“It did,” said the king, and Mencius replied, “The heart seen in this is sufficient to carry you to the Royal sway.  The people all supposed that your Majesty grudged the animal, but your servant knows surely that it was your Majesty’s not being able to bear the sight of the creature’s distress which made you do as you did.”

The king said, “You are right; and yet there really was an appearance of what the people imagined.  But though Ts’e be narrow and small, how should I grudge a bull?  Indeed it was because I could not bear its frightened appearance, as if it were an innocent person going to the place of death, that therefore I changed it for a sheep.”

Mencius said, “Let not your Majesty deem it strange that the people should think you grudged the animal.  When you changed a large one for a small, how should they know the true reason?  If you felt pained by its being led without any guilt to the place of death, what was there to choose between a bull and a sheep?” The king laughed and said, “What really was my mind in the matter?  I did not grudge the value of the bull, and yet I changed it for a sheep!  There was reason in the people’s saying that I grudged the creature.”

Mencius said, “There is no harm in their saying so.  It was an artifice of benevolence.  You saw the bull, and had not seen the sheep.  So is the superior man affected towards animals, that, having seen them alive, he cannot bear to see them die, and, having heard their dying cries, he cannot bear to eat their flesh.  On this account he keeps away from his stalls and kitchen.”

The king was pleased and said, “The Ode says,

  ’What other men have in their minds,
  I can measure by reflection,’

This might be spoken of you, my Master.  I indeed did the thing, but when I turned my thoughts inward and sought for it, I could not discover my own mind.  When you, Master, spoke those words, the movements of compassion began to work in my mind.  But how is it that this heart has in it what is equal to the attainment of the Royal sway?”

Mencius said, “Suppose a man were to make this statement to your Majesty, ’My strength is sufficient to lift three thousand catties, but is not sufficient to lift one feather; my eyesight is sharp enough to examine the point of an autumn hair, but I do not see a wagon-load of fagots,’ would your Majesty allow what he said?” “No,” was the king’s remark, and Mencius proceeded, “Now here is kindness sufficient to reach to animals, and yet no benefits are extended from it to the people—­how is this? is an exception to be made here?  The truth is, the feather’s not being lifted is because the strength was not used; the wagon-load of firewood’s not being seen is because the eyesight was not used; and the people’s not being loved and protected is because the kindness is not used.  Therefore your Majesty’s not attaining to the Royal sway is because you do not do it, and not because you are not able to do it.”