oyal
dignity.

"Your dogs and swine eat the food of men, and you do not know to store
up of the abundance. There are people dying from famine on the roads,
and you do not know to issue your stores for their relief. When men die,
you say, 'It is not owing to me; it is owing to the year,' In what does
this differ from stabbing a man and killing him, and then saying, 'It
was not I; it was the weapon'? Let your Majesty cease to lay the blame
on the year and instantly the people, all under the sky, will come to
you."

King Hwuy of Leang said, "I wish quietly to receive your instructions."
Mencius replied, "Is there any difference between killing a man with a
stick and with a sword?" "There is no difference," was the answer.

Mencius continued, "Is there any difference between doing it with a
sword and with governmental measures?" "There is not," was the answer
again.

Mencius then said, "In your stalls there are fat beasts; in your stables
there are fat horses. But your people have the look of hunger, and in
the fields there are those who have died of famine. This is leading on
beasts to devour men. Beasts devour one another, and men hate them for
doing so. When he who is called the parent of the people conducts his
government so as to be chargeable with leading on beasts to devour men,
where is that parental relation to the people? Chung-ne said, 'Was he
not without posterity who first made wooden images to bury with the
dead?' So he said, because that man made the semblances of men and used
them for that purpose; what shall be thought of him who causes his
people to die of hunger?"

King Hwuy of Leang said, "There was not in the kingdom a stronger State
than Ts'in, as you, venerable Sir, know. But since it descended to me,
on the east we were defeated by Ts'e, and then my eldest son perished;
on the west we lost seven hundred li of territory to Ts'in; and on the
south we have sustained disgrace at the hands of Ts'oo. I have brought
shame on my departed predecessors, and wish on their account to wipe it
away once for all. What course is to be pursued to accomplish this?"

Mencius replied, "With a territory only a hundred li square it has been
possible to obtain the Royal dignity. If your Majesty will indeed
dispense a benevolent government to the people, being sparing in the use
of punishments and fines, and making the taxes and levies of produce
light, so causing that the fields shall be ploughed deep, and the
weed