Majesty’s various officers are sufficient to supply you with all these things.  How can your Majesty have such a desire on account of them?” “No,” said the king, “my desire is not on account of them.”  Mencius observed, “Then what your Majesty greatly desires can be known.  You desire to enlarge your territories, to have Ts’in and Ts’oo coming to your court, to rule the Middle States, and to attract to you the barbarous tribes that surround them.  But to do what you do in order to seek for what you desire is like climbing a tree to seek for fish.”

“Is it so bad as that?” said the king.  “I apprehend it is worse,” was the reply.  “If you climb a tree to seek for fish, although you do not get the fish, you have no subsequent calamity.  But if you do what you do in order to seek for what you desire, doing it even with all your heart, you will assuredly afterwards meet with calamities.”  The king said, “May I hear what they will be?” Mencius replied, “If the people of Tsow were fighting with the people of Ts’oo, which of them does your Majesty think would conquer?” “The people of Ts’oo would conquer,” was the answer, and Mencius pursued, “So then, a small State cannot contend with a great, few cannot contend with many, nor can the weak contend with the strong.  The territory within the seas would embrace nine divisions, each of a thousand li square.  All Ts’e together is one of them.  If with one part you try to subdue the other eight, what is the difference between that and Tsow’s contending with Ts’oo?  With the desire which you have, you must turn back to the proper course for its attainment.

“Now, if your Majesty will institute a government whose action shall all be benevolent, this will cause all the officers in the kingdom to wish to stand in your Majesty’s court, the farmers all to wish to plough in your Majesty’s fields, the merchants, both travelling and stationary, all to wish to store their goods in your Majesty’s market-places, travellers and visitors all to wish to travel on your Majesty’s roads, and all under heaven who feel aggrieved by their rulers to wish to come and complain to your Majesty.  When they are so bent, who will be able to keep them back?”

The king said, “I am stupid and cannot advance to this.  But I wish you, my Master, to assist my intentions.  Teach me clearly, and although I am deficient in intelligence and vigor, I should like to try at least to institute such a government.”

Mencius replied, “They are only men of education, who, without a certain livelihood, are able to maintain a fixed heart.  As to the people, if they have not a certain livelihood, they will be found not to have a fixed heart.  And if they have not a fixed heart, there is nothing which they will not do in the way of self-abandonment, of moral deflection, of depravity, and of wild license.  When they have thus been involved in crime, to follow them up and punish them, is to entrap the people.  How can such a thing as entrapping the people be done under the rule of a benevolent man?”