Part 08 · 33 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.
Li Lou II offers concrete judgments about seeing people, handling relationships, and the discipline of ritual.
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孟子 4B.1
Because he wants to deny that the Way is merely local custom or historical prejudice. A genuinely right order can be recognized across distance and time.
This passage helps justify translating Mencius into contemporary problems instead of locking him inside a single ancient context.
孟子 4B.2
Because carrying people across the river one by one is a genuine kindness, but government should build the bridge in time so that people no longer suffer the crossing at scale. Mencius is separating ad hoc help from structural settlement.
This passage strongly serves search intent around governance, systems thinking, and the difference between goodwill and public order in Mencius.
孟子 4B.3
Because political relation is not defined by the ruler alone. When a ruler treats ministers like hands and feet, they can answer with heart-level loyalty; when he treats them like dogs, horses, or dirt, he should not expect devotion in return.
This passage serves searches around loyalty, reciprocity, political legitimacy, and Mencius on ruler-minister relations.
孟子 4B.4
Because at that point the issue is no longer ordinary disagreement within a legitimate order. The order itself has crossed a foundational line. Remaining in place may then become a form of endorsement.
This passage serves searches around tyranny, withdrawal, complicity, and the moral limits of political loyalty.
孟子 4B.5
Because in political order the ruler is not merely one private individual among others. His orientation rapidly shapes institutions and collective behavior. If he is truly benevolent and righteous, the public direction is pulled accordingly.
This passage serves searches around leadership example, Mencius, and moral influence. It helps explain why he joins self-cultivation and government so tightly.
孟子 4B.6
Because naming does not create moral reality. When an act copies the shell of ritual or claims the title of righteousness while betraying their real measure, it is not worthy of the great person.
This passage sharpens the site's treatment of formalism, moral disguise, and why something that looks correct may still be false in substance.
Why does Mencius say that earlier and later sages share one standard?
Source opening: Mencius said, 'Shun was born in Zhu Feng, removed to Fu Xia, and died in Ming Tiao - a man near the wild tribes on the east.
Why does Mencius say Zi Chan was kind yet did not understand government?
Source opening: When Zi Chan was chief minister of the State of Zheng, he would convey people across the Zhen and Wei in his own carriage.
Why does Mencius frame ruler-minister relation as a reciprocal response of hands and feet, belly and heart, or robber and enemy?
Source opening: Mencius said to the king Xuan of Qi, 'When the prince regards his ministers as his hands and feet, his ministers regard their prince as their belly and heart;
Why does Mencius say that officials and scholars may leave when innocent scholars or people are killed?
Source opening: Mencius said, 'When scholars are put to death without any crime, the great officers may leave the country.
Why does Mencius say that if the ruler is benevolent, none will fail to become benevolent, and if he is righteous, none will fail to become righteous?
Source opening: Mencius said, 'If the sovereign be benevolent, all will be benevolent. If the sovereign be righteous, all will be righteous.'
Why does Mencius say that the great person will not perform ritual that is not really ritual or righteousness that is not really righteous?
Source opening: Mencius said, 'Acts of propriety which are not really proper, and acts of righteousness which are not really righteous, the great man does not do.'
Why does Mencius say that those who keep the mean should raise those who do not, and those with talent should raise those without talent?
Source opening: Mencius said, 'Those who keep the Mean, train up those who do not, and those who have abilities, train up those who have not, and hence men rejoice in having fathers and elder brot…
Why does Mencius say that a person must have things they will not do before they can really act?
Source opening: Mencius said, 'Men must be decided on what they will NOT do, and then they are able to act with vigour in what they ought to do.'
Why does Mencius ask, when speaking of what is not good in others, what of the future trouble that follows?
Source opening: Mencius said, 'What future misery have they and ought they to endure, who talk of what is not good in others!'
Why does Mencius summarize Confucius by saying he did not go to excess?
Source opening: Mencius said, 'Zhong Ni did not do extraordinary things.'
Why does Mencius say that the great person need not make every word absolutely literal or every action mechanically resolute, but only go where righteousness lies?
Source opening: Mencius said,'The great man does not think beforehand of his words that they may be sincere, nor of his actions that they may be resolute - he simply speaks and does what is right.
