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The Three Precautions三守

Hanfeizi (The Book of Master Han Fei) 韓非子 · Han Fei and his later school · 3rd century BC · 2 passages · 453 Chinese characters · reading time 1.8 min

Hanfeizi (The Book of Master Han Fei) Three Things to Guard The book where the Legalists come together in one place. Han Fei took the law of Shang Yang, the technique of Shen Buhai and the positional power of Shen Dao, and bound the three into one. He held that men are not good because they are good but because they cannot do wrong, and said that what a ruler must lean on is not benevolence but law, technique and position. The contradiction of spear and shield comes from here. With the tale of the man of Chu who sold together a shield nothing could pierce and a spear that pierced everything, he showed that Yao and Shun cannot both be praised, and in "Objections to Positional Power" he takes up the same figure again over benevolence and position. The man of Song who kept watch by a stump waiting for a hare, and Master He's jade, which was known for jade only after his feet had been cut off twice, are stories of this book as well. "The Difficulties of Persuasion," on how hard it is to speak, has the tale of the scales below a dragon's throat that grow the wrong way. A ruler has such scales too, and to touch them is death — yet Han Fei himself died in prison in Qin. "Preserving Han" carries the memorial Han Fei sent up to the king of Qin and, set down directly after it, the memorial in which Li Si urged that "Han Fei has come for the sake of Han; do not send him back." The document that drove a man to his death is kept in that man's own book.

人主有三守。三守完，則國安身榮；三守不完，則國危身殆。何謂三守？人臣有議當途之失、用事之過、舉臣之情，人主不心藏而漏之近習能人，使人臣之欲有言者不敢不下適近習能人之心，而乃上以聞人主。然則端言直道之人不得見，而忠直日䟽。愛人，不獨利也，待譽而後利之；憎人，不獨害也，待非而後害之。然則人主無威而重在左右矣。惡自治之勞憚，使羣臣輻湊之變，因傳柄移藉，使殺生之機、奪予之要在大臣，如是者侵。此謂三守不完。三守不完，則劫殺之徵也。

A ruler has three things to guard. If he keeps the three whole, the state is at peace and his person is honored; if he does not keep the three whole, the state is in danger and his person stands on the edge. What are the three? Among his ministers there are men who discuss the failings of the one in the seat of power, the faults of the one who handles affairs, and the true state of the ministers he has raised. If the ruler does not hide this in his heart but lets it leak to his intimates and his able men, then a minister who wishes to speak will not dare to lay a word before the ruler above until he has first fitted himself to the hearts of those intimates and able men. Then the man of straight speech and straight conduct cannot be seen, and the loyal and upright grow distant day by day. In loving a man, the ruler does not profit him of himself but waits for praise and profits him after that; in hating a man, he does not harm him of himself but waits for blame and harms him after that. Then the ruler has no authority, and the weight lies with those at his side. He shrinks from the toil of governing by himself and cannot work the change by which the host of ministers gathers like spokes to a hub; and so he hands over the handle and shifts his ground, letting the trigger of killing and sparing and the key of taking and giving lie with his great ministers. A man like this is encroached upon. This is called not keeping the three whole; and when the three are not kept whole, it is the sign that he will be seized and killed.

凡劫有三：有明劫，有事劫，有刑劫。人臣有大臣之尊，外操國要以資羣臣，使外内之事非己不得行。雖有賢良，逆者必有禍，而順者必有福。然則羣臣直莫敢忠主憂國以爭社稷之利害。人主雖賢，不能獨計，而人臣有不敢忠主，則國爲亡國矣。此謂國無臣。國無臣者，豈郎中虚而朝臣少哉？羣臣持祿養交，行私道而不效公忠，此謂明劫。鬻寵擅權，矯外以勝内，險言禍福得失之形，以阿主之好惡。人主聽之，卑身輕國以資之，事敗與主分其禍，而功成則臣獨專之。諸用事之人，壹心同辭以語其美，則主言惡者必不信矣，此謂事劫。至於守司囹圄，禁制刑罰，人臣擅之，此謂刑劫。三守不完，則三劫者起；三守完，則三劫者止。三劫止塞，則王矣。

There are three kinds of seizure: the open seizure, the seizure of affairs, and the seizure of punishment. A minister who has the honor of a great minister grasps the vital things of the state without and supplies the host of ministers with means, so that no business within or without can be done except through him. Though there be worthy and good men, those who go against him surely meet calamity and those who go along with him surely meet good fortune. Then the host of ministers does not dare to be loyal to the ruler, to be anxious for the state, and to contend over what profits or harms the altars of the state. Though the ruler be worthy, he cannot reckon alone, and when his ministers do not dare to be loyal to him, the state is already a perished state. This is called a state without ministers. Does a state without ministers mean that the posts of palace attendant stand empty and the ministers of the court are few? It means that the host of ministers holds on to its salary and nurses its connections, walks the private road and offers no public loyalty. This is called the open seizure. To sell the ruler's favor and take power at will, to dress up matters abroad in order to win at home, to speak in alarming terms of the shapes of calamity and fortune, gain and loss, and so to flatter what the ruler likes and hates: the ruler listens to it, lowers himself and holds his state light in order to supply the man; and when the business fails, the man shares the calamity with the ruler, and when merit is won, the minister has it all to himself. When the several men who handle affairs speak of his excellence with one heart and one word, the ruler will surely not believe the man who says he is bad. This is called the seizure of affairs. And when the keeping of the prisons and the control of punishments are taken by a minister at his own will, this is called the seizure of punishment. When the three are not kept whole, the three seizures arise; when the three are kept whole, the three seizures stop. When the three seizures are stopped and blocked, the ruler reigns as king.

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