Name and Mind: A Study of Xunzi's "Rectification of Names"

This article was translated from the original Chinese by AI. Nuances may differ from the source.

1 Where the Rectification of Names Begins

1.1 A Chain Left by the Master

1.1.1 If Names Are Not Rectified, Speech Does Not Flow

To read the Rectification of Names (Zhengming), one must first return to that exchange in the "Zilu" chapter of the Analects. Zilu asked: the lord of Wei is waiting for the Master to govern his state—what would the Master do first$1 The Master answered: "It would certainly be to rectify names!" Zilu objected on the spot: "Is that so$2 How roundabout you are! What is there to rectify$3" The Master then spoke that famous chain: "If names are not rectified, speech does not flow; if speech does not flow, affairs are not accomplished; if affairs are not accomplished, ritual and music do not flourish; if ritual and music do not flourish, punishments do not hit their mark; if punishments do not hit their mark, the people have nowhere to put hand or foot. Hence when the noble person names something, it must be sayable; when he says something, it must be doable."

This chain begins with name, passes through speech, affairs, ritual and music, and punishment, and finally arrives at the people. It is a downward deduction: name is the uppermost thing, the people are the lowest, and every link in between depends on the one above it. Zilu found this roundabout because he could see only the downstream affairs of government, not how the upstream name determines what lies downstream.

The third section of Master Xun's Rectification of Names is a compressed version of this same chain: "When the true king institutes names, once names are fixed, actualities are distinguished; once the Way is carried out, intentions are communicated; then he may lead the people with care and unify them." Fixing names, distinguishing actualities, carrying out the Way, communicating intentions, leading the people to unity—this still runs from name down to the people. And the second half of that same section is the reverse version of the chain: "Now that the sage kings are gone, the guarding of names has grown slack, strange expressions have arisen, names and actualities have fallen into disorder, and the shape of right and wrong is no longer clear; then even officials who uphold the law and scholars who recite the statutes will all fall into disorder." The guarding of names growing slack is the loosening of the upstream; strange expressions arising and names and actualities falling into disorder is the corruption of the midstream; the shape of right and wrong no longer being clear is ritual, music, and punishment losing their footing; officials who uphold the law and scholars who recite the statutes falling into disorder—this is precisely "the people having nowhere to put hand or foot."

So the Rectification of Names is not a treatise on the study of names that appeared out of nowhere—it is the detailed unfolding of the Master's saying, "It would certainly be to rectify names!" The Master gave only the chain; Master Xun takes apart every link in it: how names are fixed, how actualities are distinguished, and why, once names fall into disorder, even officials and scholars fall into disorder along with them.

1.1.2 Roundabout or Not

Zilu's objection deserves to be taken seriously, because it represents a piece of common sense: what matters in governing a state is troops, food, taxation, and punishment—what urgency is there in rectifying names$4 Master Xun's answer to this doubt is hidden in a very weighty statement: "One who analyzes words and arbitrarily fabricates names, thereby throwing the rectification of names into disorder, causing the people to be confused and given to much contentious argument, is called a great villain. His crime is on a par with the crime of forging tallies and tampering with weights and measures."

Tallies are tokens of trust; weights and measures are scales and measures of volume. To privately forge a tally is to counterfeit the court's warrant of good faith; to privately alter weights and measures is to tamper with the scales of the whole realm. Master Xun places the arbitrary fabrication of names under the very same charge as these two crimes, and the meaning is plain: a name is not a plaything in a scholar's study—a name is the infrastructure by which the entire community exchanges information and judges right from wrong. A person may not understand the study of names, just as a person may not understand the craft of casting scales, yet every day when he buys rice he must use a scale. Once someone has tampered with the scale, he will suffer loss without even knowing it. Names are the same.

Only from this can one understand what Master Xun says next: "Then among his people none will dare to fabricate strange expressions in order to throw the rectification of names into disorder, and so his people will be sincere; being sincere, they are easy to direct; being easy to direct, government becomes impartial." Que (悫) means sincere and unadorned. When names are not in disorder, people need not scheme against one another in speech, and their minds stay sincere; being sincere, they are easily guided; being easily guided, decrees become impartial and unobstructed. "Unified in the Way and its statutes, and careful in following orders"—"when traces are extended and achievements completed, this is governance at its utmost." Master Xun calls this "the achievement of carefully guarding the conventions of names." To guard the conventions of names is to guard the agreements underlying them. This is in no way at odds with the affairs of government that concerned Zilu—rather, it is the precondition on which the operation of government depends.

1.1.3 Name and Ritual

The opening of the Rectification of Names says: "designations for ritual pattern follow ritual propriety." Designations for pattern are the names for the forms and observances of ritual. This one line reveals something: for Master Xun, name and ritual propriety (li) are never two separate matters.

The "Yong Ye" chapter of the Analects records a sigh of the Master's: "A gu-vessel that is not a gu—is this a gu$5 Is this a gu$6" The gu was a ridged wine vessel. The vessel had lost its ridges, yet was still called gu. The name remained; the actuality did not. The Master's sigh was not a complaint about crude workmanship in vessel-making—it was a sigh for the collapse of ritual propriety, because ritual propriety is precisely constituted by countless such strict correspondences between name and actuality. In the "Yan Yuan" chapter of the Analects, when Duke Jing of Qi asked about government, the Master answered, "Let the ruler be a ruler, the minister a minister, the father a father, the son a son"—this is the most direct political meaning of rectifying names: the ruler must be like a ruler, the minister like a minister, name and actuality matching. The fourth section of Master Xun's Rectification of Names says the function of instituting names is "above, to make clear the noble and the base; below, to distinguish the same from the different." "Making clear the noble and the base" is simply another way of stating "let the ruler be a ruler, the minister a minister."

Only by understanding this level can one see why Master Xun titled an essay discussing naming, the senses, disputation, and desire "Rectification of Names," rather than "Name and Actuality" or "Disputation." Rectifying names is the work of ritual propriety; it is the work of governance. Name and ritual propriety share a single root, and that root is letting every actuality under Heaven obtain its proper name and rest secure in its proper station.

1.2 The Completed Names of the Later Kings

1.2.1 Names for Punishments Follow the Shang, Names for Noble Rank Follow the Zhou, Designations for Pattern Follow Ritual Propriety

The very first sentence of the Rectification of Names is: "The completed names of the later kings: names for punishments follow the Shang, names for noble rank follow the Zhou, designations for pattern follow ritual propriety." This sentence is often read in haste, yet it contains a stance of great importance.

Names were not created all at once by a single sage on a single day. The names for punishments carry over from the Shang dynasty, the names for noble rank carry over from the Zhou dynasty, and the designations for ritual pattern carry over from the ritual canons. Names are a historical inheritance accumulated in layers, and what the later kings "completed" is a system built up by the superposition of several generations. This agrees entirely with what the Master says in the "Wei Zheng" chapter of the Analects: "The Yin followed the ritual propriety of the Xia; what it added and subtracted can be known. The Zhou followed the ritual propriety of the Yin; what it added and subtracted can be known." Ritual propriety is formed through inheritance, addition, and subtraction, and so it is with names.

This is why Master Xun says in the third section: "Should a true king arise, he would certainly follow the old names in some cases, and create new names in others." To follow the old names is to honor history; to create new names is to respond to the present. Neither statement says "discard the old names and make names anew." Master Xun does not hold that a sage king may take a blank sheet and start entirely from scratch. This agrees with his consistent thought of "taking the later kings as the model": the later kings are the "resplendent," visible sage kings of recent times, whose names can be followed and whose traces can be examined; whereas the distant former kings' names and traces can no longer be detailed, and only their broad outlines can be grasped.

From this sentence, too, one can see Master Xun's attitude toward names: names are matters of convention, but convention is not arbitrary. It has a history, an origin. A person cannot, simply because a name is conventional, revise the convention as he pleases. Revising the convention is the business of the true king, and even the true king can only create anew on the foundation of following what came before.

1.2.2 Dispersed Names and the Established Customs of the Xia States

"As for the dispersed names applied to the myriad things, they follow the established customs and fine agreements of the various Xia states; in places of distant lands with different customs, one relies on these to achieve mutual comprehension." Dispersed names are the scattered, ordinary names applied to the myriad things—what is called an ox, what is called a horse, what is called sweet, what is called bitter. Where do these names come from$7 From "the established customs and fine agreements of the various Xia states." Established custom is custom already formed; fine agreement is agreement worked out in careful detail. That is to say, ordinary nouns are made up of habits long formed among the central states and agreements worked out in fine detail.

And in distant lands of different custom, where the names differ, what then$8 "One relies on these to achieve mutual comprehension." To rely on is to follow along with; to comprehend is to reach mutual understanding. Distant peoples have their own names, the peoples of the central states have theirs; there is no need to force uniformity—one need only find the correspondences, so that translation between them becomes possible.

This sentence shows an extraordinary sense of proportion. It acknowledges that names are local—people of different places may have different names for the same actuality—while at the same time affirming that names can be mutually translated, because the actuality to which a name points is one and the same. The locality of names does not obstruct the interconnection of the realm. The "Doctrine of the Mean" (Zhongyong) in the Book of Rites says, "Now under Heaven, carriages share the same gauge of axle, writing shares the same script, and conduct shares the same norms"—sharing the same script speaks of the unification of writing, while what Master Xun speaks of is names being mutually intelligible. The two point in the same direction: one is unification by institution, the other is comprehension through understanding.

1.2.3 The Sage Kings Gone, the Guarding of Names Grown Slack

Master Xun wrote the Rectification of Names out of a real circumstance he faced. The middle of the third section is a diagnosis: "Now that the sage kings are gone, the guarding of names has grown slack, strange expressions have arisen, names and actualities have fallen into disorder, and the shape of right and wrong is no longer clear." Once the guarding of names has grown slack, strange expressions arise; once strange expressions arise, names and actualities fall into disorder; once names and actualities fall into disorder, right and wrong can no longer be told apart.