Why does Mencius define the great person as one who does not lose the child's heart?
Source opening: Mencius said, 'The great man is he who does not lose his child's-heart.'
Why does Mencius say that seeing parents to the end in death is what may count as the great thing?
Source opening: Mencius said, 'The nourishment of parents when living is not sufficient to be accounted the great thing.
Why does Mencius say that the superior person studies in order to get it within himself?
Source opening: Mencius said, 'The superior man makes his advances in what he is learning with deep earnestness and by the proper course, wishing to get hold of it as in himself.
Why does Mencius say that broad learning and detailed discussion should return to concise essentials?
Source opening: Mencius said, 'In learning extensively and discussing minutely what is learned, the object of the superior man is that he may be able to go back and set forth in brief what is esse…
Why does Mencius say that goodness must nourish people rather than merely subdue them?
Source opening: Mencius said, 'Never has he who would by his excellence subdue men been able to subdue them.
Why does Mencius say that the most inauspicious false words are those that hide worthy people?
Source opening: Mencius said, 'Words which are not true are inauspicious, and the words which are most truly obnoxious to the name of inauspicious, are those which throw into the shade men of tale…
Why does Mencius use spring water to describe the superior person's way?
Source opening: The disciple Xu said, 'Zhong Ni often praised water, saying, "0 water!
Why does Mencius say the difference between humans and animals is slight, yet treat it as decisive?
Source opening: Mencius said, 'That whereby man differs from the lower animals is but small.
Why does Mencius line up Yu, Tang, King Wen, King Wu, and the Duke of Zhou in one passage?
Source opening: Mencius said, 'Yu hated the pleasant wine, and loved good words.
Why does Mencius say that when the traces of kingly rule vanished and the royal odes ceased, then the Spring and Autumn arose?
Source opening: Mencius said, 'The traces of sovereign rule were extinguished, and the royal odes ceased to be made.
Why does Mencius say that the influence of the superior person is cut off after five generations?
Source opening: Mencius said, 'The influence of a sovereign sage terminates in the fifth generation.
Why does Mencius place taking, giving, and dying together in one passage of proportionate judgment?
Source opening: Mencius said, 'When it appears proper to take a thing, and afterwards not proper, to take it is contrary to moderation.
Why does Mencius say that Yi also bore blame when Pang Meng killed him?
Source opening: Pang Meng learned archery of Yi.
Why does Mencius set Xi Shi covered in filth beside a bad man who has fasted and bathed?
Source opening: Mencius said, 'If the lady Xi had been covered with a filthy head-dress, all people would have stopped their noses in passing her.
Why does Mencius say that all talk of nature must come down to what is naturally so, and compare true intelligence to Yu's handling of water?
Source opening: Mencius said, 'All who speak about the natures of things, have in fact only their phenomena to reason from, and the value of a phenomenon is in its being natural.
Why does Mencius still refuse to speak with the Master of the Right even when the latter feels slighted?
Source opening: The officer Gong Hang having on hand the funeral of one of his sons, the Master of the Right went to condole with him.
Why does Mencius say the noble person differs from others by what is kept in the heart?
Source opening: Mencius said, 'That whereby the superior man is distinguished from other men is what he preserves in his heart - namely, benevolence and propriety.
Why does Mencius say Yu, Ji, and Yan Hui follow one Way despite such different lives?
Source opening: Yu and Ji, in an age when the world was being brought back to order, thrice passed their doors without entering them.
Why does Mencius defend Kuang Zhang when the whole kingdom calls him unfilial?
Source opening: The disciple Gong Du said, 'Throughout the whole kingdom everybody pronounces Kuang Zhang unfilial.
Why does Mencius say Zengzi and Zisi follow one Way though one fled and the other stayed?
Source opening: When the philosopher Zeng dwelt in Wu Cheng, there came a band from Yue to plunder it.
Why does Mencius say that Yao and Shun were just the same as other men?
Source opening: The officer Chu said to Mencius, 'Master, the king sent persons to spy out whether you were really different from other men.
Why does Mencius tell the story of the man who begs among graves and then boasts at home?
Source opening: A man of Qi had a wife and a concubine, and lived together with them in his house.