“That the empire should have peace and prosperity depends upon the government of the constituting states.”  What does this mean?

When ruler and ministers treat their aged ones as they ought to, the inhabitants in general become filial.  Similarly, the inhabitants learn to show respect towards their seniors and sympathy towards the young when their superiors set them the right example in these matters.  No man should treat his inferiors as he would not like his superiors to treat him.  What he disapproves of in his inferiors, let him not exhibit in his dealings towards his superiors.

In the Book of Poetry it is written, “The parents of the people are much to be congratulated.  A sovereign whose loves and hates correspond with those of his people is his people’s father.”  To gain the people is to gain the state; therefore a ruler’s primary concern should be his own integrity, for thereby he wins his people’s loyalty, and through that loyalty he obtains the state, and therewith the wealth of the whole country.

Virtue is the root, wealth but the branches.  See first, therefore, to the root.

In the Records of Khu one reads, “The State of Khu values men, not gems nor robes.”

A country is wealthy if it consumes less than it produces, and that man is rich whose income exceeds his expenditure.

The virtuous ruler gathers wealth on account of the reputation it can bring him.  The wicked ruler seeks wealth for its own sake, sacrificing even virtue to obtain it.

A benevolent sovereign makes a just people.  When the people are just the affairs of the sovereign prosper.  The state’s prosperity consists in righteousness, not in riches.

CHUNG YUNG, OR DOCTRINE OF THE MEAN

INTRODUCTORY

The “Chung Yung” is more correctly rendered “The state of equilibrium and harmony” (Legge, etc.) than by “The Doctrine of the Mean,” its usual appellation.  Other titles suggested have been “The Just Mean,” “The True Mean,” “The Golden Mean,” and “The Constant Mean.”  The word “chung” means “middle,” “yung” denoting “course” or “way.”  Hence, “Chung Yung” means literally, “The middle way.”  Compare Aristotle’s doctrine of The Mean ("Ethics” Book II.).

This treatise occurs as Book 28 of the “Li-Ki” and by Chinese scholars has been declared to be the most valuable part of the Book of Rites.  We have here the fullest account existing of the philosophy and ethics of the master.  Apart from its value as such, the “Chung Yung” is exceedingly interesting as a monument of the teaching of the ancient Chinese.  In its existing form the “Chung Yung” is arranged in five divisions, containing, in all, thirty-three chapters.  No attempt is made in the epitomes that follow to retain these divisions and chapters.  For the authorship and date of this third book see what is said in the introduction to the “Ta-Hsio.”