Master Xun was not alone among the pre-Qin thinkers in making this diagnosis. Master Meng (Mencius) says in the "Teng Wen Gong II" chapter: "Sage kings no longer arise, the feudal lords indulge themselves without restraint, and men of standing but no office debate wildly." Master Zhuang (Zhuangzi) says in the "Tianxia" chapter: "The realm is in great disorder, the worthy and the sage are no longer manifest, the Way and its power are no longer one, and most under Heaven seize upon one aspect of it to please themselves"—"the arts of the Way are about to be torn apart by the realm." The three of them are looking at the same disease: the center has been lost, and every school of speech clings to its own single point, no longer able to communicate with the others.

But Master Xun goes a step further than the other two in locating the seat of the disease in names themselves. What he says about "even officials who uphold the law and scholars who recite the statutes will all fall into disorder" deserves particular attention. Officials uphold the law, scholars recite the statutes—these ought to be the very people least likely to fall into disorder. But the law is written in names, and the statutes are recorded in names. Once names fall into disorder, law and statute lose their bearings along with them. Those who uphold the law will uphold it wrongly; those who recite the statutes will recite them wrongly. This is why one cannot merely treat the symptoms without rectifying the names.

1.3 Who This Essay Was Written For

1.3.1 Three Matters That Must Not Go Unexamined

The final line of the third section is the outline for the whole essay: "This being so, why there are names, what one relies on to determine sameness and difference, and what the essential pivots for instituting names are—these must not go unexamined." Three matters: why there ought to be names; on what basis sameness and difference are distinguished; where the pivotal points of instituting names lie.

These three matters were written for "should a true king arise." Master Xun is not explaining the nature of language to scholars—he is explaining to a future true king where he ought to begin when the time comes to rectify names. This is why the Rectification of Names is written in a practical mode. Every section of theory in it circles back, in the end, to "then one is able to prohibit strange expressions," back to how strange expressions are to be prohibited, how the people are to be made sincere and easy to direct.

Once this is understood, one will neither read the Rectification of Names as a purely logical treatise and complain that its logic is insufficiently rigorous, nor read it as a purely political tract and overlook its fine-grained analysis of language, perception, and mind. It is a fusion of the two: the analysis of names placed in the service of the governance of the realm.

1.3.2 The Beginning of Kingly Enterprise

The eleventh section says: "Agreement, designation, disputation, and explanation are the great pattern of use, and the beginning of kingly enterprise." This statement raises the standing of names to an extraordinary height. Where does kingly enterprise begin$9 It begins with agreement, designation, disputation, and explanation—that is, with agreeing on names, assigning names, clarifying, and debating.

This claim can be corroborated by the "Great Treatise" (Xici zhuan) of the Book of Changes (Zhouyi): "The sages had the means to perceive the complexity of all under Heaven, and modeled it on forms and appearances, imaging what was fitting for each thing—hence these are called images." The sages saw the complexity of the realm and, for its sake, modeled forms and appearances and imaged what was fitting for each thing; this is the image. The image is the precursor of the name: it gathers the manifold actualities into a single symbol that can be pointed to and identified. The "Great Treatise" also says: "What it calls by name is small, but what it takes in kind is great." Calling something by name looks like a small matter, but taking it in kind is a great one. A name gathers a whole kind of actuality into one place; a name is the gateway to a kind. When a king governs the realm, the first task is to let every actuality under Heaven return to its proper kind—this is "the beginning of kingly enterprise."

1.3.3 How to Read This Essay

The Rectification of Names has twenty sections: the first thirteen discuss names, the last seven discuss desire and mind. First-time readers often feel that the second half turns abruptly, as though Master Xun had stitched two separate essays together. What this study aims to demonstrate is that this is no patchwork—it is a single essay's two breaths. The first half establishes names; the second half puts names to use. The first half fixes names such as "nature, emotion, deliberation, artifice, mind"; the second half uses these very names to discuss where order and disorder lie. And the single hinge running through both halves is one character: mind (xin, 心).

The first half says, "the mind has verifying cognition," "the mind is the artisan-steward of the Way." The second half says, "order and disorder lie in what the mind approves," "when the mind is calm and content, colors that fall short of the ordinary can still nourish the eye." Names are verified through the mind; desires are judged through the mind; things are put to service through the mind. This mind is the axis of everything Master Xun discusses.

The chapters that follow will proceed step by step along this thread. Chapter Two first examines the structure and foreshadowing of the whole essay; Chapters Three through Five examine the convention of names, the boundary of names, and mind and the Heavenly Faculties; Chapters Six and Seven examine disputation; Chapters Eight through Ten examine mind, desire, balance, and things. The thread running through the whole essay will, in the final chapter, return to that opening character: ji (稽, to examine, to verify).

2 The Structure and Foreshadowing of the Whole Essay

2.1 Names Established First, Then Put to Use

2.1.1 The Ten Names of the Second Section

The second section of the Rectification of Names fixes ten names in a single breath: nature, emotion, deliberation, artifice, business, conduct, knowledge, ability, illness, and fate. Read straight through, it looks like a glossary—dry and dense—and many readers skim past it, retaining only "the distinction between nature and artifice." But to read it merely as a glossary is to miss Master Xun's intent.

Consider first the arrangement of these ten names. Nature (xing) is "that by which what is born is as it is"—the innate ground. Emotion (qing) is "the liking, disliking, joy, anger, sorrow, and delight of nature"—the manifestation of nature. Deliberation (lü) is "the mind making a choice regarding the emotions once they have arisen"—the mind's selection among the emotions. Artifice (wei) is "the mind deliberating and the capacity acting on it"—the human artifice put into action after the selection is made. Business (shi) is "acting to secure benefit"; conduct (xing) is "acting to secure righteousness"—these are two orientations of artifice. Knowledge (zhi, the faculty) is "that by which one is able to know, residing in the person"; wisdom (zhi, the achievement) is "knowledge that has found its match with the actuality." Ability (neng, the faculty) is "that by which one is able to act, residing in the person"; ability (in its second sense, the achievement) is "capacity that has found its match." These are the person's cognition and talent, and the state in which they match the actuality. Illness (bing) is "injury to one's nature"; fate (ming) is "the encounters allotted to one."

This sequence is not arranged at random. It proceeds from innate nature, through emotion, deliberation, and artifice, onward to business and conduct, then supplements this with knowledge and ability—the person's two endowments—and finally closes with illness and fate. It is a path running from Heaven to man, from inner to outer. And the turning point in the middle of this path is "the mind making a choice." Nature and emotion are given by Heaven; deliberation and artifice are done by the mind. The mind is the boundary line between Heaven and man.

2.1.2 The Three Statements of the Fifteenth Section

Look at the opening of the fifteenth section: "Nature is what Heaven brings to completion; emotion is the substance of nature; desire is the response of emotion."

These three statements are the direct application of the glossary in the second section. Nature is what Heaven brings to completion—this corresponds to "that by which what is born is as it is, is called nature." Emotion is the substance of nature—this corresponds to "the liking, disliking, joy, anger, sorrow, and delight of nature are called emotion." Desire is the response of emotion—this attaches "desire," left unstated in the second section, beneath emotion. What the second section calls "the mind making a choice regarding the emotions once they have arisen is called deliberation" becomes, by the fourteenth section, "that desire need not wait upon the possibility of attainment is what is received from Heaven; that the seeking follows what is approved is what is received from the mind"—again, the same boundary line between Heaven and mind.

That is to say, Master Xun sharpens his tools in the second section, and only takes them up for use in the fourteenth and fifteenth sections. In between lie more than ten sections discussing names and disputation, during which the tools sit unused. But they are not idle, because the sections discussing names are themselves a demonstration: once a name is fixed, it must be strictly held to. The second section fixes nature, emotion, deliberation, and artifice, and the text that follows speaks strictly according to these definitions, without a single word out of place. This very consistency is itself "the rectification of names."

2.1.3 An Essay's Self-Demonstration

So the Rectification of Names has a hidden structure: it is an essay about rectifying names, and at the same time an actual operation of rectifying names. It first "institutes names," then "uses names," and in between tells the reader the principles of instituting names and the rules of using them. The essay as a whole is a demonstration of "once names are fixed, actualities are distinguished; once the Way is carried out, intentions are communicated."

This point can be compared with Master Xun's other chapters. The "Human Nature Is Bad" (Xing E) chapter discusses the distinction between nature and artifice, and it too uses definitions such as "that which cannot be learned and cannot be achieved through effort, yet resides in the person, is called nature; that which can be learned so as to become capable, and achieved through effort so as to be completed, residing in the person, is called artifice." But "Human Nature Is Bad" defines first and argues afterward—the definitions serve the argument. The Rectification of Names is different. Its definitions are themselves part of the argument, because what it sets out to prove is precisely this: once a name is fixed, the actuality is thereby distinguished, and the Way thereby carried out. It proves its own thesis through its own manner of writing.

2.2 The Promise and Fulfillment of Three Matters

2.2.1 The Promise of the Third Section

The end of the third section lists three matters that "must not go unexamined": why there are names, what one relies on to determine sameness and difference, and the essential pivots for instituting names. This is a promise. Master Xun says these three matters must be examined, and what follows examines them one by one.

The fourth section, from its opening—"different forms leave the minds of those who name them to communicate with one another"—to its closing—"this is why there are names"—delivers on the first matter: why there ought to be names. The fifth section, from its opening—"On what, then, does one rely to determine sameness and difference$10 One relies on the Heavenly Faculties"—to its closing—"this is what one relies on to determine sameness and difference"—delivers on the second matter: on what basis sameness and difference are distinguished. The sixth, seventh, and eighth sections discuss the method of naming, general names and particular names, and convention becoming custom; the ninth section discusses same form in different places, different forms in the same place, transformation and singular actuality, and closes by saying "this is the essential pivot for instituting names"—delivering on the third matter: the pivotal points of instituting names.

Three promises, three fulfillments, each section closing with a "this is... " statement serving as a receipt of delivery. This tight correspondence shows that Master Xun had a very clear awareness of the structure of his essay.

