Cimeng — Censuring Mencius刺孟篇

Mencius had an audience with King Hui of Liang. The king said, "Venerable sir! You have not counted a thousand li too far to come. What have you to bring profit to my state?" Mencius said, "Benevolence and righteousness, and nothing more. Why must you speak of profit?"

Now profit is of two kinds. There is the profit of goods and wealth, and there is the profit of safety and good fortune. King Hui said, "What have you to bring profit to my state?" How did Mencius know that the king did not want the profit of safety and good fortune, that he pressed him at once with the profit of goods and wealth? The Yi says, "It is profitable to see the great man," and "It is profitable to cross the great stream," and "Qian: the source, the offering, the profit, the firmness." The Shangshu says, "The common people too will have profit." All of these are the profit of safety and good fortune. Practice benevolence and righteousness, and the profit of safety and good fortune is gained. Mencius should first have asked King Hui what he meant by bringing profit to his state. Had the king then spoken of the profit of goods and wealth, an answer could have been made.

Suppose the king asked and Mencius, not knowing what he intended, answered at once with the profit of goods and wealth. If the king was indeed asking about goods and wealth, Mencius had something to show for his answer. But if he was asking about the profit of safety and good fortune, and Mencius answered with the profit of goods and wealth, then he missed the point of what was put to him by one above him and went against the truth of the way of things.

The king of Qi asked Shizi, "I wish to give Mencius a house in the middle of the state and to support his disciples with ten thousand zhong, so that all the great officers and the men of the state may have something to look up to and take as their model. Why do you not speak of it to him for me?" Shizi told Mencius of it through Chenzi. Mencius said, "How does Shizi know that this cannot be? If I wished to be rich, would declining a hundred thousand and taking ten thousand be wishing to be rich?"

Now Mencius' declining of the hundred thousand was a loss of the principle of yielding. Riches and honor are what men desire, but what is not got by the right way one does not rest in. So the gentleman, in the matter of rank and salary, declines some things and does not decline others. How should he, on the ground that he himself is not greedy for riches and honor, refuse and turn back a gift that ought properly to be received?

Chen Zhen asked, "In Qi the king presented you with a hundred yi of fine gold and you did not accept it. In Song seventy yi were given and you accepted. In Xue fifty yi were given and you accepted.

If the not accepting of the former day was right, then the accepting of today is wrong. If the accepting of today is right, then the not accepting of the former day is wrong. You, sir, must stand in one of these two." Mencius said, "Both were right. When I was in Song I was about to go on a long journey, and for a traveller there must be a parting gift. The words were, 'I present this for your journey.' Why should I not accept? When I was in Xue I had a mind to be on my guard. The words were, 'I have heard that you are on your guard, and so this is given for the furnishing of arms.' Why should I not accept? As for Qi, there was no ground for it. To give where there is no ground for it is to buy a man with goods. How can there be a gentleman who may be bought with goods?"

Now in the giving of gold, whether it was accepted or not accepted, there was in each case a reason. It was not that he was greedy at the time of accepting and not greedy at the time of not accepting. If there is a principle of accepting and not accepting in gold, there must likewise be a principle of accepting and not accepting in a house. Yet he did not say that he had no merit, or that for him to leave office and receive a house would be against principle. He said that he himself was not greedy for riches, and drew in his earlier declining of a hundred thousand to set beside the later ten thousand.

If the hundred thousand, great as it was, ought earlier to have been received, how could he decline it?

Peng Geng asked, "Some tens of carts following behind and some hundreds of men in attendance, eating your way from one feudal lord to the next, is this not too much?" Mencius said, "If it is not the right way, then not even a single bowl of rice may be taken from another. If it is the right way, then Shun received the empire from Yao and did not think it too much."

To receive the empire from Yao, how does that stand beside a hundred thousand? That Shun did not decline the empire was because it was the right way. Now Mencius did not say that to receive the hundred thousand was not the right way. He said that he himself was not greedy for riches and honor, and so he lost the principle of yielding. How can this be taken as a caution?

