Part 14 · 38 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.
Jin Xin II treats knowing words, knowing destiny, and the judgments proper to mature cultivation together.
Book-level hubs
孟子 7B.1
Because the benevolent take the real concern already present in intimate life and extend it outward. The non-benevolent do the reverse: the hardness with which they treat others comes back upon the very people they claim to love, until even the loved are ruined by it.
This passage serves searches around extending care, King Hui, and Mencius on how partial love must become wider humane order rather than remain a private contradiction.
孟子 7B.2
Because within the competitive structure of rival states, each side is still seeking power, and the claim of righteousness easily becomes self-packaging. Mencius allows relative superiority, but refuses to elevate that too quickly into full justice.
This passage serves searches around just war, Mencius, and the difference between relatively better and truly right. It is a foundational restraint on war rhetoric.
孟子 7B.3
Because once all interpretive judgment is surrendered, a text meant to illuminate reason becomes an authority that blocks reason. Mencius wants reverence for the classic without cancelling the responsibility to discriminate.
This passage serves searches around reading classics, textual authority, and Mencius on interpretation. It is a crucial anchor for the site's method, citation discipline, and AI-facing clarity.
孟子 7B.4
Because it shows that a person has made the capacity to seize and subdue into a central object of admiration. Mencius is correcting the hierarchy: when a ruler truly loves benevolence, the key to allegiance is not superior killing power but superior self-rectification and care for the people.
This passage serves searches around militarism, Mencius, and violence as admired skill. It is central to the intersection of war ethics and humane government.
孟子 7B.5
Because standards, methods, and tools are teachable, but genuine skill and judgment must be formed by the learner's own repeated practice.
This passage serves searches around learning, standards, skill, and the difference between teaching and mastery.
孟子 7B.6
Because Shun was not defined by outward condition. Poverty did not embitter him, and kingship did not intoxicate him. His inner order stayed settled through change.
This passage serves searches around Shun, poverty, kingship, steadiness, and how Mencius understands inner stability.
Why does Mencius say that the benevolent extend what they love to what they do not yet love, while the non-benevolent extend what they do not care for onto what they do love?
Source opening: Mencius said, 'The opposite indeed of benevolent was the king Hui of Liang!
Why does Mencius say that in the Spring and Autumn there are no righteous wars?
Source opening: Mencius said, 'In the "Spring and Autumn" there are no righteous wars.
Why does Mencius say that it would be better to be without the Book than to trust it completely?
Source opening: Mencius said, 'It would be better to be without the Book of History than to give entire credit to it.
Why does Mencius say that boasting of skill in formations and war is itself a great crime?
Source opening: Mencius said, 'There are men who say "I am skilful at marshalling troops, I am skilful at conducting a battle!
Why does Mencius say craftsmen can give rules to others but cannot make them skillful?
Source opening: Mencius said, 'A carpenter or a carriage-maker may give a man the circle and square, but cannot make him skilful in the use of them.'
Why does Mencius say Shun lived in poverty as if for life and in kingship as if it were natural?
Source opening: Mencius said, 'Shun's manner of eating his parched grain and herbs was as if he were to be doing so all his life.
Why does Mencius say that killing another person's father or brother nearly amounts to killing one's own?
Source opening: Mencius said, 'From this time forth I know the heavy consequences of killing a man's near relations.
Why does Mencius say that frontier gates once restrained violence but now commit it?
Source opening: Mencius said, 'Anciently, the establishment of the frontier-gates was to guard against violence. Nowadays, it is to exercise violence.'
Why does Mencius use wife and children to show the failure of not walking the Way oneself?
Source opening: Mencius said, 'If a man himself do not walk in the right path, it will not be walked in even by his wife and children.
Why does Mencius place being well supplied in gain beside being well supplied in virtue?
Source opening: Mencius said, 'A bad year cannot prove the cause of death to him whose stores of gain are large; an age of corruption cannot confound him whose equipment of virtue is complete.'
Why does Mencius say a person's truth is exposed by a bowl of rice or plate of soup?
Source opening: Mencius said, 'A man who loves fame may be able to decline a State of a thousand chariots;
Why does Mencius place trust in the worthy, ritual right, and political administration on one line?
Source opening: Mencius said, 'If men of virtue and ability be not confided in, a State will become empty and void.
Why does Mencius say that the inhumane may get a state, but have never truly got the world?
Source opening: Mencius said, 'There are instances of individuals without benevolence, who have got possession of a single State, but there has been no instance of the throne's being got by one wi…
Why does Mencius say that the people are most important and the ruler least?
Source opening: Mencius said, 'The people are the most important element in a nation;
Why does Mencius call the sage a teacher for a hundred generations?