2.2.2 The Three Measuring Rods of the Tenth Section

The tenth section is the part of the whole essay that reads most like formal logic. It lists three kinds of "delusion": using names to throw names into disorder, using actualities to throw names into disorder, and using names to throw actualities into disorder. But what is truly fine about this section is not the classification of the three delusions—it is the line that follows each delusion: "test it by... and one is then able to prohibit it."

The first delusion is tested "by why there are names." The second is tested "by there being nothing to rely on for sameness and difference." The third is tested "by the conventions of names." These three measuring rods are exactly the three matters promised in the third section and delivered in sections four through nine. "Why there are names" is section four; "what one relies on for sameness and difference" is section five; "the conventions of names" are the core of sections six through nine. Here Master Xun does something quite elegant: he takes the three principles established earlier and turns them around into three measuring rods with which to gauge three kinds of heterodox claims.

Using names to throw names into disorder—for example, the claim "being insulted is not disgraceful"—forcibly stuffs two different actualities into a single name. To test it, one asks: what are names for$11 Names are for "pointing to actualities," for "making clear the noble and the base, distinguishing the same from the different." To mix different actualities under a single name violates the very purpose of having names. Using actualities to throw names into disorder—for example, the claim "the emotions desire little"—takes some special actuality and uses it to alter the ordinary meaning of a name. To test it, one asks: on what basis is sameness and difference distinguished$12 On the basis of the Heavenly Faculties. What the Heavenly Faculties perceive is the same for everyone; whether people's desires are many or few can be tested at once by "relying on the Heavenly Faculties." Using names to throw actualities into disorder—for example, the claim "there being ox-and-horse is not the same as there being a horse"—takes the combining and separating of names and uses it to deny the existence of an actuality. To test it, one asks: how was the name conventionally agreed upon$13 Since it has been agreed that "ox-and-horse" is a combined name for both ox and horse, one cannot then use this combined name to deny the horse.

The structure of the tenth section shines a light back over the whole span from the third section to the ninth. This is not repetition—it is the transformation of principle into method.

2.2.3 The Foreshadowing of "The Emotions Desire Little"

Among the three delusions listed in the tenth section, one deserves particular attention: "the emotions desire little." It is classified under "delusion arising from using actualities to throw names into disorder," and the method of testing it is "test it by there being nothing to rely on for sameness and difference, and observe which position is in harmony with the facts."

But here Master Xun only names the claim, without refuting it in detail. Where is the detailed refutation$14 In the fourteenth section: "In every case where one discusses governance while waiting for people to have few desires, this is to be without means of moderating desire, and to be troubled by having too many desires oneself." "Whether desires are many or few is a matter of different categories, a quantity belonging to the emotions—it has nothing to do with order or disorder." This is the direct response to "the emotions desire little."

And the manner of this response is exactly the manner foretold in the tenth section. The tenth section said one must "test it by there being nothing to rely on for sameness and difference"—that is, one must look at whether the Heavenly Faculties' perceptions truly bear this out. The fourteenth section then says, "that men desire life is extreme indeed, that men hate death is extreme indeed"—this is the actual condition of the Heavenly Faculties, verifiable by everyone. The fifteenth section further says, "even a gatekeeper cannot be rid of desire—it is a fixture of his nature; even the Son of Heaven cannot exhaust his desires." From the gatekeeper to the Son of Heaven, desire can neither be removed nor exhausted—this is precisely the judgment of sameness and difference reached by "relying on the Heavenly Faculties."

So between the tenth section and the fourteenth section lie three sections discussing disputation, yet the former is the foreshadowing and the latter is its answering echo. Master Xun buries the three words "the emotions desire little" in the tenth section, and only digs them up again in the fourteenth. The first half and the second half of the whole essay are stitched tightly together by this thread.

2.3 The Character Ji (稽), from Beginning to End

2.3.1 "Verifying Actuality and Fixing Its Number" in the Ninth Section

The end of the ninth section says: "This is how one verifies actuality and fixes its number. This is the essential pivot for instituting names." To verify (ji, 稽) is to check and examine; to fix the number is to determine the count. The pivot of instituting names finally comes to rest on "verifying actuality and fixing its number": whether a name can be checked against the actuality it points to, whether one can count clearly whether it points to one actuality or two.

This character ji is the key to the whole essay. Everything Master Xun says about names points toward one thing: a name must be capable of being checked against actuality. Names have no fixed appropriateness, but once agreed upon they must be checkable; names have general and particular forms, but the general and the particular must be checkable against each other; same form in different places is two actualities, different forms in the same place is one actuality—both distinctions exist so that checking is possible.

2.3.2 "Words Without Verification" in the Twentieth Section

Now look at the very last line of the whole essay: "Words without verification, conduct that has not been seen, and plans that have not been heard of—the noble person is cautious about these." Words without verification are words that cannot be checked. Conduct that has not been seen is conduct no one has witnessed. Plans that have not been heard of are plans no one has heard reported. What the three share in common is this: there is no actuality against which they can be checked.

This is not a maxim tacked on at random at the end. It is the reversal of "verifying actuality" from the ninth section, used to close the whole essay. Earlier it was said that a name must be able to verify actuality; here it is said that words which cannot verify actuality are ones about which the noble person must be cautious. To be cautious is not to reject outright, but not to believe readily, not to use readily. If a statement cannot be checked, the noble person does not take it as the basis for a thesis.

This is of a piece with the Master's own attitude. The "Zilu" chapter of the Analects says: "Regarding what he does not know, the noble person leaves it, as it were, blank." What one does not know, one leaves blank, rather than forcing it in. The "Wei Zheng" chapter of the Analects says: "Hear much, set aside what is doubtful, and speak cautiously of the rest—then one will have few faults; see much, set aside what is dangerous, and act cautiously in the rest—then one will have few regrets." Hear much, leave the doubtful blank, speak cautiously of the rest; see much, leave the dangerous blank, act cautiously in the rest. To "leave blank" is precisely to "be cautious." The "Doctrine of the Mean" in the Book of Rites puts it even more directly: "Without verification, it is not believed; not being believed, the people will not follow." Without evidence that can be verified, it will not be believed; not being believed, the people will not follow it. To verify (zheng, 徵) is ji.

2.3.3 One Character Threading the Whole Essay

And so the beginning and end of the whole essay lock together. The opening discusses the completed names of the later kings, discusses where names come from; the middle discusses how names verify actuality; the ending discusses how words without verification are not to be believed lightly. The discussions in between, concerning desire, mind, balance, and things, are likewise a practice of "verification": taking people's actual desires to test the claim of "desiring little," taking people's actual feelings to test the harm of "the self enslaved to things." Master Xun does not speak in the abstract—every one of his judgments must come to rest on a verifiable actuality.

The threefold structure discussed in this chapter can be summed up in a single sentence: the Rectification of Names begins with name and ends with verification, and in between it uses the very names it has fixed to test the very claims it means to refute. It is an essay written with great deliberateness, and its deliberateness lies not in cleverness of phrasing but in the rigor of its structure. To read it, one must read the twenty sections as a single whole, not as twenty scattered sayings.

3 Names Have No Fixed Appropriateness, and Names Have a Fixed Goodness

3.1 Names Arise from Convention

3.1.1 What Convention Establishes as Custom Is Called Appropriate

The eighth section is the most concentrated statement in the whole essay on the nature of names: "Names have no fixed appropriateness; they are agreed upon in order to designate; once the convention is settled and has become custom, it is called appropriate; what differs from the convention is called inappropriate. Names have no fixed actuality; they are agreed upon in order to designate an actuality; once the convention is settled and has become custom, it is called the name for that actuality. Names do have a fixed goodness: what is direct and easy and does not go against the ear or the mind is called a good name."

The first two statements say the same thing: between name and actuality there is no natural, fixed correspondence. Why is this animal called ox rather than horse$15 There is no reason—it is simply convention. Once agreed upon, and once everyone uses it this way and it becomes habitual, it is "appropriate," it is fitting; what differs from the convention is "inappropriate." The relationship between name and actuality is agreed upon by people; it is not innate.

Stated plainly, this sounds unremarkable, yet in the pre-Qin period it was a bold stance. It means that a name in itself carries no sacredness whatsoever. A name is a tool, and the goodness of a tool lies in how smoothly it can be used, not in any mysterious origin it might have. Master Xun's use of the word "convention" (yue) to describe names follows the same line of thought as his use of the word "artifice" (wei) to describe ritual propriety: ritual propriety is instituted by the sages, names are agreed upon by the multitude, and both are human artifice, not something sent down from Heaven.

3.1.2 Things Are So Because They Are Called So

Master Zhuang says something almost identical in the "Discourse on Making All Things Equal" (Qiwulun): "The Way comes to be by being walked; a thing comes to be so by being called so. Why is it so$16 It is so because it is affirmed as so. Why is it not so$17 It is not so because it is denied as so." A road is walked into being by people; a thing is called into being by people. Why is it so$18 Because everyone says it is so. Why is it not so$19 Because everyone says it is not so.

"A thing comes to be so by being called so" and "what convention establishes as custom is called appropriate" are two expressions of a single insight. Master Zhuang saw the conventionality of names, and so did Master Xun. Neither man believed that names fall from the sky; both held that names are imposed by people upon things. On this level, Confucianism and Daoism have no disagreement about the nature of names.

But starting from this shared premise, the two men move in opposite directions.

3.1.3 Equalizing Right and Wrong versus Unifying the People

What Master Zhuang derives from "a thing comes to be so by being called so" is this: since names are what people call things, then each side's sense of right and wrong is likewise what people call it—"this too is one 'right,' one 'wrong'; that too is one 'right,' one 'wrong'"—and therefore one need not cling stubbornly to any single side's names and judgments of right and wrong. One should "harmonize them with the Heavenly Equalizer," "rest in the Heavenly Wheel," letting the various positions each settle into its own place without overriding one another. For Master Zhuang, the conventionality of names becomes a reason to dissolve names. Since names are conventional, one need not take them too seriously.