Shen Tong asked in his own private person, "May Yan be attacked?" Mencius said, "It may. Zi Kuai had no right to give Yan to another, and Zi Zhi had no right to receive Yan from Zi Kuai. Suppose there were an officer here whom you were pleased with, and without telling the king you privately gave him your own rank and salary, and that officer, having no command from the king, privately received it from you. Would that be allowed? This case is no different." When the men of Qi attacked Yan, someone asked, "Is it so that you urged Qi to attack Yan?" He said, "No. Shen Tong said, 'May Yan be attacked?' and I answered him, 'It may.' They took this as warrant and attacked it. Had he said, 'Who may attack it?' I would have answered him, 'One who is an officer of Heaven may attack it.' Suppose now there were a man who had killed someone, and another asked, 'May a man be put to death?' I would answer him, 'He may.' If he then said, 'Who may put him to death?' I would answer him, 'One who is the officer of justice may put him to death.' Now here is Yan attacking Yan. Why should I have urged it?"

Now when someone asked whether Mencius had urged the king to attack Yan, was it not truly so? Shen Tong's question, "May Yan be attacked?", was put with a private intent, wishing to attack it himself. Had Mencius known that his mind was set on this, he ought to have said, "Yan may indeed be attacked, but one must be an officer of Heaven before he may attack it." Shen Tong's intent would then have been cut off, and there would have been no plan to attack Yan. Not knowing that this private intent was there, he answered at once and did not look into the words. This is not to know words.

Gongsun Chou asked, "May I ask in what the Master excels?" Mencius said, "I know words." He asked again, "What is meant by knowing words?" He said, "In one-sided words I know what they screen; in extravagant words I know what they have fallen into; in crooked words I know where they depart from the right; in evasive words I know where they are at an end. Born in the mind, they do harm to government; arising in government, they do harm to affairs. Though a sage should rise again, he would surely follow my words." Mencius was one who knew words, and he knew too the calamity that words give rise to and the harm they bring at their furthest reach. Seeing what the other man asked, he would have known what the man's choice of words was aiming at. Knowing what it was aiming at, he would have known the harm that must come of it at the last.

Mencius said, "The people would all be at peace. The king will surely change! I look for it day by day." The king that Mencius left, was he not the very king whom he had earlier refused to attend at court? If he was, why was his earlier dislike so quick and light and his later regard so heavy? If he was not, then he did not leave the earlier king but left the later one, and the later king's unworthiness was greater than the earlier one's; yet in leaving he stayed three nights, while with the earlier king, whose fault was not so great, he did not attend court and lodged with Jingchou. Why was Mencius' conduct not the same before and after, and his way of dealing with a king not one and the same from first to last?

Moreover, when Mencius was in Lu, Duke Ping of Lu wished to see him, but a favorite named Zang Cang spoke ill of Mencius and stopped the duke. Yuezhengzi told him of it. He said, "Going may be that something sets a man going, and stopping may be that something holds him back. Going and stopping are not what a man can do. That I did not meet the marquis of Lu is Heaven!" That he did not meet with success in Lu before and did not meet with success in Qi after is no different in the two cases. The one he laid to Heaven; the other he now laid to the king. What in the end does Mencius' reasoning settle upon? That his way was not carried out in Qi and the king did not use him is like the slander of Zang Cang and his sort. This too is something holding him back in his stopping. Both are Heaven's decree of not meeting with success, and not what a man can do. In leaving, why did he not go straight off, but stay three nights? If Heaven's decree was that he should not meet with success in Qi, and the king did not use his words, would Heaven change its decree in the space of three days and let him meet with success? In Lu he laid it to Heaven, cut off his intent and had no hope. In Qi he laid it to the king and all but had expectation. If it is so, the reasoning about not meeting with success rests in both cases on man.

Someone says: at the first leaving, Heaven's decree could not yet be settled, and he hoped that within three days the king would come after him again; Heaven's decree might lie within those three days, and so it was right. Now if the words are so, was the king of Qi's making him leave at the outset not Heaven's decree? If Heaven's decree lay within three days, then Duke Ping of Lu too, when three days had come, might have thrown aside Zang Cang's argument and used Yuezhengzi's words instead and gone to see Mencius. Why then was Mencius so early in laying it to Heaven? And if within three days the duke had seen Mencius, what would Mencius have done with his earlier words?

When Mencius left Qi, Chong Yu asked him on the road, "Master, you look as though you were not glad. On a former day I heard from you that the gentleman does not murmur against Heaven and does not blame men." He said, "That was one time; this is another time. In five hundred years a true king must arise, and in that space there must be one famous in his age. From the Zhou until now it is more than seven hundred years. By the count it is past; by the time, when one looks at it, it is ripe. Does Heaven not yet wish to bring the empire to peace and order? If it wished to bring the empire to peace and order, then in the present age who is there but me? Why should I not be glad?"

