ning?"

Tsz-kung exclaimed, "Ah! sir, I regret to hear such words from you. A
gentleman!--But 'a team of four can ne'er o'ertake the tongue!'
Literary accomplishments are much the same as inborn qualities, and
inborn qualities as literary accomplishments. A tiger's or leopard's
skin without the hair might be a dog's or sheep's when so made bare."

Duke Ngai was consulting Yu Joh. Said he, "It is a year of dearth, and
there is an insufficiency for Ways and Means--what am I to do?"

"Why not apply the Tithing Statute?" said the minister.

"But two tithings would not be enough for my purposes," said the duke;
"what would be the good of applying the Statute?"

The minister replied, "So long as the people have enough left for
themselves, who of them will allow their prince to be without enough?
But--when the people have not enough, who will allow their prince all
that he wants?"

Tsz-chang was asking how the standard of virtue was to be raised, and
how to discern what was illusory or misleading. The Master's answer
was, "Give a foremost place to honesty and faithfulness, and tread the
path of righteousness, and you will raise the standard of virtue. As
to discerning what is illusory, here is an example of an
illusion:--Whom you love you wish to live; whom you hate you wish to
die. To have wished the same person to live and also to be dead--there
is an illusion for you."

Duke King of Ts[']i consulted Confucius about government. His answer
was, "Let a prince be a prince, and ministers be ministers; let
fathers be fathers, and sons be sons."

"Good!" exclaimed the duke; "truly if a prince fail to be a prince,
and ministers to be ministers, and if fathers be not fathers, and sons
not sons, then, even though I may have my allowance of grain, should I
ever be able to relish it?"

"The man to decide a cause with half a word," exclaimed the Master,
"is Tsz-lu!"

Tsz-lu never let a night pass between promise and performance.

"In hearing causes, I am like other men," said the Master. "The great
point is--to prevent litigation."

Tsz-chang having raised some question about government, the Master
said to him, "In the settlement of its principles be unwearied; in its
administration--see to that loyally."

"The man of wide research," said he, "who also restrains himself by
the Rules of Propriety, is not likely to transgress."

Again, "The noble-minded man makes the most of others' good qualities,
not the worst of their