Discourses on salt and iron : a debate on state control of commerce and industry in ancient China, chapter I-XXVIII / translated from the Chinese of Huan K'uan, with introduction and notes, by Esson M. Gale. |
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| XVIII. | CHAPTER XVIII |
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 | CHAPTER XVIII Discourses on salt and iron : |  |
CHAPTER XVIII
VILIFYING THE LEARNED
a. The Lord Grand Secretary: It is not the nature of a scholar
to nurse crookedness while speaking straight and true, to rely upon
himself as if desiring nothing while actually not following in conduct.[1]
Li Ssŭ[2]
and Pao Ch'iu Tzŭ,[3]
according to tradition, both sat at
the feet of Hsün Ch'ing.[4]
Their training completed, Li Ssŭ entered
the service of Ch'in where he subsequently rose to the rank of one
of the Three Highest Ministers,[5]
and possessed of the power[6]
of
a lord of ten thousand chariots he held sway over the realm within
the Seas, in achievement equal to I Yin and Lü Wang,[7]
in fame
loftier than Mount T'ai.[8]
But Pao Ch'iu never got beyond the
frogs which, though multisonous indeed during a flood year, are
but destined to perish sooner or later in some drain or ditch. Now,
lovers of disputation,[10] without proper means to support yourselves
at home and with no great reputation abroad, poor and inconspicuous
that you are, even though you can talk on proper conduct, neither
is your weight very great.
b. The Literati: When Li Ssŭ became Chancellor of Ch'in,
Shih-huang appointed him to an office which was higher than that
of any other person or minister. Yet Hsün Ch'ing did not take
office under him, prescient that he would fall into unfathomable
disasters.[11]
Pao Ch'iu Tzŭ, who lived on wild kraut growing among
the hemp, and cultivated the Way of virtue beneath a plain whitewashed
roof, was happy in his aspirations, more contented than
were he living in a spacious mansion with meat as his fare. Though
never enjoying resplendent station, he was yet free from all petty
anxiety.
c. Now Duke Hsien of Ch'in's[12]
Ch'ui Chi gem[13]
was beautiful
beyond dispute; but Kung Chih-ch'i,[14]
seeing it, groaned, knowing
well that it was part of Hsün Hsi's[15]
plot against his country.
Chih Po[16]
possessing all the wealth of the Three Chin States[17]
was
certainly at the height of his power; yet hardly did he suspect
that Hsiang Tzŭ[18]
planned to entrap him. The fox and raccoon furs
of Chi Sun[19]
were undoubtedly magnificent; yet never did he suspect
Thus did Hsien of Chin[21] hook Yü and Kuo[22] by means of the
precious horses, and through the city did Hsiang Tzŭ enveigle
Chih Po with the result that the latter fell into the hands of Chao,
and Yü and Kuo were both annexed by Chin. Thinking only of
what they were about to obtain, regardless of consequence, Chih Po
and the two states only coveted territory or valued prized mounts.
As Confucius said: Who heeds not the future will find sorrow at
hand.[23]
d. But our present-day authorities see only gain, never providing
against possible loss; and only covet prizes, never considering possible
disgrace, always willing to exchange their lives for profit and
to die for money. They enjoy the privileges of wealth and rank
without ever possessing the virtues of altruism and right conduct;
indeed they are as one who steps upon a trap ready to be sprung,
or one who is dining under a portcullis! Thus it was that Li Ssŭ
suffered the five penalties:[24]
There was a bird in a southern clime
called Wan-chu. He would eat nothing but the bamboo core, drink
nothing but the water of the clearest spring. As he flew over Mount
T'ai, the Kite of T'ai Shan, who was just picking up a decayed rat,
looked up and saw Wan-chu. "Shoo!" cried the Kite.[25]
Now, with
all your wealth and rank, Lord High Minister, it pleases you to
scoff at us Confucian scholars, as you do so frequently. Is not your
Wan-chu!
e. The Lord Grand Secretary: 'Tis Learning's part to curb crude
speech, and Courtesy's function to veneer rustic manners. Thus
Learning should prop Virtue, Courtesy should civilize Crudeness.
