private life you will excite no ill-will. Chung Kung said: Though I am not quick in thought or act, I will make it my business to carry out this precept.
Ssǔ-ma Niu inquired as to the meaning of true goodness. The Master said: The truly good man is slow of speech.[1]—Slowness of speech! Is this what goodness consists in?—The Master said Does not the difficulty of deciding what it is right to do necessarily imply slowness to speak?
Ssǔ-ma Niu asked for a definition of the princely man. The Master said: The princely man is one who knows neither grief nor fear.—Absence of grief and fear! Is this the mark of a princely man?—The Master said: If on searching his heart he finds no guilt, why should he grieve? of what should he be afraid?
Tzǔ Chang asked how to attain exalted virtue.…The Master said: Make conscientiousness and truth your guiding principles, and thus pass on to the cultivation duty to your neighbour. This is exalted virtue.
- ↑ There seems to be a play on this word which cannot be brought out in translation.
questioner. In answering Yen Yüan, the model disciple, he had gone to the very root of the matter, making it clear that the essence of true goodness has little or nothing to do with externals. To Chung Kung, who was less advanced and doubtless somewhat lacking in grace or dignity of demeanour, he gives more superficial advice, but winds up by enunciating the Golden Rule, which is the best practical manner of manifesting inward goodness of heart.
