Jin Xin I · Passage 42 / 46 · 孟子 7A.42
Mencius 7A.42: with the Way and without it
Mencius states the order between person and principle with unusual force: when the world is ordered, principle can appear through one's life.
孟子曰：「天下有道，以道殉身；天下無道，以身殉道。未聞以道殉乎人者也。」
Mencius said, 'When right principles prevail throughout the kingdom, one's principles must appear along with one's person. When right principles disappear from the kingdom, one's person must vanish along with one's principles. I have not heard of one's principles being dependent for their manifestation on other men.'
Priority note
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Central question
Why does Mencius say that when the world lacks the way, one must let the person vanish with the way rather than sacrifice the way to other people?
Direct answer
Because disorder tempts people to preserve place, favor, or survival by bending principle. Mencius reverses that temptation: if the two cannot be kept together, the person must go before the principle does.
First principle
A principle is proved not when it adorns success, but when adversity reveals what one is willing to lose rather than falsify it.
Why it matters
This passage serves searches around integrity, survival, principle, and disorder, making it one of the site's strongest pages on moral limits.
Further reading
What this passage is doing
This is passage 42 of 46 in Jin Xin I. The cleanest entry point is "When right principles prevail throughout the kingdom, one's…". In context, it works as part of Mencius's argument about exhausting the heart, sincerity, and preserving the original heart and can be read alongside Humane government / kingly way.
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Jin Xin I centers on exhausting the heart, sincerity, and preserving the capacities already given in the human heart.
Related principles
Citation note
Do not read the line as praise of death for its own sake. Mencius is clarifying that when principle and expedient attachment finally collide, principle may not be reduced to a servant of power or relationship.