Our minds should weigh words before speaking; action after thought
gives pleasure. Lips should not open to let forth bad language,
and one should keep away from evil doings. In every move and
action one should comply with good manners, endeavoring to walk
with dignity along the path of decorum. Behave therefore in accordance
with propriety, and let your utterance be in accordance
with the rules of courtesy. It is only thus that you may speak all
day without being malapert, and act all your days without setting
a bad example.[26]
Now, the Ruler of Men, in order to govern the
people, has provided offices and established courts, and has distributed
ranks and assigned salaries to honor the worthies — and you speak
here of portcullis and decayed rats! Fie! To be so coarse in speech
and so pervert to schooling!
f. The Literati: The Sage Ruler provides offices for carrying out
necessary functions; it is for the able to occupy them. He distributes
salaries for the sustenance of worthies; it is for the capable to receive
them. For the just and honorable, no honor should be too high and
no emolument too great. Thus Shun received the Empire from Yao,
and T'ai Kung could not but occupy the post of one of the Three
Highest Ministers with the Chou. If one be unfit for any position,
even the giving of but a basket of rice and a plate of soup,[27]
would
be like giving alms. Therefore, those whose station was high and
yet their virtue thin, whose responsibility was heavy but strength
small, were few, for they were not equal to it.[28]
The Kite of T'ai
valley; he never intended to do harm to anyone. But you, our
present officiators, you rob the Ruler's treasury and feed upon it
in the very face of the punitive laws, unaware that their mechanism
may be set into motion! And with all that, you "shoo" at people!
In villainy indeed you can hardly be compared to the Kite of
T'ai Shan!
g. The Lord Grand Secretary: Said Magister Ssŭ-ma:[29]
Hustling
and bustling, after gain the world is rushing: Maids of Chao not
particular as to beauty or homeliness; matrons of Chêng undiscriminating
between foreigner and countryman; merchants willing to face dishonor
and disgrace, soldiers not willing to serve to the death; officers,
indifferent to relatives, in serving their Prince willing to face any
risk at his expense; everyone and all working but for profit and
salary. The Confucianists and the Mihists,[30]
with greedy hearts but
Their perching here and perching there[31] can also be explained by
their appetite not being satisfied. For the scholar's want is also honor
and fame; wealth and rank, the object of his expectations.
h. When Li Ssŭ was studying at the door of Hsün Ch'ing, he
rode side by side with ne'er-do-wells. Then, when he raised his
wings in high flight surging forth like a dragon, breaking into
gallop like a charger, "passing by nine and overtaking two," soaring
to a height of ten thousand cubits, the wild swan and the fleet
courser[32]
could hardly keep pace with him, to say nothing of lame
ewes and finches and sparrows! Seated in the seat of power over
all the Empire, driving the masses of the world before him, he
enjoyed a retinue of a hundred chariots and an income of ten
thousand measures, while your doctrinaire Confucianists can not
have even a full suit of cotton clothes nor enough husks to fill
their stomachs. Not that they find bean and legume tasty and hold
latter for themselves. Even though they would like to "shoo" at
others, how can they do so?
i. The Literati: The gentleman esteems virtue, the mean man
dotes on land; the worthy scholar suffers martyrdom for his good
name, the miser dies for gain. Li Ssŭ, coveting desirable objects,
came to a hateful end, while Sun-shu Ao,[33]
foreseeing early possible
troubles, three times resigned from his Chancellorship and
had no occasion for regret. Not that he found pleasure in stations
low and mean, and disliked generous salaries, but he considered
the distant future and took care to avoid all harm. The ox, reserved
for the suburban sacrifice, is fed and taken care of throughout a
whole year, before being bedecked in rich embroidery and led into
the temple hall. Then does the Great Sacrificer seize his belled
sword, about to part open its hair. At that moment, even if it
wanted to be panting up a steep hillside under a heavy load, it
cannot get its wish.
