ziyou.

  Since Confucius considered both Ziyou and Zixia “accomplished in cultural pursuits,” Qian Mu says, “how could Ziyou not know that sprinkling and sweeping, responding to calls and replying to questions, advancing and retiring, were part of the early stage of learning? He only feared that Zixia in his teaching might not give enough attention to the fundamentals and let his disciples get bogged down by these simple skills. In the same way, how could Zixia not know that beyond sprinkling and sweeping, responding to calls and replying to questions, advancing and retiring, there were the larger questions of rites and music, which he could not have overlooked?” Ziyou and Zixia may have meant well in their comments, each regarding what he said as a corrective to the other person’s way of teaching. This is Qian Mu’s view. I, however, feel that there was genuine division between the two. Each also wanted to be regarded as the best instructor in cultural things.

  19.13 Zixia said, “A man in office, if he has energy to spare, should pursue learning. A man devoted to learning, if he has energy to spare, should take office.”

  Zixia’s statement here does not apply to Confucius, who, because of his “humble station,” had to learn and to acquire “many menial skills” in order to be considered for office. Confucius, therefore, was not someone who took office because he had “energy to spare.” He had no choice. He needed a government job in order to make a living. Also, he probably would not have articulated the relationship of learning (xue) and taking office (shi) in the way that Zixia had, which alluded neither to the tension between the two nor to the reason why learning had to be tested in office.

  19.14 Ziyou said, “The mourning ritual should come to a stop when grief is fully expressed.”

  Mourning is not about giving the deceased a lavish sendoff: rituals should not outdo what is fully expressed through feelings. And feelings, too, should not go beyond the point where they can become harmful to one’s physical health and mental well-being.

  19.15 Ziyou said, “It is difficult to emulate my friend Zhang [Zizhang]. Still, he has not fully realized humaneness.”

  19.16 Master Zeng [Zengzi] said, “What a grand presence Zizhang has! I find it hard to practice humaneness side by side with him.”

  Ziyou does not say in 19.15 just what aspect of Zizhang is “difficult to emulate.” It could be his smartness and his mental acuity. But since Zengzi tells us in the next entry that Zizhang has “a grand presence,” in fact, so much so that it is “hard to practice humaneness side by side with him,” the Qing scholar Jiao Xun thinks that it must have been Zizhang’s “grand presence” that was difficult for Ziyou to emulate. If Jiao Xun is right, one might say that it was also because of such a presence, which could seem overpowering, that Zengzi found Zizhang a difficult partner in the practice of humaneness. One could go further and ask whether this was also the reason why Zizhang could not fully realize his humaneness.

  19.17 Master Zeng [Zengzi] said, “I have heard the Master say that [on no occasion] does a person give his utmost. If there must be one exception, it would be mourning the death of a parent.”

  Mencius, being a third-generation disciple of Zengzi, repeated this when he told someone who had just lost his father, “Mourning a parent must be the occasion during which one gives one’s utmost.” But just what did Zengzi, or rather Confucius, mean by “giving one’s utmost” (zizhi)? It could mean doing one’s best and complying with the rites in burying the parent and in sacrificing to him. Or it could mean giving full expression to one’s feelings on such an occasion. The first reflects Mencius’ explanation, and the second, that of Zhu Xi and his Song precursors.

  19.18 Master Zeng [Zengzi] said, “I have heard the Master say that it is possible to match the filiality exemplified in Meng Zhuangzi in most respects. But as for the fact that he did not discharge the officials who had worked with his father and he did not veer from his father’s way of conducting government—that would be hard to match.”

  Meng Zhuangzi and his father, Meng Xianzi, were members of the Mengsun family. Meng Zhuangzi succeeded Meng Xianzi as a chief counselor in the Lu government in 554 BC after the latter’s death, but this was a short stint, for he died four years later. Traditional commentaries suggest that we read this entry together with 1.11, where Confucius says, “If for three years [after your father died] you refrained from altering your father’s ways, you can be called filial.” But should you inherit his government position, would your father’s ways include the officials and the policies he favored? This question complicates the idea of being filial because the son’s action in the political world would have serious consequences for the welfare of the state. If the father made mistakes and the son refrains from correcting them, then the son is doing a disservice to the public. But if his father was a capable counselor, then by holding himself back from appointing the men he wants in office and the policies he wants to put in place, the son not only shows filial respect but is also continuing his father’s ways for the greater good.