Now when Mencius said that in five hundred years a true king arises, by what did he see it? Ku was a true king, and Yao again was king over the empire. Yao handed on to Shun, and Shun again was king over the empire. Shun handed on to Yu, and Yu again was king over the empire. The kingship of these four sages over the empire came heel upon heel. From Yu to Tang is nearly a thousand years, and from Tang to the Zhou it is the same; it began with King Wen and was handed at last to King Wu. King Wu died, and King Cheng and the Duke of Zhou together governed the empire. From the Zhou to Mencius' own time is again seven hundred years with no true king. In what age is the proof that in five hundred years there must be a true king? And whose words are these, that in five hundred years there must be a true king? He reasons without examining affairs for what is real, and believes a floating and extravagant saying. He meets with no success, leaves Qi, and wears the look of one who is not glad. Is this not proof that the fruit of Mencius' worth is no different from that of the common scholars? By five hundred years he takes it that Heaven has a term for sending forth a sage, and he says too that Heaven does not yet wish to bring the empire to peace and order. His meaning is that when Heaven wishes to bring the empire to peace and order it must produce a sage king within five hundred years. By Mencius' words, this is to say that Heaven produces sages on purpose. Then is five hundred years the term in which Heaven produces a sage? If that is the term, why does Heaven not produce a sage? It is not the term for a sage king, and so none is produced. Mencius still believes it. Mencius does not know Heaven.

"From the Zhou until now it is more than seven hundred years. By the count it is past; by the time, when one looks at it, it is ripe." What is meant by the count being past? What is meant by the time being ripe? The count is the time, and the time is the count. That the count is past means that it is past five hundred years. From the Zhou to the present is more than seven hundred years, two hundred years over. Even if a true king were born, the time has been missed. Yet he says that the time is ripe. What does he mean?

He says that in five hundred years a true king must arise, and says too that in that space there must be one famous in his age. Is this the same as the true king or different? If it is the same, he has said it twice. If it is different, what sort of man is the one famous in his age? Does he mean the followers of Confucius and the fellows of Mencius, who teach those born after them and awaken the dull and foolish? Confucius had already been, and he himself had been born as well. If he means a sage minister, that must be at the same time as a sage king: when a sage king comes forth, a sage minister appears. He speaks of five hundred years and no more. Why then does he speak of the space between? If he does not mean the time of the five hundredth year but the middle of it, that is the time of two or three hundred years, and one born then does not meet with the sage king of the five hundredth year. If it is so, who in the end is it that Mencius means by the one famous in his age who must be in that space? "Heaven does not yet wish to bring the empire to peace and order. If it wished to govern the empire, who is there but me?"

To speak like this is not to call himself the one who ought to be the true king, but to say that if there were a true king he would be the true king's minister. To be a true king's minister is likewise from Heaven. His own decree was not that he should bring the empire to peace and order. Yet he did not rest broadly content with that in Qi, but harbored resentment and wore the look of one who is not glad. In this he went wrong.

Peng Geng asked, "Is it right that a scholar should eat without working?" Mencius said, "If you do not make merit circulate and exchange the fruits of work, so that what is over makes up what is lacking, then the farmer will have grain left over and the woman cloth left over. If you make them circulate, then carpenters and cartwrights all get their food from you. Here is a man who at home is filial and abroad is respectful to his elders, and who keeps the way of the former kings to wait upon the scholars of later ages, and he gets no food from you. How is it that you honor carpenters and cartwrights and make light of the man who practices benevolence and righteousness?" He said, "The carpenter and the cartwright, their intent is to seek food. Does the gentleman in practicing the Way also have it in his intent to seek food?" Mencius said, "What have you to do with his intent? If he has merit toward you and may be fed, then feed him. Besides, do you feed intent, or do you feed merit?" He said, "I feed intent." He said, "Here is a man who breaks your tiles and scrawls on your new plaster, and his intent is to seek food. Would you feed him?" He said, "No." He said, "Then you do not feed intent. You feed merit."