j. When Shang Yang was hard pressed at P'êng Ch'ih[34]
and
Wu Ch'i[35]
cowered behind his prince's body, they undoubtedly
wished they were in coarse clothes living in some wretched straw
hut. When Li Ssŭ was Ch'in's Chancellor, seated in the seat of
power over the whole Empire, a realm of ten thousand chariots
would seem small to his ambition; but when locked in prison and
finally when being torn apart by chariots in the market place of
Yün-yang,[36]
he also undoubtedly wished he were carrying wood to
but he could never get his wish. Su Ch'in and Wu Ch'i
killed themselves by their power and position; Shang Yang and
Li Ssŭ brought themselves to destruction by their prestige and
honor; all of them came to their end through their greed and
vanity. All the hundred chariots of their escort could not have
carried away their load of grief!
The Shih-chi, ch. LXXXVII (Biography of Li Ssŭ) has the phrase [OMITTED]
[OMITTED] "relying on one's self in a condition of non-activity,
that is not the nature of a scholar", [Duyvendak's translation, T'oung Pao, XXVI (1928),
The Chronology of Hsün-tzŭ, p. 92], while the YTL. reads [OMITTED]
[OMITTED].
[OMITTED], perhaps the most execrated person of all time in the minds of Chinese
scholars, for his instigation of the first "bibliothecal holocaust", the destruction of all
existing literature, save works on agriculture, medicine and divination (213 B.C.). Ssŭ-ma
Ch'ien devotes his LXXXVIIth chapter to a lengthy biography of the First Ch'in
Emperor's Prime Minister; while in the VIth chapter appears the account of the famous
debate before the throne, when the decision against the scholars was taken. The Shih-chi's
biography (translated in part by Duyvendak, loc. cit.) confirms the statements
regarding Li Ssŭ as a pupil of Hsün Ch'ing and his subsequent career
[OMITTED] (otherwise [OMITTED]), in Shantung, the chief of the Five Sacred Mountains
[OMITTED] of China. For its place Chinese religion, cf. Chavannes Le T'ai Chan.
[OMITTED] an expression meaning either a broken jar used for a window, or a small
window, round as the mouth of a jar, often in houses of the poor. Cf. the Tz'ŭ yüan.
Cf. Duyvendak, T'oung Pao, loc. cit., where this passage from the YTL. is quoted
in connection with the establishment of the dates of the philosopher, the conclusion
being that Hsün-tzŭ never took office under his pupil, during the many years of Li
Ssŭ's service with Ch'in.
[OMITTED], as related in the Shih-chi, LXXXVII. This was the extremity of the
law, and represented branding on the forehead [OMITTED], cutting off the nose [OMITTED], maiming
(cutting off the ear, the hands, or the feet) [OMITTED], castration [OMITTED], and death [OMITTED].
These "five punishments" prevailed under the Chou and Han dynasties.
This allegory is found substantially in the Chuang-tzŭ [OMITTED], in which Chuang-tzŭ
ridicules the sophist Hui-tzŭ [OMITTED], who at the time was minister of the state
of Liang [OMITTED]. (Cf. [OMITTED], [Legge, Sacred Books,
vol. XXXIX, pt. i, p. 391, and Wilhelm, Dschuang Dsi, p. 134]). The Literati turn
this tale against Sang Hung-yang, eliciting from the Minister a lecture on the propriety
of refined manners.
The passage expresses the sentiment found in Mencius, VI, i, x, 6, "Here are a
small basket of rice and a platter of soup, and the case is one in which the getting
them will preserve life, and the want of them will be death; — if they are offered
with an insulting voice, even a tramper will not receive them . . . . even a beggar will
not stoop to take them" [Legge's translation]. The same figure, "the matter of a dish
of rice or a platter of soup", in a similar association, appears in Mencius, VII, ii, xi.
[OMITTED]. This is the only direct citation from Ssŭ-ma
Ch'ien's Shih-chi. It is from the introduction to ch. CXXIX, and appears much like a
common saying. For [OMITTED], Huan K'uan has [OMITTED], which Chang suggests may have
been in the original text of the Shih-chi. The latter part of the quotation is a paraphrase
from the same chapter where "maids of Chao" [OMITTED], and "matrons of Chêng"
[OMITTED] also appear, the Shih-chi having [OMITTED], probably "singing girl", for the last
character. Cf. Introduction for a discussion of this quotation.
