University of Virginia Library

Chapter XXV

SAFETY AND DANGER[1]

The means of safety have seven varieties; the ways to
danger, six.

Of the means of safety:—

The first is said to be "reward and punishment in
accordance with right and wrong".

The second is said to be "fortune and misfortune in
accordance with good and evil".

The third is said to be "life and death in accordance with
laws and institutions".

The fourth is said to be "discrimination between the
worthy and unworthy but not between the loved and the
hated".

The fifth is said to be "discrimination between the stupid
and the wise but not between the blamed and the praised".

The sixth is to "have feet and inches but let nobody
guess the ruler's mind".

The seventh is to "have good faith but no falsehood".

Of the ways to danger:—

The first is to "make cuts within the string".

The second is to "make breaks beyond the string".[2]

The third is to "profit by people's danger".

The fourth is to "rejoice in people's disaster".

The fifth is to "endanger people's safety".

The sixth is "not to keep intimate with the loved nor to
keep the hated at a distance".

In cases like the above-mentioned, people will lose the
reason to rejoice in life and forget the reason to take death
seriously. If people do not rejoice in life, the lord of men
will not be held in high esteem; if people do not take death
seriously, orders will not take effect.

Let All-under-Heaven devote their wisdom and talent to
the refinement of manners and looks and exert their strength
to the observance of yard and weight,[3] so that when you
move, you triumph, and, when you rest, you are safe.
When governing the world, make men rejoice in life in

doing good and make them love their bodies too much to
do evil. Then small men will decrease and superior men will
increase. Consequently, the Altar of the Spirits of Land and
Grain will stand for ever and the country will be safe for aye.
In a rushing carriage there is no need of Chung-ni; beneath
a wrecked ship there is no use of Po-i. So are commands
and orders the ship and carriage of the state. In time of
safety, intelligent and upright men[4] are born; in case of
danger, there arise disputants and rustics. Therefore,
keeping the state safe is like having food when hungry and
clothes when cold, not by will but by nature. The early
kings left principles of government on bamboo slips and
pieces of cloth. Their course of government being proper,
subsequent ages followed them. In the present age, to make
people discard clothes and food when they are hungry and
cold, even Mêng Pên and Hsia Yü[5] cannot execute such an
order. Whoever discards the way of nature, though his
course of government is proper, cannot hold well.
Wherever even strong and brave men cannot execute orders,
there the superiors cannot be safe. When the insatiable
superiors blame the exhausted inferiors, the latter will
always give "No more" as reply. When they give "No
more" as reply, they slight the law. The law is what the
state is governed by. If it is slighted, neither merit will be
rendered nor name will be made.

They say that, of old, Pien Ch`iao, when treating serious[6]
diseases, pierced through bones with knives. So does the
sage on rescuing the state out of danger offend the ruler's

ear with loyal words. After the bone has been pierced
through, the body suffers a little pain but the person secures
a permanent benefit. After the ear has been offended, the
mind feels somewhat thwarted but the state secures a
permanent advantage. Therefore, seriously ill persons gain
by enduring pains; stubborn-minded rulers have good luck
only through ear-offending words. If patients could endure
the pain, Pien Ch`iao could exert his skill. If the ruler's
ear could be offended, Tzŭ-hsü would not have ended in
failure. Thus, pain-enduring and ear-offending are means to
longevity and security. Naturally, when one was ill but
could not endure pain, he would miss Pien Ch`iao's skill;
when one is in danger but does not want to have his ear
offended, he will miss the sage's counsels. Were such the
case, no permanent benefit would continue nor would any
glorious fame last long.

If the lord of men does not cultivate himself with Yao as
example but requests every minister to imitate Tzŭ-hsü, he
is then doing the same as expecting the Yins to be as loyal
as Pi Kan. If everybody could be as loyal as Pi Kan, the
ruler would neither lose the throne nor ruin himself. As
the ruler does not weigh the ministers' powers despite the
existence of rapacious ministers like T`ien Ch`êng but
expects everybody to be as loyal as Pi Kan, the state can
never have a moment of safety.

If the example of Yao and Shun is set aside and that of
Chieh and Chow is followed instead, then the people can
neither rejoice in their own merits nor worry over their own
defects. If they lose their merits, the country will accomplish
nothing; if they stick to the defects, they will not rejoice
in life. If the authorities having accomplished nothing

attempt to rule the people not rejoicing in life, they will not
succeed in unifying the people. Should such be the case,
the superiors would have no way to employ the inferiors
while the inferiors would find no reason to serve the superiors.

Safety and danger rest with right and wrong but not with
strength and weakness. Existence and extinction depend
upon substantiality and superficiality, but not on big and
small numbers. For example, Ch`i was a state of ten thousand
chariots, but her name and her reality were not mutually
equivalent. The ruler had superficial powers inside the
state and paved no gap between name and reality. Therefore,
ministers could deprive the sovereign of the throne. Again,
Chieh[7] was the Son of Heaven but saw no distinction between
right and wrong, rewarded men of no merit, took slanderers
into service, respected hypocrites as noble, censured innocent
men, ordered men born humpbacked to have their backs
cut open, approved falsehood, and disapproved inborn
reason. In consequence,[8] a small country could vanquish
his big one.

The intelligent sovereign consolidates internal forces and
therefore encounters no external failure. Who fails within
his reach, is bound to fail at a distance. For instance, the
Chous on supplanting the Yins learned by the latter's
failures in the court. Should the Yins have made no mistake
in their court, even for an autumn down[9] the Chous would
not dare to hope from them. How much less would they
dare to shift their throne?

The Tao of the intelligent sovereign is true to the law,
and his law is true to the mind. Therefore, when standing
close by it, he acts on the law; when going away from it,
he thinks of it in the mind. Thus, Yao made no covenant
as binding as glue and varnish with his age, but his Tao
prevailed. Shun left no territory sufficient to set a gimlet
on with subsequent ages, but his Teh is bearing fruit. Who
can trace his Tao to remote antiquity and leave his Teh to the
myriad subsequent ages, is called "an enlightened sovereign".