Source opening: Mencius said, 'A sage is the teacher of a hundred generations - this is true of Bo Yi and Hui of Liu Xia.
Why does Mencius say that benevolence is what is human, and taken together this is the way?
Source opening: Mencius said, 'Benevolence is the distinguishing characteristic of man. As embodied in man's conduct, it is called the path of duty.'
Why did Confucius say he would leave Lu by and by, yet leave Qi at once?
Source opening: Mencius said, 'When Confucius was leaving Lu, he said, "I will set out by-and-by;
Why does Mencius say the superior man's distress between Chen and Cai came from no communication above and below?
Source opening: Mencius said, 'The reason why the superior man was reduced to straits between Chen and Cai was because neither the princes of the time nor their ministers sympathized or communicat…
Why does Mencius say scholars suffer from many hostile mouths, yet add that there is no real harm in it?
Source opening: Mo Qi said, 'Greatly am I from anything to depend upon from the mouths of men.
Why does Mencius stress that the worthy make others clear by means of their own clarity?
Source opening: Mencius said, 'Anciently, men of virtue and talents by means of their own enlightenment made others enlightened.
Why does Mencius compare the mind to the small paths among the hills?
Source opening: Mencius said to the disciple Gao, 'There are the footpaths along the hills;
Why does Mencius reject heavy wear as evidence that one thing is better than another?
Source opening: The disciple Gao said, 'The music of Yu was better than that of king Wen.
Why does Mencius refuse to ask again that the granary be opened during famine in Qi?
Source opening: When Qi was suffering from famine, Chen Zhen said to Mencius, 'The people are all thinking that you, Master, will again ask that the granary of Tang be opened for them.
Why does Mencius say that some things involve appointment but the superior person does not call them nature, while other things involve nature but he does not call them appointment?
Source opening: Mencius said, 'For the mouth to desire sweet tastes, the eye to desire beautiful colours, the ear to desire pleasant sounds, the nose to desire fragrant odours, and the four limbs…
Why does Mencius arrange goodness, reality, beauty, greatness, sagehood, and the spirit-like in a sequence?
Source opening: Hao Sheng Bu Hai asked, saying, 'What sort of man is Yue Zheng?
Why does Mencius say that those fleeing Mo first turn to Yang, and those fleeing Yang then return to the Ru?
Source opening: Mencius said, 'Those who are fleeing from the errors of Mo naturally turn to Yang, and those who are fleeing from the errors of Yang naturally turn to orthodoxy.
Why does Mencius insist that taxes in goods, grain, and labor must not all be pressed on the people together?
Source opening: Mencius said, 'There are the exactions of hempen-cloth and silk, of grain, and of personal service.
Why does Mencius say calamity follows a ruler who prizes pearls and jade?
Source opening: Mencius said, 'The precious things of a prince are three:
Why does Mencius say that a person with only a little talent and no great doctrine is fit mainly to get himself killed?
Source opening: Pen Cheng Kuo having obtained an official situation in Qi, Mencius said, 'He is a dead man, that Pen Cheng Kuo!
Why does Mencius keep the rule of not pursuing the past and not rejecting those who come, even under suspicion?
Source opening: When Mencius went to Teng, he was lodged in the Upper palace.
Why does Mencius say that benevolence and righteousness can be developed from what all people already cannot bear and will not do?
Source opening: Mencius said, 'All men have some things which they cannot bear;
Why does Mencius say that people neglect their own field and go to weed the fields of others?
Source opening: Mencius said, 'Words which are simple, while their meaning is far-reaching, are good words.
Why does Mencius describe Yao and Shun as being so by nature, and Tang and Wu as becoming so by returning to it?
Source opening: Mencius said, 'Yao and Shun were what they were by nature;
Why does Mencius say that those who counsel the great should 'despise' them and not look at their grandeur?
Source opening: Mencius said, 'Those who give counsel to the great should despise them, and not look at their pomp and display.
Why does Mencius say there is nothing better for nourishing the heart than making desires few?
Source opening: Mencius said, 'To nourish the mind there is nothing better than to make the desires few.
Why does Zengzi refuse sheep-dates while still eating minced and broiled meat?
Source opening: Mencius said, 'Zeng Xi was fond of sheep-dates, and his son, the philosopher Zeng, could not bear to eat sheep-dates.
Why does Mencius say the village worthy is not a small evil but a thief of virtue?
Source opening: Wan Zhang asked, saying, 'Confucius, when he was in Chen, said:
Why does Mencius keep counting the years between the sages in 7B.38?
Source opening: Mencius said, 'From Yao and Shun down to Tang were 500 years and more.