What Master Xun derives from "what convention establishes as custom is called appropriate" is the opposite: since names are conventional, the convention must have someone to guard it; the guardian of the convention is the true king—"when the true king institutes names, once names are fixed, actualities are distinguished"—and whoever destroys the convention is a "great villain," "his crime on a par with the crime of forging tallies and tampering with weights and measures." For Master Xun, the conventionality of names becomes a reason to take firm hold of names. Since names are conventional, one must all the more earnestly guard the convention, because nothing else stands behind it to back it up.

This is a most interesting fork in the road. Both men equally acknowledge that names are of human making, yet one says "therefore there is no need to cling to them," and the other says "therefore they must be strictly guarded." The difference lies not in their understanding of names but in what they expect of people. Master Zhuang expects a person to be able to look past names toward the Way; Master Xun expects a person to be able to rely on names in order to carry out the Way. Master Zhuang, seeing the relativity of names, counsels people to let go; Master Xun, seeing the same relativity, counsels people to hold firm.

These two attitudes need not be incompatible. In disputation, a person needs Master Xun's strict guarding; in solitude, a person needs Master Zhuang's letting go. Master Xun himself, in the "Dispelling Obscuration" (Jie Bi) chapter, also speaks of "emptiness, unity, and stillness," saying that the mind must be able to become empty in order to accommodate new knowledge—which has something in common with Master Zhuang's "fasting of the mind." It is only that the Rectification of Names, being written for the true king, speaks solely of strict guarding, and not of letting go.

3.2 Names Have a Fixed Goodness

3.2.1 The Asymmetry Between Appropriateness and Goodness

There is a subtlety in the eighth section that is often overlooked: the first two statements say "names have no fixed appropriateness" and "names have no fixed actuality," while the third statement says "names have a fixed goodness." Appropriateness has nothing fixed; actuality has nothing fixed; but goodness does have something fixed.

This asymmetry is deliberate. Master Xun does not hold that names are entirely arbitrary. The correspondence between name and actuality is a matter of convention, but among the many possible conventions, some are good and some are not. The standard of goodness is "direct and easy, not going against the ear or mind": straightforward, easy, not awkward. A name that people understand the instant it is spoken, that does not conflict with other names in use, that requires no laborious explanation—that is a good name. Conversely, a name that is roundabout, easily confused, and awkward in use is not a good name.

That is to say, the conventionality of names does not amount to the arbitrariness of names. Conventions have their better and worse forms, and the standard for better or worse does not come from convention itself but from the function of names: names exist in order to "point to actualities" and "make intentions understood," and a name that points to actuality and makes intentions understood smoothly is a good name.

3.2.2 Goodness Within Artifice

This layer of meaning follows the same line of reasoning as Master Xun's account of nature and artifice. The "Human Nature Is Bad" chapter says: "Ritual propriety and righteousness are what the sages have produced." Ritual propriety and righteousness are instituted by the sages—they are artifice, not nature. But Master Xun never argues that, because ritual propriety and righteousness are artifice, they may therefore be instituted arbitrarily. On the contrary, ritual propriety and righteousness have extremely strict rational grounds; the "Discourse on Ritual" (Li Lun) chapter says that ritual propriety "above serves Heaven, below serves Earth, honors one's ancestors, and exalts one's ruler and teachers"—every clause and pattern of ritual has its own rationale.

So it is with names. Names are artifice, something that "comes to completion only after deliberation has accumulated and capacity has been practiced." But within artifice there is good and not-good, just as ritual propriety has its gains and its losses. With the statement "names have a fixed goodness," Master Xun pulls names back one step from pure convention: a conventional name is still subject to judgment as good or not good. The basis of this judgment is whether the name can smoothly accomplish its function.

From this one can see a basic pattern in Master Xun's thought: what is of human making does not, simply by being of human making, lose its standard. The standard resides within human artifice itself, not outside it. Heaven does not supply the standard, but in the course of doing, people discover which way of doing is smoother, more communicative, less contrary. This is goodness.

3.2.3 Direct and Easy, Not Going Against

The phrase "direct and easy, not going against" is also worth pausing over. Direct (jing) means straightforward; easy (yi) means unforced; not going against (bu fu) means not contrary. These three words describe the relationship between name and mind. A good name is one the mind understands the moment it hears it, one the mind can use without getting tangled. The goodness of a name is, in the end, judged by the mind.

This carries the question of names over to the mind. The eleventh section says, "the mind is the artisan-steward of the Way"; the fifth section says, "the mind has verifying cognition." Names must be received, used, and judged by the mind. Whether a name is direct and easy and does not go against is not something the name itself can determine—it is something the mind feels in the course of using it. In discussing names, Master Xun never once departs from the mind.

3.3 The Boundaries of Convention

3.3.1 Who Does the Agreeing

Since names are conventional, a question arises: who has the standing to make the convention$20 The third section gives a clear answer: "the true king institutes names." Not just anyone may institute names. Yet the true king does not institute names out of nothing either—he must "follow the old names, and create new ones," adding onto the foundation of an already-established convention.

What, then, is the place of the ordinary person$21 To guard the convention. "Among his people none will dare to fabricate strange expressions in order to throw the rectification of names into disorder." The people do not institute names, but the people guard names. This is not suppression—it is a division of labor. A name is a public scale; the scale is calibrated by the court, and used by the common people. If every commoner were free to privately alter the scale, the scale would lose its meaning.

This division of labor echoes the Master's saying, "when the noble person names something, it must be sayable; when he says something, it must be doable." The noble person, in naming, must make the name something that can be said through to its conclusion, something that can be carried out. Naming is a responsibility, not a right. The true king's power to institute names derives from the responsibility he bears for the name's coherence and its being carried into practice.

3.3.2 Convention Is Not Arbitrary

A conventional name is still subject to "verification against actuality." This is the first boundary of convention: a name may be agreed upon, but once agreed upon it must be checkable against actuality. If a convention cannot be verified—for example, the claim "mountain and abyss are level"—one might, from some extreme point of view, call a mountain and an abyss level, but checked against the Heavenly Faculties, the mountain is high and the abyss is low, visible to everyone; such a convention is invalid.

The second boundary of convention is that it must not conflict with existing conventions. The sixth section says, "when a particular name and a combined name do not obstruct one another, they may be used together." If a particular name and a combined name do not interfere with each other, they can share use. Conversely, if a new name conflicts with an old one, causing people "confusion," causing people "much contentious argument," this new name is a "strange expression," and ought to be prohibited.

The third boundary of convention is goodness. Among possible conventions, one takes what is direct and easy and does not go against. Master Xun does not give a full procedure for selecting good names, but he does give a standard. Where there is a standard, there is no arbitrariness.

3.3.3 A Comparison with the Most High (Laozi)

The Most High says: "The Way that can be spoken of is not the constant Way; the name that can be named is not the constant name." A Way that can be put into words is not the constant Way; a name that can be given is not the constant name. The Most High's attitude toward names is even more cautious than Master Zhuang's. He does not say that names can be set aside—he says that names simply cannot reach the Way at all.

Master Xun does not deny this. The whole of the Rectification of Names discusses how "names" point to "actualities"; nowhere does it say that names can point to the "Way." The eleventh section says, "the mind accords with the Way, explanation accords with the mind, and statements accord with explanation"—the Way stands above the mind, and names stand below statements. Between name and Way lie three intervening layers: statement, explanation, and mind. What a name can do is let each actuality return to its proper place; the Way is what the mind accords with, not what a name points to.

So there is no fundamental conflict between Master Xun and the Most High on the relationship between name and Way. The Most High says names cannot reach the Way, and Master Xun never asks names to reach the Way either. The difference between the two is this: because the Most High held that names cannot reach the Way, he said very little about names; Master Xun, though he too knew that names cannot reach the Way, still had to make names clear, because governing the realm requires names. This is the distinction between the sage and the true king, the distinction between the Daoist retreat and the Confucian advance—not a distinction between right and wrong.

4 The Two Boundaries of Naming

4.1 General Names and Particular Names

4.1.1 Extending and Combining Until There Is Nothing Left to Combine

The seventh section discusses the hierarchy of names: "Though the myriad things are many, there are times when one wishes to refer to them all at once, and so they are called 'things' (wu); 'thing' is the great general name. Extend it and combine it further, and combination will always yield further combination, until one reaches the point where there is nothing left to combine, and there it stops. There are times when one wishes to refer to them comprehensively yet by kind, and so they are called 'birds and beasts.' 'Birds and beasts' is the great particular name. Extend it and divide it further, and division will always yield further division, until one reaches the point where there is nothing left to divide, and there it stops."

This passage traces out a tree. Moving upward is "combining": gathering many different things under a single name. Ox and horse combine as "beast"; beast and bird combine as "birds and beasts"; birds and beasts, together with grasses and trees, combine as "living things"; and finally everything combines as "thing" (wu). "Thing" is the greatest general name—beyond it there is nothing left to combine, and "there it stops."

Moving downward is "dividing": separating out what lies under a single name. "Thing" divides into the living and the non-living; the living divides into animal and plant; animal divides into bird and beast; beast divides into ox and horse; ox further divides into yellow ox and black ox; black ox further divides into this one and that one, until division can go no further, and "there it stops."

This tree has two endpoints. The upper endpoint is "thing"; the lower endpoint is "a single actuality"—the very thing described in the ninth section as "having transformation but no division." A name operates somewhere between these two endpoints.

4.1.2 The Particular, the Combined, and the General

The sixth section discusses the concrete operation of naming: "If a single term suffices to make the meaning clear, use a single term; if a single term does not suffice, use a combined term. If a particular name and a combined name do not obstruct one another, they may be used together; even used together, there is no harm in it."

If one word can make the meaning clear, use one word—for example, "horse." If one word cannot make it clear, use two words—for example, "white horse." If a particular name and a combined name do not interfere with each other, they can be used side by side; "horse" and "white horse" can both exist at once without harm.

