Li Lou I · Passage 05 / 28 · 孟子 4A.5
Mencius 4A.5: the kingdom is rooted in family and self
Mencius traces political order all the way back to the self, arguing that kingdom, state, and family are not suspended in air.
孟子曰：「人有恒言，皆曰『天下國家』，天下之本在國，國之本在家，家之本在身。」
Mencius said, 'People have this common saying, "The kingdom, the State, the family." The root of the kingdom is in the State. The root of the State is in the family. The root of the family is in the person of its Head.'
Priority note
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Central question
Why does Mencius trace the kingdom, the state, and the family all the way back to the self?
Direct answer
Because for him politics is not held up first by slogans or outer structure, but by whether persons are inwardly ordered. When the self at the root is unstable, the family, the state, and the wider kingdom loosen above it.
First principle
The larger the order, the more it depends on the smallest real root. If the root is not established, the outer structure becomes a shell.
Why it matters
This passage strongly serves search intent around self-cultivation, family, statecraft, and the chain from person to kingdom in Mencius.
Further reading
What this passage is doing
This is passage 5 of 28 in Li Lou I. The cleanest entry point is "People have this common saying, "The kingdom, the…". In context, it works as part of Mencius's argument about self-examination, disorder, and keeping the way and can be read alongside Humane government / kingly way.
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Li Lou I often approaches disorder through self-examination and the standards for keeping the way.
Related principles
Citation note
Do not read it as reducing every public problem to private morality. Mencius is not cancelling institutions, but insisting that institutions still land on whether concrete persons can govern themselves.