e they have not
been transmitted to these after-ages; your servant has not heard of
them. If you will have me speak, let it be about the principles of
attaining to the Royal sway."

The king said, "Of what kind must his virtue be who can attain to the
Royal sway?" Mencius said, "If he loves and protects the people, it is
impossible to prevent him from attaining it."

The king said, "Is such an one as poor I competent to love and protect
the people?" "Yes," was the reply. "From what do you know that I am
competent to that?" "I have heard," said Mencius, "from Hoo Heih the
following incident:--'The king,' said he, 'was sitting aloft in the
hall, when some people appeared leading a bull past below it. The king
saw it, and asked where the bull was going, and being answered that
they were going to consecrate a bell with its blood, he said, "Let it
go, I cannot bear its frightened appearance--as if it were an innocent
person going to the place of death." They asked in reply whether, if
they did so, they should omit the consecration of the bell, but the
king said, "How can that be omitted? Change it for a sheep." "I do not
know whether this incident occurred."

"It did," said the king, and Mencius replied, "The heart seen in this
is sufficient to carry you to the Royal sway. The people all supposed
that your Majesty grudged the animal, but your servant knows surely
that it was your Majesty's not being able to bear the sight of the
creature's distress which made you do as you did."

The king said, "You are right; and yet there really was an appearance
of what the people imagined. But though Ts[']e be narrow and small,
how should I grudge a bull? Indeed it was because I could not bear its
frightened appearance, as if it were an innocent person going to the
place of death, that therefore I changed it for a sheep."

Mencius said, "Let not your Majesty deem it strange that the people
should think you grudged the animal. When you changed a large one for
a small, how should they know the true reason? If you felt pained by
its being led without any guilt to the place of death, what was there
to choose between a bull and a sheep?" The king laughed and said,
"What really was my mind in the matter? I did not grudge the value of
the bull, and yet I changed it for a sheep! There was reason in the
people's saying that I grudged the creature."

Mencius said, "There is no harm in their saying so. It was an artifice
of benevolence. You