Now Mencius brought in the man who breaks tiles and scrawls on plaster in order to press Peng Geng's words. He knew that one who breaks tiles and scrawls on plaster has no merit but has intent, and that Peng Geng would surely not feed him. Even so, to bring in the breaking of tiles and the scrawling on plaster is not the way to press Peng Geng. Why? Among all those whose intent is to seek food, the man who breaks tiles and scrawls on plaster is not to be counted. Not being among them, he is hard to press a man with. When a man breaks tiles and scrawls on plaster for no reason, he is either mad or at play. The intent of a madman is not to seek food, and the man at play does not seek food either. Those who seek food all take up work by which many men together get benefit; they make such a thing and sell it in the market, and get the price and come home, and only then do they eat. Now the breaking of tiles and the scrawling on plaster is of no benefit to men. What intent is there in it? A man who has knowledge knows there is no benefit in it and of course does not do it. A man without knowledge is to be classed with the mad, and of course has no such intent. Now the breaking of tiles and the scrawling on plaster, set beside a boy playing at jirang in the road, how does it differ? Does the one who plays at jirang in the road also have it in his intent to seek food? He is still a boy and has as yet no intent. Grown men at boxi are of the same class as the scrawlers on plaster. Do the men at boxi again have it in their intent to seek food? Those at boxi do at least take money and goods from one another, and when money and goods are many a man gets his food as well, so at times there may be such an intent. Now the throwing of stones and the leaping of distances are also of the same class as scrawling on plaster. Among the men who throw stones and leap, is there one whose intent is to seek food? Then Mencius' pressing of Peng Geng did not go to the bottom of the matter. Had Peng Geng argued as Mencius did, it might be said that he stopped a man's mouth with ready speech.

Kuang Zhangzi said, "Is not Chen Zhongzi truly a scholar of clean hands! Living at Yuling, he went three days without food, until his ears heard nothing and his eyes saw nothing. Over the well there was a plum, and grubs had eaten more than half the fruit. He crawled to it and ate it, and after three swallows his ears heard and his eyes saw." Mencius said, "Among the officers of Qi I must count Zhongzi the thumb. Even so, how can Zhongzi be clean? To fill out Zhongzi's way of holding himself, one would have to become an earthworm, and only then could it be done. The earthworm eats dry earth above and drinks the yellow spring below. The house Zhongzi lives in, was it built by Boyi, or was it built by Robber Zhi? The grain he eats, was it planted by Boyi, or was it planted by Robber Zhi? This cannot be known." He said, "What harm is there in that? He weaves sandals himself and his wife twists hemp, and they exchange these for what they need." He said, "Zhongzi is of an old house of Qi. His elder brother Dai had a salary of ten thousand zhong from Ge. He held his brother's salary to be an unrighteous salary and would not eat of it. He held his brother's house to be an unrighteous house and would not live in it. He shunned his brother and left his mother and dwelt at Yuling. On another day he went home, and someone had made his brother a present of a live goose. He knit his brows and said, 'What use is this thing?' On another day his mother killed this goose and gave it to him to eat. His brother came in from outside and said, 'This is the flesh of that thing.' He went out and vomited it up.

When it comes from his mother he will not eat it; when it comes from his wife he eats it. His brother's house he will not live in; Yuling he lives in. Is this still to be able to fill out his class of conduct? One like Zhongzi must become an earthworm, and only then does he fill out his way of holding himself."

Now in Mencius' faulting of Zhongzi he did not get hold of Zhongzi's shortcoming. That Zhongzi thought the goose strange and vomited it, how was that because he would not eat what came from his mother? He had first rebuked the goose, saying, "What use is this thing?" On another day his mother killed it and fed it to him, and his brother said, "This is the flesh of that thing." Zhongzi was ashamed to go back on his earlier words, and at once vomited it out. Had his brother not told him he would not have vomited, and not vomiting, he would have eaten what came from his mother. To say that he would not eat what came from his mother is to miss his meaning. If Zhongzi had held firmly to not eating what came from his mother, then when the dish of goose arrived he should not have eaten it. As it was he ate it, and knowing it to be the goose, thought it strange and vomited. So Zhongzi's vomiting of the goose was shame at eating a thing that did not accord with his own resolve. It was not that he turned his back on the kindness owed to his kin and wished not to eat his mother's food.

