Xieduan — Admitting Shortcomings謝短篇

The Cheng cai and the Liang zhi said that the talents of the Confucian scholar and of the clerk cannot surpass each other; but since the Confucian scholar cultivates the great Way and the clerk understands the registers, and the Way is better than affairs, they said that the Confucian scholar is somewhat better than the clerk. This is to weigh and measure them from outside their callings. Within, each has that in which he is short, and they have not yet truly confessed it. Now when the Confucian scholar can expound one classic, he says of himself that he has penetrated the great Way, and he is proud before the clerk; and when the clerk understands the registers, he says of himself that his writing does no harm, and he mocks the Confucian scholar. Each holds himself full and calls himself right, makes the other wrong and himself right, does not know wherein he is short, and does not perceive that he himself is not enough. The Lunheng discusses this, and would have each of them know what he lacks. Now the shortness of the Confucian scholar is not merely that he does not understand the registers, and the poorness of the clerk is not merely that he has not penetrated the great Way. Rather they are shut in and dark and do not look at antiquity and the present, and neither can know for himself that the business he has made his calling is not yet complete. The two houses are each of them short, and they cannot know it for themselves. Those in the world who discuss the matter cannot teach them either. What is to be done?

The business of the Confucian scholar is the Five Classics. He faces south as a teacher, morning and evening he expounds and hands down the chapters and phrases, he grows smooth in the meanings and the principles, and it is enough for him to be complete in the Five Classics. That he cannot know the affairs of Qin and Han, which come after the Five Classics, is his shortness. To know antiquity and not know the present is called sinking on dry land; and so the Confucian scholar is what is called a man sunk on dry land. Before the Five Classics, coming to the first opening of Heaven and earth and to the first emperors and kings who ascended the throne, who the lord was and what his name was, the Confucian scholar again does not know. To know the present and not know antiquity is called being blind. The Five Classics, set beside high antiquity, are still the present. He can only expound the classics and does not understand high antiquity; and so the Confucian scholar is what is called a blind man.

The Confucian scholar still says, "High antiquity is long ago and far off and its affairs are dark, and so the classics do not set them down and the teachers do not speak of them."

Now the affairs of the Three Kings are near at hand. Though the classics do not set them down, the meaning reaches out to them; they are what the Five Classics ought to know in common and what the Confucian scholar ought to examine and expound. From the time Yu held the state, how many years did Xia run until Yin? From Tang, how many years did Yin run until Zhou? From King Wen, how many years did Zhou run until Qin? Jie ruined Xia and Zhou Xin cast away Yin; which king destroyed Zhou? Zhou is still far off, but Qin is what Han attacked. Xia began with Yu, Yin was rooted in Tang, Zhou took Houji for its ancestor; who was the first man of Qin? That Qin burned the Five Classics and buried the scholars alive is what the houses of the Five Classics all hear. Out of what did Qin rise up to burn the Five Classics, and at what was it moved to bury the Confucian scholars? Qin is the age just before. The state of Han is the house the Confucian scholar himself comes from; from Gaozu to the present court, how many reigns? Passing through the years to now, how many years?

What mandate did it first receive? What sign of favor did it further obtain? In gaining all under Heaven, was it hard or easy set beside Yin and Zhou? When the son or the younger brother of a household has studied for some years, and a man asks him, "How many years have you lived in this house? What did your forefathers do?" —

— and he cannot know, he is a foolish son or brother. Then the Confucian scholar who cannot know the affairs of Han is a foolish and blinkered man of the age. "He who warms up the old and knows the new can be a teacher."

If he does not know antiquity and the present, how can he be called a teacher! That man asks: "The two feet and four inches are the writings and the words of the sages. Morning and evening we expound and practice them, and the meanings and the kinds reach out to them, and so we can take pains to know them. The affairs of Han are not set down in the classics. They are called foot tablets and short writings and are ranked with the small Way, and to be able to know them is not what the Confucian holds honorable." The Confucian cannot understand antiquity and the present as a whole, and would expound only his own classic apart; so in the affairs of the classics and the kinds of their meaning he makes not knowing into his honor.

He does not take it for shortness that he does not understand affairs. Let us then ask the Confucian scholars separately, each about what he expounds morning and evening in his own classic. First ask the house of the Changes: "Out of what did the Changes first arise? Who was it that made it?" They will answer: "Fu Xi made the eight trigrams, King Wen unfolded them into sixty-four, and Confucius made the Xiang and the Xici. Three sages laid work upon work, and the Changes was complete."

