THE GOOD MAN’S PATH

The sense of obligation has been implanted in man by Heaven.  The path of duty is a life in accordance with this heaven-implanted intuition.  Every man ought always to tread this path; the true doctrine teaches how this is to be accomplished.  The good man will ever be on his guard lest he depart a hair’s breadth from the right way.

The mental state of equilibrium is reached when a man is free from the distracting influences of anger and goodwill, joy and sorrow.  When these emotions exist in due proportion and extent the state of harmony is attained.  From the first proceed all great human enterprises.  The state of harmony is the path along which all good men will go.  When the states of equilibrium and harmony exist in their fulness gods and men receive their dues, and there is prosperity and happiness.

Kung-ni[8] said, “The virtuous man embodies in himself the states of equilibrium and harmony, but the low man knows neither of these states.”  This perfect condition of human character in which there is complete equilibrium and harmony is reached but by few.  Why is this so?  It is because those who are wise consider these ideal states too commonplace, and they aim at things which the world values more highly.  The low man, on the other hand, grovels in the dust and never rises to higher thoughts or nobler aims.  Men could, if they would, distinguish the worthy from the unworthy, just as with a healthy palate they can tell good food from bad.  But men’s moral discernment has been blunted by a life of sensuality and sin, just as the physical palate loses its power of tasting when in a diseased condition.

In order to find out the Mean, our Father Shun, of blessed memory, used to question the people[9] and study their answers, even the shallow ones.  He used to encourage them to speak out by seeming to value the poorest answers.  He would take the extremest sayings he heard, and from them deduce the Mean.

It is hard to keep in the middle way:  men rule kingdoms and accept honours and emoluments who have yet signally failed to govern themselves by the rules of the Mean.

The good man’s ambition is not to perform feats which startle the world and give him fame, but rather to live the life of the moderate and harmonious one; yet how often for lack of true discernment he fails!  This middle path is not, however, hidden from the sincere and pure; even common men and women may know it, though in its highest reaches it baffles the wisest.  The greatest and the wisest and the best find lodged within them unrealised ideals.  Whoever strenuously aims at realising these ideals, though he fails, is near the right path.

“The good man has four difficulties,” said the master, “and I have not myself been able to overcome them. (1) To serve my father as I should like my son to serve me. (2) To serve my ruler as I should like him to serve me were I his ruler. (3) To serve an elder brother as I should like him to serve me were he my younger brother. (4) To act towards a friend as I should like him to act towards me were our relations reversed."[10]