Mencius. Book VII: Tsin Sin. Part II. Chapter XXXIII.
Legge's summary: The perfect virtue of the highest sages, and how others follow after it.
1. Mencius said, 'Yâo and Shun were what they were by nature; T'ang and Wû were so by returning to natural virtue.
2. 'When all the movements, in the countenance and every turn of the body, are exactly what is proper, that shows the extreme degree of the complete virtue. Weeping for the dead should be from real sorrow, and not because of the living. The regular path of virtue is to be pursued without any bend, and from no view to emolument. The words should all be necessarily sincere, not with any desire to do what is right.
3. 'The superior man performs the law of right, and thereby waits simply for what has been appointed.'
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Translated by
James Legge, published in 1861 and revised for publication in 1895. Prepared as etext by Stephen R. McIntyre. Noded by
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