Part 12 · 16 passages
This part page carries the argument map and stable citation routes; full source text, pinyin, and close bilingual reading live on the passage pages.
Gao Zi II connects nourishing the heart, judgment, and character formation into one path of cultivation.
Book-level hubs
孟子 6B.1
Because the apparent difficulty comes from comparing what is most weighty in one domain with what is least weighty in another. Once proportion is restored, the trick question collapses.
This passage serves searches around ritual versus survival, extreme cases, and Mencius on misleading comparisons, while also strengthening the site's methodological layer.
孟子 6B.2
Because he locates moral greatness not in bodily scale or social birth, but in whether a person will actually walk the path of filial and fraternal practice. The central obstacle is often not inability but refusal.
This passage directly serves search intent around whether everyone can become a sage and how Mencius grounds moral possibility in action.
孟子 6B.3
Because the same outward emotion changes its meaning with the relation involved. Harm from a stranger can be narrated lightly; harm from a close kin touches a different depth. Mencius is showing that grievance arising from nearness may display the seriousness of love rather than baseness.
This passage serves searches around the Xiao Bian, grievance, and Mencius on emotional judgment. It clarifies how he reads feeling through relational structure rather than surface tone alone.
孟子 6B.4
Because if rulers, ministers, fathers, and brothers all learn to speak first in terms of advantage, then even a temporary peace leaves the logic of contention untouched.
This passage serves searches around war, peace, profit, and why Mencius extends the righteousness-versus-profit distinction into interstate politics.
孟子 6B.5
Because the key issue is not rank but whether the gift is borne by corresponding respect. If a person could have come in person but only sends goods, the thing outruns the will and the offering is incomplete.
This passage serves searches around offerings, intention, and respect in Mencius, while deepening the site's account of rite and positional order.
孟子 6B.6
Because the right way to judge them is not by surface similarity of action but by what they place first. One refuses a bad ruler, one serves repeatedly, one accepts a small office; the forms differ, but if benevolence is the deepest priority, the final direction is one.
This passage serves searches around Bo Yi, Yi Yin, Liu Xia Hui, and Mencius on integrity across different paths. It helps explain principled diversity without relativism.
Why does Mencius say that answering whether ritual or food is more important is not difficult if one grasps the root?
Source opening: A man of Ren asked the disciple Wu Lu, saying, 'Is an observance of the rules of propriety in regard to eating, or eating merely, the more important?
Why does Mencius say that all people can become Yao and Shun?
Source opening: Jiao of Cao asked Mencius, saying, 'It is said, "All men may be Yaos and Shuns;
Why does Mencius deny that the resentment in the Xiao Bian is the resentment of a petty man?
Source opening: Gong Sun Chou asked about an opinion of the scholar Gao, saying, 'Gao observed, "The Xiao Pan is the ode of a little man.
Why is Mencius unsatisfied with stopping war by telling Qin and Chu that fighting is unprofitable?
Source opening: Song Keng being about to go to Chu, Mencius met him in Shi Qiu.
Why does Mencius accept both gifts, yet visit Ji Ren and not Chu Zi?
Source opening: When Mencius was residing in Zou, the younger brother of the chief of Ren, who was guardian of Ren at the time, paid his respects to him by a present of silks, which Mencius receiv…
Why does Mencius say that Bo Yi, Yi Yin, and Liu Xia Hui followed different paths but converged in benevolence?
Source opening: Chun Yu Kun said, 'He who makes fame and meritorious services his first objects, acts with a regard to others.
Why does Mencius call the five hegemonic lords sinners against the three kings?
Source opening: Mencius said, 'The five chiefs of the princes were sinners against the three kings.
Why does Mencius say that using the people without teaching them amounts to injuring them?
Source opening: The prince of Lu wanted to make the minister Shen commander of his army.
Why does Mencius say that those who merely enrich the ruler and strengthen his armies can count as destroyers of the people rather than good ministers?
Source opening: Mencius said, 'Those who now-a-days serve their sovereigns say, "We can for our sovereign enlarge the limits of the cultivated ground, and fill his treasuries and arsenals.
Why does Mencius reject the proposal of taking only one-twentieth as obviously good policy?
Source opening: Bai Gui said, 'I want to take a twentieth of the produce only as the tax.
Why does Mencius say that Bai Gui's method of making neighboring states the ditch does not count as real flood control?
Source opening: Bai Gui said, 'My management of the waters is superior to that of Yu.
Why does Mencius ask, if the superior person lacks brightness, what can he hold fast to?
Source opening: Mencius said, 'If a scholar have not faith, how shall he take a firm hold of things?'
Why does Mencius say that loving the good is enough to govern?
Source opening: The prince of Lu wanting to commit the administration of his government to the disciple Yue Zheng, Mencius said, 'When I heard of it, I was so glad that I could not sleep.
Why does Mencius divide both entering and leaving office into three cases?
Source opening: The disciple Chen said, 'What were the principles on which superior men of old took office?
Why does Mencius say that life comes from adversity and death from ease?
Source opening: Mencius said, 'Shun rose from among the channelled fields.
Why does Mencius say that even a refusal to teach in the ordinary way can still be teaching?
Source opening: Mencius said, 'There are many arts in teaching. I refuse, as inconsistent with my character, to teach a man, but I am only thereby still teaching him.'