These lines look like they are discussing economy of word choice, but in fact they are discussing how names at different levels of the same tree can coexist. "Horse" is a general name, "white horse" is a particular name, and the two do not conflict, because a white horse is, to begin with, a kind of horse. Master Xun does not name names here, but he is plainly addressing claims of the "a white horse is not a horse" variety. He does not argue with them—he simply states calmly: a particular name and a combined name do not obstruct one another, and using them together does no harm. That a white horse is a horse is a matter of convention, and within the convention there is no conflict, so there is no need to manufacture one.

"To know that different actualities have different names, so that different actualities never fail to have different names—this must not be thrown into disorder—just as one must make sure that identical actualities never fail to share the same name." Different actualities take different names; identical actualities take the same name—this is the whole of the rule. The rule is extremely simple; what is difficult is holding to it.

4.1.3 The Meaning of the Tree

The significance of this tree is that it places the myriad things within an order that can be traversed from top to bottom and from bottom to top. Any actuality can find its place on this tree: which general name it belongs to, which particular name it is, what lies above it, what lies below it. The fourth section says the function of instituting names is "above, to make clear the noble and the base; below, to distinguish the same from the different"—this tree is the map of sameness and difference.

The "Great Treatise" of the Book of Changes says: "Things gather according to their tendencies; creatures divide into their groups." Gathering by tendency and dividing into groups is precisely combining and dividing. It also says: "Draw it out and extend it, touch upon a category and expand it, and the capable work of the realm is complete." To touch upon a category and expand it is to move along this tree, upward and downward. What Master Xun calls "extending it and combining it further" and "extending it and dividing it further" is the very same thing as the "Great Treatise's" "drawing it out and extending it" and "touching upon a category and expanding it."

4.2 Two Points Where Things "Stop"

4.2.1 "Thing" Is the Apex of Names

"Until one reaches the point where there is nothing left to combine, and there it stops"—this word "stops" matters. Names are extended upward, and when extended to "thing," they stop. Why stop$22 Because there is nothing further up that can be combined with anything else. "Thing" already includes everything that can be named.

But there is a question here: what of the Way$23 The Way is not a thing. Does the Way stand above "thing," or outside it entirely$24 Master Xun does not place the Way on this tree. In the eleventh section he says, "the Way is the guiding principle of governance," and "the mind accords with the Way"—the Way is what the mind accords with, not what a name points to. The tree of names stops at "thing"; the Way is not on the tree.

This arrangement is not an oversight—it is a matter of proportion. What a name can point to is an actuality that has form and shape, something that can be perceived by the Heavenly Faculties. The Way has no form or shape; the Heavenly Faculties cannot perceive it, and so a name cannot point to it. Names stop at "thing," and in this stopping, the boundary of names is being acknowledged.

4.2.2 The Most High's "Knowing When to Stop"

Chapter 32 of the Daodejing by the Most High (Laozi) says: "Once institutions began, there were names; once names existed, one must know when to stop; knowing when to stop, one can avoid danger." Once institutions began, names came into being; once names existed, one had to know when to stop; knowing when to stop, one could be free of danger.

Read alongside Master Xun's "there it stops, once there is nothing left to combine," this line yields an unexpected resonance. The Most High says names must know when to stop; Master Xun says names, extended, stop at "thing." The Most High's "stopping" is a caution against names: once a name exists, a person is easily carried along by it, going further and further, forgetting that beyond names there is the Way—hence one must know when to stop. Master Xun's "stopping" is a definition of names: names, extended to their greatest general name, come to an end, and beyond that point names cannot reach.

The two "stoppings" draw the very same line—one speaks of it from the vantage of the Way, the other from the vantage of names. The Most High stands on that side of the line and says the names on this side must not cross over; Master Xun stands on this side of the line and says names stop right here. It is one and the same line.

Chapter 1 of the Daodejing also says: "The nameless is the beginning of Heaven and Earth; the named is the mother of the myriad things." The nameless is the beginning of Heaven and Earth; the named is the mother of the myriad things. The myriad things are differentiated through being named, while Heaven and Earth remain within namelessness. This corresponds exactly with Master Xun's "'thing' is the great general name": "thing" is the apex of what can be named, and above "thing" lies the nameless. Master Xun's "thing" is precisely the highest point that the Most High's "named" can reach.

4.2.3 A Single Actuality Is the Base Point of Names

Downward, the "stopping" is "until one reaches the point where there is nothing left to divide, and there it stops." Names divide downward, and when divided down to a single, indivisible actuality, they stop. Why stop$25 Because there is nothing further down that can be divided from anything else. This particular black ox is this particular black ox; it cannot be further divided into two things.

There is a matter of proportion here as well. Names can divide downward as far as a single actuality, but no further. Attempts to draw further distinctions within a single actuality—claims of the kind "today's me is not yesterday's me"—are addressed by Master Xun in the ninth section through the concept of "transformation": "When the state changes but the actuality has undergone no division, and yet it is treated as different, this is called transformation. Where there is transformation but no division, this is called a single actuality." The state has changed, but the actuality has not—this is called transformation; where there has been change but no division, it remains a single actuality. The base point of names is a single actuality, and transformation cannot turn a single actuality into two.

So the tree of names has two boundaries, upper and lower. The upper limit is "thing"; above "thing" is the Way, which names cannot reach. The lower limit is a single actuality; within a single actuality is transformation, which names no longer divide. Between these two boundaries, names can freely extend, combining and dividing. These two boundaries are not defects of names—they are the proper measure of names. A name knows what it can do and what it cannot.

4.3 The Chain from the Way to Names

4.3.1 The Mind Accords with the Way, Explanation Accords with the Mind, Statements Accord with Explanation

The eleventh section has a line that strings together the Way, the mind, explanation, and statement: "The mind accords with the Way, explanation accords with the mind, statements accord with explanation."

This is a downward chain. At the very top is the Way; the mind must accord with the Way. Then comes explanation; explanation must accord with the mind. Then comes statement; statement must accord with explanation. Below statement there is still name, because "a statement is what combines the names of different actualities in order to discuss a single meaning"—a statement is composed of names. So the full chain is: Way, mind, explanation, statement, name.

Name is the terminus of this chain, the furthest-reaching manifestation of the Way. The Way itself has no name, but for the Way to move through the realm, it must pass through mind, explanation, and statement, and finally come to rest in name. A name is the footprint the Way leaves as it walks through the realm. The footprint is not the foot, but without the footprint, no one could know which way the foot has gone.

This chain can also be read in reverse. Tracing back from name: names form statements, statements form explanations, explanations issue from the mind, the mind accords with the Way. The eleventh section continues: "Rectifying names in order to agree upon them, making the substance clear in order to convey it, distinguishing differences without overstepping, extending categories without contradiction." Rectifying names is the starting point; extending categories is the endpoint. Starting from name and pushing all the way through, one can arrive at the Way. So although name is the terminus, it is also the entry point.

4.3.2 What Is Above Form Is Called the Way; What Is Below Form Is Called an Instrument

The "Great Treatise" of the Book of Changes says: "What is above form is called the Way; what is below form is called an instrument (qi)." The Way stands above form; the instrument stands below form. Which side does a name belong to$26 What a name points to is an actuality, and an actuality has form; a name is established following the actuality. So a name belongs on the side of the instrument.

Master Xun's chain corresponds exactly to this division. The Way stands at the very top, above form; name stands at the very bottom, below form. The mind, explanation, and statement in between are the steps of the stair descending from what is above form to what is below form. The mind is closest to the Way—"the mind accords with the Way"; name is furthest from the Way—a name merely points to an actuality.

But the "Great Treatise" does not disdain the instrument simply because it lies below form. It continues: "To transform it and cut it to shape is called change; to extend it and carry it out is called penetration; to take it up and set it in place for all the people of the realm is called an enterprise." For the Way to be transformed, cut to shape, extended, carried out, and set in place throughout the realm, culminating in an enterprise, none of this can dispense with the instrument. In the same way, Master Xun does not disdain name simply because it is the terminus of the chain. He says, "agreement, designation, disputation, and explanation are the great pattern of use, and the beginning of kingly enterprise." Name is the beginning of kingly enterprise. For the Way to move through the realm, it must come to rest in name.

4.3.3 The Proportion Between Name and the Way

Drawing together the meaning of this chapter, one can say: Master Xun has a very clear positioning for names. Names are conventional, not innate; names point to actualities, not to the Way; names have an upper limit and a lower limit, the upper limit being "thing" and the lower limit being "a single actuality"; name stands at the terminus of the chain running Way, mind, explanation, statement, name—it is the Way's furthest-reaching manifestation, and also the entry point leading toward the Way.

This positioning is not, as is commonly assumed, opposed to the views of the Most High and Master Zhuang. The Most High says a nameable name is not the constant name, yet Master Xun never asks a name to point to the Way either. Master Zhuang says a thing comes to be so by being called so, yet Master Xun likewise acknowledges that names have no fixed appropriateness. The difference among the three lies not in their understanding of names, but in how they use names: the Daoists, because names are limited, use names sparingly; Master Xun, because names are limited, all the more insists on using names where they can be used, and using them well.

This, too, is a consistent distinction between Confucianism and Daoism. Seeing the limit, Daoism stops short of it; seeing the limit, Confucianism exerts itself fully within it. Both are a form of respect for the limit—only the manner of respecting it differs.

5 The Heavenly Faculties and the Mind

5.1 Relying on the Heavenly Faculties

5.1.1 Same Kind, Same Sensation

The fifth section answers "on what basis is sameness and difference determined" with just three words: "one relies on the Heavenly Faculties." On what basis is sameness and difference distinguished$1 On the basis of the innate senses.

The reasoning is: "In every case, those of the same kind and the same sensation have Heavenly Faculties that register things in the same way. Hence, by comparing what resembles and what is doubtful, one arrives at mutual understanding, and this is the very basis on which people can share a conventional name in order to meet one another's expectations." People of the same kind have the same senses, and their senses register things in the same way. This is why people can compare similar things with one another and reach mutual understanding, and it is the very foundation that allows people to share a single agreed-upon name in order to meet one another's expectations.