[OMITTED]. For ju [OMITTED] see p. 38, note 9. The Mihists [OMITTED], with whom the
ju are here grouped, were the transmitters of the doctrines of Mo-tzŭ [OMITTED] or
Mo Ti [OMITTED], a native of Lu, who lived in the Vth century B.C. He continued the
teachings of Confucius with certain variations, notably with less predilection for the
lessons of antiquity. He was opposed to music (holding it to be the origin of all the
corruption and immorality of his time), as well as to prolonged mourning. The extant
work associated with his name consists of 53 sections in 15 chapters, of which 10
sections (8—37) are held to emanate from the hand of the philosopher himself, and to
present his actual teaching. Mo-tzŭ, unlike Confucius, did not justify his doctrines upon
the authority of the ancient Sages, but upon logic. His fundamental principle was
"universal love" [OMITTED], to which the ills of the world would respond. The success
of Mo-tzŭ was largely due to his logical method of exposition, as exemplified in his
writings. From this grew the various schools of sophists, who flourished in the IVth
and IIIrd centuries particularly. Mencius was strongly opposed to the teachings of Mo-tzŭ,
referring to him especially in the passage (loc. cit. III, ii, ix, 9—10): "If the
principles of Yang and Mih are not stopped, and the principles of Confucius not set
forth, then those perverse speakings will delude the people, and stop up the path of
benevolence and righteousness" [Legge]. Elsewhere the Book of Mencius combats the
principles maintained by Mo-tzŭ. While the school of Mo-tzŭ failed to survive the
persecutions of the Ch'in empire, the dialectical methods developed by its adherents
became the common property of Chinese thought, and thus continued to persist. Mo Ti
and his school are treated at length by Forke in his Geschichte der alten chinesischen
Philosophie, 368—417, and by Maspero, La Chine Antique, 468—479, 529—541.
Translations of the extant Mo-tzŭ have been made by Forke, Mê Ti des Sozialethikers
und seiner Schüler philosophische Werke, and in part by Y. L. Mei, The Works of Mo-tze.
Hu Shih devotes Part III of The Development of the Logical Method in Ancient China
to "The Logic of Mo Tih and His School". It is of interest to note the mention of
representatives of this school as existing in Huan K'uan's time, in view of the belief
(cf. Maspero, loc. cit.) that it did not survive the Ch'in era. Its gradual extinction in
the Han era has been assigned especially to the opposition of the Mihist school to the
rites or ceremonial. The Han epoch of reconstruction above all demanded formal rules
for society. Thus the Mihists disappeared while the Legalists and Confucianists continued
to contribute to Chinese societal development. Cf. Duyvendak, "Études de Philosophie
chinoise", in Revue Philosophique, Nov.—Dec., 1930, pp. 372—417.
Cf. Lun-yü XIV, xxxiv [Soothill]. "Wei-shêng Mou addressing Confucius said:
Ch'iu, what are you doing with this perching here and perching there?"
Hung-ku [OMITTED], mentioned in Mencius VI, i, ix, 3; Hua-liu [OMITTED], the
name of one of the four fleet steeds of King Mu of Chou [OMITTED], driven by
Tsao-fu (cf. p. 67) [OMITTED]. Cf. Shih-chi, ch. V (Mém. hist. II, 5). The two allusions
might be rendered in terms of European mythology as "Cygnus and Bucephalus". The
Mu-t'ien-tzŭ-chuan [OMITTED], an account of the travels of King Mu, held to
be a composition of a late period (IIIrd cent. A.D.), names eight horses.
[OMITTED], spoken of by Mencius, VI, ii, xv. "Thrice minister without elation;
thrice he retired without regret" [OMITTED]
[OMITTED] (Shih-chi, ch. CXIX).
[OMITTED] [written [OMITTED] in the Shih-chi, LXVIII], where the army of Ch'in
defeated Lord Shang and slew him. Cf. ch. VII, supra.
| CHAPTER XVIII Discourses on salt and iron : | |