Wan Zhang II · Passage 08 / 09 · 孟子 5B.8

Mencius 5B.8: befriend the ancients by judging their

Mencius teaches that reading ancient texts means more than extracting quotations.

孟子謂萬章曰：「一鄉之善士，斯友一鄉之善士；一國之善士，斯友一國之善士；天下之善士，斯友天下之善士。以友天下之善士為未足，又尚論古之人。頌其詩，讀其書，不知其人，可乎？是以論其世也。是尚友也。」

mèng zǐ wèi wàn zhāng yuē：「yì xiāng zhī shàn shì， sī yǒu yì xiāng zhī shàn shì； yì guó zhī shàn shì， sī yǒu yì guó zhī shàn shì； tiān xià zhī shàn shì， sī yǒu tiān xià zhī shàn shì。 yǐ yǒu tiān xià zhī shàn shì wéi wèi zú， yòu shàng lùn gǔ zhī rén。 sòng qí shī， dú qí shū， bù zhī qí rén， kě hū？ shì yǐ lùn qí shì yě。 shì shàng yǒu yě。」

Mencius said to Wan Zhang, 'The scholar whose virtue is most distinguished in a village shall make friends of all the virtuous scholars in the village. The scholar whose virtue is most distinguished throughout a State shall make friends of all the virtuous scholars of that State. The scholar whose virtue is most distinguished throughout the kingdom shall make friends of all the virtuous scholars of the kingdom. When a scholar feels that his friendship with all the virtuous scholars of the kingdom is not sufficient to satisfy him, he proceeds to ascend to consider the men of antiquity. He repeats their poems, and reads their books, and as he does not know what they were as men, to ascertain this, he considers their history. This is to ascend and make friends of the men of antiquity.'

Priority note

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Central question

Why does Mencius say that to befriend the ancients we must also discuss the age in which they lived?

Direct answer

Because quotations without person and context do not amount to understanding. Mencius wants a relationship of real interpretation, in which text, author, and historical situation are read together.

First principle

Reading is not the extraction of isolated lines. Reliable understanding reconnects the text to the person, the age, and the problem it was answering.

Why it matters

This passage serves searches around befriending the ancients, contextual reading, and Mencius on how to read old books. It is a core textual anchor for the site's method page.

What this passage is doing

This is passage 8 of 9 in Wan Zhang II. The cleanest entry point is "The scholar whose virtue is most distinguished in…". In context, it works as part of Mencius's argument about recognizing worth, learning, and the relation between name and reality and can be read alongside Humane government / kingly way.

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