This sentence is the bedrock of the whole study of names. Names are conventional, but how is convention possible at all$2 Because the two parties to the convention have the same sensation of the thing. When I say "sweet," you know what I mean, because your tongue tastes sweetness the same way mine does. If people's senses differed from one another, convention would have no basis, and names could not be established. Master Xun grounds the possibility of names in a common human nature, and this is his fundamental difference from those who treat the study of names as a purely speculative game.

5.1.2 The Five Senses, Each with Its Own Distinctions

What follows is a detailed inventory: "Shape and bodily form, color and pattern are distinguished by the eye; the clarity or murkiness of sound, its harmony, and strange sounds are distinguished by the ear; sweet, bitter, salty, bland, pungent, sour, and strange flavors are distinguished by the mouth; fragrant, foul, aromatic, heavy, rank, musty, moldy, and strange smells are distinguished by the nose; pain, itch, cold, heat, smoothness, sharpness, lightness, and heaviness are distinguished by the body; and delight, causation, joy, anger, sorrow, happiness, love, hatred, and desire are distinguished by the mind."

The significance of this inventory lies not in how many sensations it enumerates, but in how it distributes the basis of "difference" across the various senses. Shape and color are distinguished by the eye; sound is distinguished by the ear; flavor is distinguished by the mouth; smell is distinguished by the nose; touch is distinguished by the body. Each sense is responsible for one category of "difference." Sameness and difference are not conjured up out of nowhere by the mind—they are sorted out sense by sense.

Worth noting is the final item: "delight, causation, joy, anger, sorrow, happiness, love, hatred, and desire are distinguished by the mind." The mind, too, is a faculty, and what it is responsible for distinguishing is feeling and intention. Here "mind" stands alongside eye, ear, mouth, nose, and body—it is the sixth sense. What it perceives is inner feeling, just as the eye perceives outer color. That Master Xun counts the mind as one of the Heavenly Faculties agrees with the "Discourse on Heaven" (Tian Lun) chapter's statement, "ear, eye, nose, mouth, and body each have their own point of contact and cannot substitute for one another—this is called the Heavenly Faculties."

5.1.3 Sharing a Conventional Name in Order to Meet One Another's Expectations

The phrase "sharing a conventional name in order to meet one another's expectations" lays bare the social nature of names in full. A name is "shared"—used by everyone together; a name is "conventional"—agreed upon; a name exists in order to "meet expectations"—to bring about mutual encounter and mutual understanding. A person living alone has no need of names. Names exist because people must interact with one another.

This echoes the fourth section's "different forms leave the minds of those who name them to communicate with one another." People's bodily forms differ, their minds differ, and yet they must understand one another—this is what requires names. A name is a bridge between separate minds. The two ends of the bridge can connect because they share the same foundation, which is the Heavenly Faculties.

5.2 The Mind Has Verifying Cognition

5.2.1 Verifying Cognition Waits on the Heavenly Faculties Registering by Kind

The second half of the fifth section discusses the function of the mind: "The mind has verifying cognition. With verifying cognition, one may rely on the ear to know sound, and rely on the eye to know shape. Yet verifying cognition must always wait upon the Heavenly Faculties having registered things by kind before it can proceed. If the five faculties register something but do not know it, or if the mind has verifying cognition but no account of it, then in either case there is no one who would not call it 'not knowing.'"

Verifying cognition is cognition that checks and confirms—the mind's capacity to verify, classify, and account for the material sent to it by the senses. The mind can know sound by relying on the ear, know shape by relying on the eye. But the mind's verifying cognition must always wait for the Heavenly Faculties to first register the material by kind before it can proceed.

To "register" (bu) is to record in a ledger. The Heavenly Faculties record what they sense in the ledger, and the mind then checks the accounts. This metaphor is vivid: the five senses are the bookkeepers, and the mind is the auditor. An auditor cannot audit out of nothing—there must be accounts to audit. So Master Xun says: if the five senses have registered something but the mind does not know it, or if the mind believes it knows but cannot give an account of it, both cases are called "not knowing."

This passage states the conditions for knowledge very strictly. Knowledge requires two things: material from the senses, and an account from the mind. Material without an account is not knowledge; an account without material is likewise not knowledge. True knowledge is the mind's well-founded, well-reasoned verification of sensory material.

5.2.2 A Comparison with Master Meng (Mencius)

Master Meng says in the "Gaozi I" chapter: "The faculties of ear and eye do not think, and are obscured by external things. When thing encounters thing, it simply draws the ear and eye along. The faculty of the mind thinks; thinking, one attains it; not thinking, one does not attain it. This is what Heaven has bestowed upon us." The faculties of ear and eye do not think, and are easily obscured by external things; the faculty of the mind thinks, and by thinking one attains understanding, while without thinking one does not attain it.

Here Master Meng sets ear and eye in opposition to the mind. Ear and eye are passive, led about by external things; the mind is active, capable of thinking and attaining. The point of this opposition is to urge people to "first establish what is greater," letting the mind take charge, and not letting ear and eye take charge.

Master Xun's account differs from this in a subtle way. He does not set ear and eye in opposition to the mind, but arranges them into two tiers, upper and lower: the Heavenly Faculties below, responsible for registering; the mind above, responsible for verifying cognition. The mind cannot know without going through the Heavenly Faculties, and the Heavenly Faculties cannot produce knowledge without going through the mind. The two work together; they are not opposed.

This difference relates to how the two men view human nature. Master Meng holds that the mind inherently possesses the sprouts of goodness, that the mind can attain understanding entirely on its own, and so he emphasizes the mind's independence. Master Xun holds that the mind's knowledge is learned from outside, that it must rely on material from the senses, and so he emphasizes the cooperation between mind and the Heavenly Faculties. Master Meng's mind is an original source; Master Xun's mind is an artisan-steward. An artisan-steward is an overseer, an administrator, and what it administers is the material delivered by the Heavenly Faculties.

Yet the two men also share common ground. Both hold that the mind occupies the leading position within the person. Master Meng says, "the faculty of the mind thinks"; Master Xun says, in the "Discourse on Heaven" chapter, "the mind dwells in the central emptiness in order to govern the five faculties—this is called the Heavenly Sovereign." The Heavenly Sovereign is the ruler of the five faculties. A ruler cannot do without ministers, but a ruler remains a ruler nonetheless. Master Xun's mind, though dependent on the Heavenly Faculties, remains their sovereign.

5.2.3 An Echo of "Dispelling Obscuration"

In the "Dispelling Obscuration" chapter, Master Xun says: "How does a person come to know the Way$3 Through the mind. How does the mind come to know$4 Through emptiness, unity, and stillness." How can the mind come to know$5 It must be empty, it must be unified, it must be still. Emptiness means not letting existing knowledge obstruct new knowledge; unity means not letting attention to one matter obstruct attention to another; stillness means not letting fantasy and disturbance throw knowledge into confusion.

"Dispelling Obscuration" discusses how the mind knows the Way; the Rectification of Names discusses how the mind knows things. Knowing the Way requires emptiness, unity, and stillness; knowing things requires relying on the Heavenly Faculties and verifying cognition. Taken together, Master Xun's mind has two directions: upward, according with the Way; downward, verifying things. Moving upward, it must be empty and still; moving downward, it must be well-grounded and well-accounted for. These two directions are not in conflict, because the Way is precisely the underlying pattern of the myriad things, and to know the Way is to know why the myriad things are as they are—and knowing the myriad things must always begin with the Heavenly Faculties.

The eleventh section of the Rectification of Names says, "the mind is the artisan-steward of the Way"—an artisan-steward is an administrator. What does the mind administer$6 It administers names, statements, explanations, and disputation, and it also administers the material from the Heavenly Faculties. It is the artisan-steward of the Way, and it is the sovereign of the Heavenly Faculties. Receiving the Way from above and governing things from below—this is Master Xun's mind.

5.3 Transformation and Singular Actuality

5.3.1 Same Form in Different Places, Different Forms in the Same Place

The ninth section discusses the essential pivot of instituting names: "Among things, there are those of the same form but in different places, and those of different form but in the same place—these can be distinguished. Things of the same form occupying different places, though they may be joined under one name, are called two actualities. Where the state has changed but the actuality has undergone no division, and yet it is treated as different, this is called transformation. Where there is transformation but no division, this is called a single actuality. This is how one verifies actuality and fixes its number."

Some things have the same form but occupy different places—for example, two identical horses. Some things have different forms but are one and the same thing—for example, a person as a child and the same person grown old. The former, though it may be grouped under one name, "horse," is nevertheless two actualities. The latter, though its form has changed, remains a single actuality; such change is called "transformation."

These lines are resolving a fundamental problem: how does one count$7 Are two identical horses one or two$8 Is a person in childhood and in old age one or two$9 Master Xun's answer is: the number is fixed by "place," not by "form." Place is location, the thing itself that occupies a position. Where form is the same but place differs, it is two; where form differs but place is the same, it is one.

5.3.2 Transformation Does Not Break a Single Actuality

"Where there is transformation but no division, this is called a single actuality." This sentence carries a depth of meaning that tends to go unnoticed. Transformation is change; division is separation. Where there is change but no separation, it remains a single actuality. That is to say, change is not sufficient to destroy identity. A person changes utterly in appearance from youth to old age, yet remains the same person.

Master Zhuang was likewise interested in this question. The end of the "Discourse on Making All Things Equal" says: "Once, Zhuang Zhou dreamed he was a butterfly... He did not know whether Zhou had dreamed he was a butterfly, or whether the butterfly was dreaming it was Zhou. Between Zhou and the butterfly there must surely be a division. This is called the transformation of things." Master Zhuang uses "the transformation of things" to show that between Zhou and the butterfly "there must surely be a division," yet within the division there is also transformation, and transformation lets the division flow. Master Zhuang's interest lies in how transformation blurs division.

Master Xun's interest runs in exactly the opposite direction. What concerns him is how transformation does not destroy division. "There is transformation but no division"—having transformed, it remains a single actuality. Master Zhuang sees, within change, the continuity that runs through it; Master Xun sees, within change, the constancy that runs through it. Master Zhuang finds in transformation the possibility that "the myriad things are all one"; Master Xun finds in transformation the possibility of "verifying actuality and fixing its number."