  19.19 The Meng family appointed Yang Fu as a legal officer [shishi], and he asked Master Zeng [Zengzi] for advice. Master Zeng said, “Those at the top have lost the Way, and people for a long time have been adrift [without any moral guidance]. If you are able to gather the facts and circumstances of their offenses, sorrow and compassion will weigh [in your judgment], but do not gloat about what you are able to achieve.”

  Yang Fu, according to some sources, was a disciple of Zengzi. After he was appointed a legal officer, a shishi, a position with the power to decide whether a criminal should live or die, he went to see his teacher to seek his advice about how to handle his responsibilities. And Zengzi’s answer reflects what Confucius taught him about the moral duties of those who are at the top. When a counselor asked him about how to govern, Confucius said, in 12.17, “When you set an example by correcting your mistakes, who will dare not to correct his mistakes?” He told another counselor, in 12.19, “As head of the government, why would you need to kill anyone [to bring about moral order]?” But even Confucius recognized that “only after good men have been in government for a hundred years is there the possibility of winning the war against cruelty and doing away with capital punishment.” Here, however, Zengzi is talking about a state where the ruling elite “have lost the Way, and people for a long time have been adrift.” And so Zengzi has to confront the question of how to bring criminals to justice. He tells Yang Fu to find out the facts and circumstances (qing) of a crime, and once Yang Fu has fuller and more accurate knowledge of what happened, Zengzi believes that he will be more compassionate in his judgment. But he warns at the end against self-congratulation—this, Zengzi feels, will take away whatever empathy a judge may have had toward a criminal whose life is in his hands.

  19.20 Zigong said, “Zhou could not have been as immoral as people say he was. Thus the gentleman loathes to find himself in a low and disreputable place, for all that is vile in the world tends to end up there.”

  King Zhou was the last ruler of the Shang dynasty, a man who, by reputation, was capable of every form of cruelty and moral depravity. And t
his is Zigong’s point: Do not seek a low reputation or all the mean and despicable acts in the world will be lumped together with your name. A fourth-century text, the Book of Liezi, says, “All the admiration of the world went to Emperor Shun and Emperor Yu, the Duke of Zhou and Confucius; all the condemnation of the world went to the rulers Jie and Zhou.” And of these last two men, the Liezi goes on to say, “Truly the reality was not what their reputation deserved.”

  19.21 Zigong said, “The mistake made by a gentleman is like the eclipse of the moon and the sun. When he errs, all the people can see what he has done, and when he corrects it, they look up to him.”

  Zigong’s remark here, together with Zixia’s in 19.8, comes very close to what Mencius says in 2B:9. See my commentary on 19.8.

  19.22 Gongsun Chao [a counselor] of Wei asked Zigong, “From whom did Zhongni [Confucius] learn?”

  Zigong replied, “The way of King Wen and King Wu has not yet fallen to the ground. It exists in all human beings. The worthy ones have grasped its essential points. The lesser ones have understood its minor attributes. There is no one who does not possess the way of King Wen and King Wu. So from whom did our Master not learn? And how could he have had just one particular teacher?”

  The achievements of the Zhou could have disappeared in the dynasty’s long history, and a large part of them did, but not her cultural tradition. The way of King Wen and King Wu—the culture they helped to shape—lived on because it had become the daily habits and rituals of ordinary people and it also had gotten a boost and strong reinforcement from men such as Confucius. Confucius makes it quite clear in 9.5 that King Wen’s cultural vestiges are invested in him. But according to Zigong, Confucius also knew that every person possessed some of the same cultural vestiges. Thus Confucius learned from everyone, and he had no set idea about who should be his teacher. This was the reason why, Liu Baonan explains, “he asked Laozi about the rites, he had a discussion with Chang Hong about music, he had questions for Master Yan about the bureaucratic offices, and he studied the zither with Master Xiang.”