Ask them: "There are three houses of the Changes. The first is called the Lianshan, the second the Guizang, the third the Zhou yi. What Fu Xi made and what King Wen made — was it the Lianshan? the Guizang? the Zhou yi? Qin burned the Five Classics; how did the Changes escape? How many years after Han arose was it set up again? In the time of Emperor Xuan a woman of Henei pulled down an old house and got one chapter of the Changes; by what name of Changes was it called? At that time was the Changes complete or not?" Ask the house of the Documents: "What is handed down morning and evening now is twenty-nine chapters; besides these there are a hundred and two chapters, and there are also a hundred chapters. Out of what did the twenty-nine chapters arise? Out of what were the hundred and two chapters made? When Qin burned the books, where were all the chapters of the Documents? When Han arose, which emperor first set the Documents down? Who was the first man to receive the learning?" Ask the house of the Rites: "Before the time of Confucius, Zhou had already fixed its rites, and there were the rites of Yin and the rites of Xia. The Three Kings took away and added according to their times, so the chapters are more or fewer and the text has additions and cuts. I do not know whether the Rites we have now are those of Zhou, or those of Yin and Xia."

They will certainly say, since Han followed Zhou, "They are the rites of Zhou."

Now the rites of Zhou were six canons, and each was turned six times over: six sixes are thirty-six, and so three hundred and sixty; and this is why the offices of Zhou were three hundred and sixty. But look at the Rites of today: the six canons are not to be seen, there are no three hundred and sixty offices, and the Son of Heaven is not to be seen either. When did the rites of the Son of Heaven fall away? Was it Qin that did away with them? In the time of Emperor Xuan a woman of Henei pulled down an old house and got one lost chapter of the Rites; among the sixty chapters, which chapter is it?

Gaozu ordered Shusun Tong to make the Yi pin; where are its twelve chapters?

He further fixed the Yi li, and the sixteen chapters now in existence are what was left over from the fire of Qin. Passing through the time of Qin, how many chapters were there in all? Ask the house of the Odes: "In the time of which emperor or king were the Odes made?"

They will say: "Zhou declined and the Odes were made; it was, I suppose, the time of King Kang. King Kang's virtue was flawed in the women's chamber, and the great ministers pricked him for rising late; and so the Odes were made."

Now the height of Kings Wen and Wu was held honorable in Cheng and Kang. King Kang had not yet declined; how then could the Odes have been made? Zhou was not one king alone; how do they know it was King Kang? The ends of the two kings both declined; when Xia and Yin declined, why were no Odes made? The Documents say, "The ode speaks the will, and the song chants the words"; so odes already existed at that time, and yet they cut off what came from Zhou onward and take that alone, and say that the Odes arose with Zhou. In antiquity they gathered odes, and the odes had writing; now the Odes have no writing. How do they know it was not that Qin burned the Five Classics and that for the Odes alone no tablets were left?" Ask the house of the Spring and Autumn: "Confucius made the Spring and Autumn: in the time of which king of Zhou? He came back from Wei to Lu, and after that the music was set right and the Spring and Autumn was made.

His coming back from Wei to Lu was in the time of Duke Ai. As for coming from Wei, which ruler was there? With what rites did they wait upon Confucius, that Confucius went back to Lu and made the Spring and Autumn? Confucius set down the records of the historians and made the Spring and Autumn; was the original name of those records the Spring and Autumn? Or did he make it into a classic and only then give it the name Spring and Autumn?

The house of law also asks, on behalf of the Confucian scholars: "Who was it that made the Nine Chapters?" Having heard that Gao Yao made the prisons, they will surely say, "It was Gao Yao." Press them: "Gao Yao was of the time of Tang and Yu, and the punishments of Tang and Yu were the five punishments; but look at the statutes now, and there is no text of the five punishments." Some say, "It was Xiao He." Press them: "Xiao He was of the time of Gaozu. In the time of Xiaowen, Chunyu Yi, the prefect of the great granary of Qi, had an offense and was summoned to Chang'an, and his daughter Tiying sent up a writing for her father, saying that the flesh punishments, once carried out, leave no room to change and repent. Emperor Wen was pained at her words, and so he changed the flesh punishments. But look at the Nine Chapters now: they are the symbolic punishments, not the flesh punishments. Emperor Wen came after Xiao He, so we know that in that time they were flesh punishments. Did what Xiao He made, on the contrary, already hold the symbolic punishments? And do they still say that the Nine Chapters were made by Xiao He?"