The two views are not in conflict, because they are looking at two faces of the same phenomenon. The "Great Treatise" of the Book of Changes says: "When a thing reaches its limit, it changes; when it changes, it penetrates through; when it penetrates through, it endures." Change that can penetrate through, and penetration that can endure. What Master Zhuang speaks of is "change, then penetration"; what Master Xun speaks of is "penetration, then endurance." Within change there is continuity, within continuity there is constancy, and only what is constant can be counted, can be named.

5.3.3 Verifying Actuality and Fixing Its Number

"This is how one verifies actuality and fixes its number." This sentence brings the essential pivot of instituting names to rest, in the end, on number. A name must be countable, and the count must be determined by the actuality. Two horses are two; a person young and old is one. Where the number cannot be fixed, the name hangs in the air, ungrounded.

This sentence lays bare the whole foundation of the study of names. Master Xun begins by discussing "relying on the Heavenly Faculties," moves on to "general names and particular names," then to "convention becoming custom," and finally to "verifying actuality and fixing its number." The whole progression runs from sensation to classification, from classification to convention, from convention to verification. And the final stage of verification is being able to count clearly.

This is also why Master Xun's study of names is always bound up with governance. To govern the realm requires counting: counting population, counting land, counting taxes, counting punishments. If the counting falls into disorder, governance falls into disorder along with it. If names cannot fix a number, names cannot be put to use in governance. To verify actuality and fix its number is the final account that names must render to governance.

6 The Three Delusions and the Inevitability of Disputation

6.1 Re-Reading the Three Delusions

6.1.1 "Being Insulted Is Not Disgraceful"

The first delusion in the tenth section consists of "being insulted is not disgraceful," "the sage does not love himself," and "killing a robber is not killing a man"; Master Xun calls this "delusion arising from using names to throw names into disorder." These three claims come from different schools, and Master Xun does not sort them out individually—he simply points out that they all commit the same error.

Take "being insulted is not disgraceful" as an example. Master Xun offers a detailed analysis in the "Correct Discussions" (Zheng Lun) chapter. He divides both honor and disgrace into two kinds: "there is honor of righteousness and honor of power; there is disgrace of righteousness and disgrace of power." Honor of righteousness is honor attained through cultivated intent and deep virtuous conduct; honor of power is honor attained through high rank and rich emolument. Disgrace of righteousness is disgrace incurred through dissolute and corrupt conduct; disgrace of power is disgrace suffered through being insulted or physically assaulted. The noble person may suffer disgrace of power without suffering disgrace of righteousness; the petty person may enjoy honor of power without enjoying honor of righteousness.

Return now to "being insulted is not disgraceful." This statement means that suffering an insult does not count as disgrace. Master Xun points out where it goes wrong: the name "disgrace" in fact contains two actualities, disgrace of righteousness and disgrace of power. Being insulted is disgrace of power, not disgrace of righteousness. Whoever says "being insulted is not disgraceful" is using "it is not disgrace of righteousness" to deny "it is disgrace of power," mixing two actualities into a single name and using one half of a name to deny the other half. This is "using names to throw names into disorder."

The method of testing it is to "test it by why there are names, and observe which reading holds." What are names for$10 For distinguishing sameness and difference. Disgrace of righteousness and disgrace of power are two actualities, and so they ought to be distinguished, not conflated. To conflate them is to violate the very purpose of having names.

6.1.2 "Mountain and Abyss Are Level" and "The Emotions Desire Little"

The second delusion consists of "mountain and abyss are level," "the emotions desire little," and "fed meats add no sweetness, great bells add no delight"; Master Xun calls this "delusion arising from using actualities to throw names into disorder."

"Mountain and abyss are level" claims that a mountain and an abyss are equally level. From some special vantage—say, regarding both the mountaintop and the abyss-bottom as parts of the earth's surface—this statement can carry a certain sense. But the two names "mountain" and "abyss" are distinguished on the basis of the Heavenly Faculties: the eye sees the mountain as high and the abyss as low. To use some special actuality (seen, say, from an extreme distance, or arrived at through some manner of speculation) to alter the ordinary meaning of a name is precisely "using actuality to throw names into disorder."

The method of testing it is to "test it by there being nothing to rely on for sameness and difference, and observe which position harmonizes with the facts." On what basis is sameness and difference distinguished$11 On the basis of the Heavenly Faculties. The sameness and difference distinguished by the Heavenly Faculties is the same for everyone—it "harmonizes," it is consistent. An actuality seen from a special vantage that does not harmonize with the sameness and difference distinguished by the Heavenly Faculties cannot be used to alter a name.

"The emotions desire little" is the same. It claims that human emotion is inherently one of few desires. Master Xun's method of testing it is to check it against the Heavenly Faculties. Do people in fact desire little$12 "That men desire life is extreme indeed, that men hate death is extreme indeed"—people's desires are many; this is the actual condition registered by the Heavenly Faculties. "The emotions desire little" uses some special actuality (perhaps the sage's emotional state, perhaps some idealized emotional state) to alter the ordinary meaning of the name "emotion."

6.1.3 "There Being Ox-and-Horse Is Not the Same as There Being a Horse"

The third delusion consists of "to deny, yet appeal to the pillar" and "there being ox-and-horse is not the same as there being a horse"; Master Xun calls this "delusion arising from using names to throw actualities into disorder."

"There being ox-and-horse is not the same as there being a horse" claims that the combined name "ox-and-horse" is not equivalent to the particular name "horse," and so ox-and-horse is not horse. At the level of names, this has a certain plausibility: a combined name and a particular name really are different. But Master Xun points out that this uses the combining and separating of names to deny the existence of an actuality. Among ox-and-horse, there plainly is a horse—how can one say that ox-and-horse is not horse$13

The method of testing it is to "test it by the conventions of names, using what has been accepted to contradict what is being claimed." How was the name conventionally agreed upon$14 Once it is agreed that "ox-and-horse" is the combined designation for ox and horse together, one must accept that among ox-and-horse there is a horse. Whoever says "there being ox-and-horse is not the same as there being a horse" accepts, on the one hand, the convention behind the combined name "ox-and-horse," while, on the other hand, rejecting what that very convention entails—a self-contradiction.

Reading through the three delusions, one finds that Master Xun's method for handling them is never to argue with them directly, but to measure them against a rod. The first rod is the purpose of names; the second is the sameness and difference given by the Heavenly Faculties; the third is the convention of names. These three rods are the very ones built up in sections three through nine, and are taken up for use in the tenth. Master Xun does not dispute with heterodox claims—he simply lays them against the rod and measures them, and then says, "one is able to prohibit them."

6.2 The Enlightened Ruler Does Not Engage in Disputation

6.2.1 The People Are Easily Unified by the Way, but Cannot Be Made to Share in Its Rationale

The eleventh section opens by saying: "All heterodox claims and deviant sayings that depart from the correct Way and are arbitrarily contrived belong, without exception, to one of the three delusions. Hence the enlightened ruler, knowing their category, does not engage them in disputation. For the people can easily be unified through the Way, but cannot be made to share in its rationale."

Every heterodox claim falls into one of the three delusions. So the enlightened ruler, knowing which category a claim belongs to, does not go and dispute with it. Why not dispute$15 Because "the people can easily be unified through the Way, but cannot be made to share in its rationale." The common people can readily be unified by following the Way, but it is difficult to get them all to grasp, together, the reasons behind it.

This is close in meaning to the Analects' "Tai Bo" chapter: "The people may be made to follow it, but may not be made to understand it." The people can be led to walk the Way, but it is hard to make them all understand the reasons for it. This is not a matter of holding the people in contempt—it is a realistic recognition about governance: governing the realm cannot rely on explaining every principle to every single person; it can only rely on establishing an order that everyone can follow.

So the enlightened ruler's method is: "to oversee them with authority, to guide them with the Way, to make things clear to them through decree, to illuminate through discourse, and to prohibit through punishment." Overseeing with authority, guiding with the Way, clarifying with decree, illuminating with discourse, prohibiting with punishment. Of these five means, discourse is only one, and it comes after decree.

6.2.2 What Use Is Disputation$16

"Hence when the people are transformed by the Way, it is as swift as if by a spirit—what use, then, is disputation!" Once the people have been transformed by the Way, it happens as swiftly as if by a spirit—what further use is there for disputation$17

This sentence places disputation in a very low position. In a realm governed by an enlightened ruler, disputation is unnecessary. The people follow the Way, strange expressions have no occasion to arise, and so there is nothing to dispute about. Disputation is not a normal instrument of governance—it is a remedy resorted to only after governance has already failed.

This view is not unique to Master Xun within Confucianism. The Master says, "I wish to say nothing" (Analects, "Yang Huo"), and, "What does Heaven ever say$18 The four seasons proceed, the hundred things are born—what does Heaven ever say$19" Heaven says nothing, yet the four seasons proceed; the sage's transforming influence ought likewise to work not through disputation but through action. Master Meng, though fond of disputation, still says, "How could I delight in disputation$20 I have no choice" ("Teng Wen Gong II"). Disputation is something one resorts to only when there is no other choice.

6.2.3 The Sage Kings Gone, and So There Is Disputation

"Now that the sage kings are gone, the realm is in disorder, heterodox sayings have arisen, the noble person has no authority with which to oversee them and no punishment with which to prohibit them, and so there is disputation." Now the sage kings are gone, the realm is in disorder, heterodox sayings have arisen, the noble person has no authority to oversee them with and no punishment to prohibit them with, and so he has no choice but to engage in disputation.

This sentence is startlingly candid. Master Xun himself was a man of disputation—both the "Against the Twelve Masters" (Fei Shi Er Zi) and the Rectification of Names are works of disputation. But he does not take pride in disputation. He says disputation is the choice made only after "the noble person has no authority with which to oversee them and no punishment with which to prohibit them." If the noble person had authority and punishment at his disposal, disputation would not be necessary.