Again: "How can Zhongzi be clean? To fill out Zhongzi's nature, one would have to become an earthworm, and only then could it be done." Now the earthworm eats dry earth above and drinks the yellow spring below, and this is to call the earthworm clean in the highest degree. Only if Zhongzi were like the earthworm would he be clean and unstained. Now the house he lives in was built by Boyi, and the grain he eats was planted by Boyi. Zhongzi lives in it and eats of it, and as to cleanness this is right. If at times he eats grain planted by Robber Zhi and lives in a house built by Robber Zhi, he stains his clean and unstained conduct. To fault Zhongzi on this ground is again to go wrong. The house came to him through another man, and the grain was exchanged for sandals; even supposing that a robber planted and built them, he himself neither heard of it nor knew it. Now his brother's unrighteousness has its own showing: that conduct was seen by all and was clear in men's talk, and therefore he withdrew to Yuling and would not dwell in his house, and wove sandals and twisted hemp and would not eat his salary. But to want Zhongzi, dwelling in the land of Yuling, to shun every house like his brother's and vomit up every salary like his brother's: where the ear hears and the eye sees and the thing is clear beyond doubt, it is plain that Zhongzi does not dwell there and does not eat. Now for the house at Yuling he does not see who built it, and for the grain he does not know who planted it. How should he not take a house already built and live in it, and grain already grown and eat it? Mencius' faulting of him asks for too much. Zhongzi's dwelling may at times have been built by a robber, and Zhongzi lived in it without knowing; and for this he is said not to fill out his way of holding himself, and only an earthworm could do it. Now in the ground of a robber's house there are earthworms too, eating the dry earth in the robber's house and drinking the yellow spring in the robber's house. How can the earthworm serve? For Zhongzi's conduct to satisfy Mencius' argument, he would have to become a fish, and only then could it be done. The fish dwells in the midst of the rivers and the sea and eats the earth of the rivers and the sea; the sea was not dug by robbers, and the earth was not gathered by robbers.

Then Zhongzi has a great fault, and Mencius, in faulting him, failed to get at it. Zhongzi left his mother and shunned his brother and dwelt alone with his wife at Yuling. He held his brother's house to be an unrighteous house and his brother's salary an unrighteous salary, and so would not dwell there and would not eat of it. This is cleanness at its height. But when he came from Yuling to pay his respects to his mother, he ought to have carried his own food with him as he went. When the dish of goose was brought in, it must have come together with rice, and the rice his mother had cooked was from his brother's salary. It is plain that his mother had no private grain of her own with which to feed Zhongzi. Zhongzi ate his brother's salary. Boyi would not eat the grain of Zhou and starved to death below Shouyang. How should he ever once have eaten the grain of Zhou and stained his clean conduct? Zhongzi's way of holding himself does not come near Boyi's, yet Mencius said that he would have to be like an earthworm, and so missed what Zhongzi's conduct ought to be set beside.

Mencius said, "There is nothing that is not Heaven's decree, and one receives in compliance what is correct in it. Therefore he who knows the decree does not stand beneath a wall of rock." He who dies having fulfilled his way has the correct decree. He who dies in fetters and manacles has not Heaven's decree.

Now Mencius' words say that for men there is no decree of what one runs into by chance. If those who keep their conduct in compliance get the correct decree, and those who act wildly and carelessly get what is not the correct decree, then this is Heaven decreeing according to conduct.

Confucius did not become king; Yan Yuan died young; Zixia lost his sight; Boniu came to have leprosy. Were these four not compliant in conduct? How was it that they did not receive the correct decree? Bigan was cut open, Zixu was boiled, Zilu was chopped into pickle. These are the utmost punishments of the empire, and not mere fetters and manacles. If fetters and manacles must be the proof of a decree that is not correct, then Bigan and Zixu were not compliant in conduct. Men receive their nature and their decree, and some are bound to be crushed or drowned, to fall by the sword or burn in fire. Though a man be careful in his conduct and cultivate his doings, what good does it do? Dou Guangguo lay with a hundred men beneath a heap of charcoal. The charcoal fell and the hundred men all died, and Guangguo alone was saved, for his decree was that he should be made a marquis. How does a heap of charcoal differ from a wall of rock? If a man's decree is not to be crushed, then though the rock fall, one who has Guangguo's decree will still get free. Going may be that something sets a man going, and stopping may be that something holds him back. If the decree is that he is to be crushed, something will still set him standing beneath the wall. The son of the host whose house Kong Jia entered had a decree from Heaven to be lowly, and though he was carried into the palace he still became no more than a keeper. Not standing beneath a wall of rock, and Kong Jia's carrying the boy into the palace, are one and the same in substance.