The ancient rites were three hundred and the observances three thousand; and the punishments too were three hundred proper punishments and three thousand articles. What goes out from rite enters into punishment, and what rite casts away punishment takes up; and so their number, more or fewer, is one and the same. Now the Classic of Rites has sixteen and Xiao He's statutes have nine chapters, and they do not answer to each other. Why is this too?

The chapter titles of the Five Classics are all divided by their affairs and their meanings. But when it comes to the Rites and the statutes, which are classics all the same, in titling them the Rites say the rites of marriage and the statutes say the statute on theft. Why?

Now if you ask the Confucian scholar about the meaning of antiquity and the present as a whole, he cannot know it; and if you ask him separately, each about the affairs of his own classic, he still cannot understand. This is the fault of sitting and holding in trust to the teacher's method and not reading at all widely. The clerk says of himself that he knows the business of office and understands the registers. Ask him: "If you understand and know that business, you ought to be able to reach through to its meaning and to see its intent. Can you?"

The clerk will be at a loss. Ask him: "In antiquity they enfeoffed marquises, and each held the land of a state to himself; now governors and prefects and chiefs are set up. What is the meaning of that?

The men of old had the well fields, and the people plowed for the lord's house; now the rent is measured out. What is the intent of that? In one year the people are made to serve a month's turn. On what is that grounded? At the age of twenty-three a man is entered on the register (傅), at fifteen he is taxed (賦), and at seven his head money is twenty-three. What is the reason?

The you (有) — in the time of which emperor or king? The gate, the well and the hearth — how are they set up? The altars of soil and grain, the First Farmer and the Ling star — what do they requite in sacrificing? At the end of the year they chase out the plague — what do they drive away? Figures of men in peachwood are set up at the gate — what is the purport? A reed rope is hung above the door and a tiger is painted on the doorframe — what is it they let loose and drive off?

On the wall they paint a stout man who presses down fire — what do they see in it? The pace of six feet and the cap of six inches — what do they answer to? There are the weishi and the lingshi, but no cheng and no zhangshi — what rule is that?

When two commanderies pass writings to each other they say, "I dare inform the men of the troops," but two prefectures do not say it — what is the explanation? When a commandery speaks of business to the two offices it says, "I dare speak of it," and to the minister of works it says, "I send it up" — what shape is that? Eight ranks of noble title are bestowed on the people — what law is that? They are named zanniao and shangzao — what do these mean?

When a clerk sends up his merits it is called fayue, and the name register is called mozhuang — what do these point at? At seventy the royal staff is bestowed — where did that arise? A dove is fastened to the end of the staff and no sparrow is fastened — what staff is that? If the dove is truly held to be good, why is it not bestowed, while the dove staff is bestowed and no rank is given — what is the sense of that? The day is divided into sixty, the water clock runs out at a hundred, and the drum is brought to five — for what reason? The clerks wear black clothes and the palace gates are in plain red — what is it they are careful of?

Leather is worn at the waist, the knife is carried on the right and the sword borne on the left — what is it that this completes? A buckle is fastened on the shoe and the cap sits on the head — what do these image?

The clerk dwells within city walls, goes out riding in carriage and on horseback, and sits governing documents. Which king raised up the city walls? Which craftsman made the carriage? In what land were horses born? What man made writing? How the city walls were made and where horses were born are hard to know, for they are far off. That the carriage was made and that writing was made are easy to understand, and they will surely answer: "Cang Jie made writing and Xi Zhong made the carriage."

Press them: "At what was Cang Jie moved, that he made writing? Out of what did Xi Zhong rise up, that he made the carriage?"

Again they do not know. That the clerk does not know what he ought to know is likewise the fault of not reading widely. Now the Confucian scholar does not look at antiquity and the present, and what he knows goes no further than holding in trust to the text of the classics, growing smooth in chapter and phrase, unwrapping and picking apart, tangling the one with the other and making the differences plain. The clerk does not understand the way of office, and what he can do goes no further than looking into prison cases and examining affairs, passing on documents and sending down records, and answering the districts handily. Reckon them up, and not one has read through and made himself complete. Both are shallow and sketchy and fall short, both are lopsided and unmixed, both have gaps and things left out. With what, then, do they speak against each other?