1. Comparing Different Views[3]
If the sovereign does not compare what he sees and
hears, he will never get at the real. If his hearing has any
particular passage to come through at all, he will be deluded
by ministers. The saying is based on the clown's dream of
a cooking stove and on Duke Ai's saying that his mind
became bewildered because of no advisory council. For
further illustration, the man of Ch`i claimed to have seen
the Earl of the River, Hui Tzŭ remarked that the ruler
had lost half the brains in the country. Its contrary is
instanced by the starvation of Shu Sun by Shu Niu and
the interpretation of Ching's customary law by Chiang Yi.
Duke Ssŭ wanted political order, but, not knowing any
special kind of statecraft, merely made the ministers hostile
to one another. For the same reason, the intelligent
sovereign would infer the need of guarding against rapacious
ministers from the reason for piling iron bars on the walls
of the room as measures against stray arrows, and judge
the existence of an impending calamity in the market-place
from the allegation of facts by three men.