This is the very same sentiment as Master Meng's "How could I delight in disputation$21 I have no choice." Both Confucians engaged in disputation, and neither took pleasure in it. Disputation belongs to a degenerate age—it is the expedient of a time when the sage kings are absent.

6.3 Disputation as a Last Resort

6.3.1 The Ladder of Agreement, Designation, Explanation, and Disputation

The eleventh section goes on to give a ladder: "When the actuality itself does not make itself understood, only then does one designate it; when designation does not make it understood, only then does one agree upon its usage; when agreement does not make it understood, only then does one explain it; when explanation does not make it understood, only then does one dispute it." When an actuality cannot by itself make itself understood, one gives it a name; when naming still fails to make it understood, one agrees upon its usage; when agreement still fails, one offers an explanation; when explanation still fails, one disputes.

This ladder begins with actuality, passes through designation and agreement and explanation, and arrives finally at disputation. Each rung is climbed only because the one below has proven insufficient. Disputation is the last rung, resorted to only after every preceding means has proven insufficient.

This ladder places disputation in an entirely unambiguous position: it is the last resort, not the first choice. The most ideal condition is for "the actuality to make itself understood," for the actuality itself to make itself clear to people without anything needing to be said at all. Next best is naming; next after that, agreement; next, explanation; and lowest of all, disputation. Master Xun's attitude toward disputation is laid bare entirely by this ladder.

6.3.2 "One Who Is Good Does Not Dispute; Great Disputation Uses No Words"

The Daoist attitude toward disputation is even more resolute than the Confucian one. The Most High says: "One who is good does not dispute; one who disputes is not good" (Daodejing, chapter 81). A good person does not dispute; one who disputes is not good. He also says: "Much speech leads repeatedly to exhaustion; better to hold to the center" (chapter 5). Speaking too much only brings one to a dead end—better to hold to the middle course.

Master Zhuang says in the "Discourse on Making All Things Equal": "The great Way is not named; great disputation uses no words." The great Way needs no designation; great disputation needs no speech. He also says: "Where there is disputation, there is something not seen." Disputation itself is proof that something remains unseen. One who truly sees has no need to dispute.

Confucianism and Daoism agree on this point. The Master's "I wish to say nothing," Master Meng's "I have no choice," Master Xun's "what use is disputation," the Most High's "one who is good does not dispute," Master Zhuang's "great disputation uses no words"—all of these say the very same thing: disputation is not the highest state; disputation is a remedy resorted to only when there is no other choice. The only difference is this: the Daoists, for this reason, dispute little or not at all, while the Confucians, though disputing only when they have no choice, still dispute.

What is distinctive about Master Xun is that he turns this "no other choice" into a ladder. He neither rejects disputation outright nor exalts it unconditionally—instead, he places it on the lowest rung of a ladder and states clearly when it is necessary and when it is superfluous. This is an extremely clear-eyed attitude.

6.3.3 When the Explanation Is Adopted, the Realm Is Set Right; When It Is Not, One Makes the Way Plain and Withdraws into Obscurity

The end of the eleventh section discusses the disputation of the sage: "When the explanation is adopted, the realm is set right; when the explanation is not adopted, one makes the Way plain and withdraws into obscurity and hardship." When the disputation is accepted, the realm is set right; when it is not accepted, one makes the Way plain and clear, and then withdraws into obscurity and hardship.

This sentence accounts for the disputant's own circumstances. Disputation is not guaranteed to be accepted. What then, if it is not accepted$22 One "makes the Way plain and withdraws into obscurity"—one states the Way clearly, and then accepts the outcome of not being accepted. Without resentment, without changing course, without flattery.

This is the same attitude the Master expressed to Master Yan (Yan Hui): "Employed, I act; set aside, I withdraw into obscurity—only you and I are capable of this" (Analects, "Shu Er"). If employed, I carry out the Way; if not employed, I withdraw. The "Commentary on the Words" (Wenyan) to the Qian hexagram of the Book of Changes says: "Withdrawing from the world causes no distress; not being approved of causes no distress." Withdrawing into reclusion causes no distress; not being recognized by others causes no distress. Master Xun's "obscurity and hardship" is this same "withdrawal from the world," and his "making the Way plain" is this same speaking of what is right even while "not being approved of."

The hardest thing for a disputant is not the disputing itself, but disputing and then not being heeded. With the five words "makes the Way plain and withdraws into obscurity," Master Xun gives the disputant a place to stand: your responsibility is to state the Way plainly; whether the Way is carried out or not is not something you can determine. Once you have stated it plainly, your responsibility is discharged. This turns disputation from a contest to be won into a duty to be fulfilled. One disputes not in order to win, but in order to state the Way clearly. Once it is stated clearly, winning or losing no longer matters. This is the distinction between the disputation of the sage and the disputation of ordinary people.

7 Three Grades of Speech and Three Poems

7.1 The Sage's Disputation

7.1.1 Having the Discernment of Listening to All, Without the Bearing of Boastful Vigor

The latter half of the eleventh section portrays the sage's disputation: "Using the correct Way to dispute the heterodox is like drawing a taut cord to determine what is crooked and what is straight. Hence heterodox claims cannot throw him into confusion, and none of the hundred schools have anywhere to hide. He has the discernment of listening to all, without the bearing of boastful vigor; he has the generosity of covering all, without the countenance of parading his virtue. When his explanation is adopted, the realm is set right; when it is not adopted, he makes the Way plain and withdraws into obscurity and hardship. This is the disputation of the sage."

The first characteristic of the sage's disputation is "drawing a taut cord to determine what is crooked and what is straight." The cord is the carpenter's inked line, used to measure whether a piece of wood is crooked or straight. When the sage disputes, he does not overpower others with eloquence—he takes the correct Way as his inked line, lays the heterodox claim beside it, and the crooked and the straight become self-evident. The force of his disputation comes not from the disputant, but from the Way.

The second characteristic is "listening to all" and "covering all." Listening to all means listening to everything; covering all means tolerating everything. The sage listens broadly and tolerates widely, and so "heterodox claims cannot throw him into confusion, and none of the hundred schools have anywhere to hide." The hundred schools have nowhere to hide, not because the sage has hunted them all down and destroyed them, but because the sage has already heard them all and seen through them all—there is no corner the sage does not know.

The third characteristic is "without the bearing of boastful vigor" and "without the countenance of parading his virtue." He listens broadly without pride; he tolerates widely without self-praise. This is the hardest point of all. The more a person knows, the more easily a look of self-satisfaction shows on his face; the more widely he tolerates, the more easily a look of conferring favor shows on his face. The sage has neither expression.

7.1.2 Dignified and Lofty, Like Jade Tablets

Master Xun quotes the "Juan A" ode from the "Greater Odes" of the Book of Songs to close his discussion of the sage's disputation.

The verse describes one who is dignified and stately, lofty in bearing, pure as a jade tablet, possessed of fine repute and fine presence, a genial and approachable noble person who serves as the guiding standard for all quarters of the realm.

The correspondence between this ode and the sage's disputation is remarkably precise. The dignified, stately bearing corresponds to "without the bearing of boastful vigor": solemn without ostentation. The purity like jade corresponds to "using the correct Way to dispute the heterodox": clean as jade, without a trace of self-interest. Serving as the guiding standard for all quarters corresponds to "when the explanation is adopted, the realm is set right": once the sage's disputation is accepted, it becomes the guiding standard of the realm.

Master Xun's quotation of the ode is no mere decoration. This poem gives the spirit of the sage's disputation a concrete image: the sage disputes with his entire character as his warrant, not with his tongue.

7.1.3 Drawing a Taut Cord to Determine What Is Crooked and What Is Straight

The metaphor of "drawing a taut cord to determine what is crooked and what is straight" deserves a further word. A carpenter measuring wood with an inked cord has no need to argue with the wood. Once the cord is pulled taut, whether the wood is crooked or straight is plain to see. The sage, measuring heterodox claims against the correct Way, likewise has no need to argue with them. Once the correct Way is laid out, whether the claim is heterodox or not is plain to see.

This is why the sage's disputation can be "without the bearing of boastful vigor." Boastful vigor is the attitude of contending to win, and one contends to win because the outcome is undecided. The sage does not contend to win, because once the cord is drawn, crooked and straight are already determined, and there is no contest left to win. The sage's confidence comes not from himself, but from the Way. So he needs neither pride nor self-praise.

The "Wei Ling Gong" chapter of the Analects records the Master saying: "The noble person is dignified but does not contend; he is sociable but does not form factions." Dignity here is solemnity, not pride. The noble person is solemn but does not contend. What Master Xun calls "the bearing of boastful vigor," with the two characters combined, refers to the high-strung expression of one who is contending—this does not contradict the Master's "dignified but does not contend." The sage has the dignity of solemnity, but not the boastful vigor of contention.

7.2 The Disputation of the Scholar-Noble Person

7.2.1 Speaking with a Benevolent Mind, Listening with a Learning Mind, Disputing with an Impartial Mind

The twelfth section discusses the disputation of the scholar-noble person (shi junzi): "The proprieties of deference and yielding are attained; the principles governing elder and younger are followed in order; taboo words are not uttered, and monstrous expressions do not issue forth. He speaks with a benevolent mind, listens with a learning mind, disputes with an impartial mind. He is not moved by the crowd's censure or praise, does not cater to the ears and eyes of onlookers, does not curry favor with the power and authority of the honored, and does not seek advantage from the words of those who twist and distort. Hence he is able to dwell in the Way without wavering, to be rebuked without abandoning his position, to be tempted by profit without drifting from his principles, valuing impartial correctness and despising base contention. This is the disputation of the scholar-noble person."

The core of this section is three statements: speaking with a benevolent mind, listening with a learning mind, disputing with an impartial mind.

To speak with a benevolent mind is to hold benevolence in one's heart while speaking, to speak for the other person's good, not in order to overpower them. To listen with a learning mind is to hold learning in one's heart while listening, to receive the other person's words as something one might learn from, not as something one must refute. To dispute with an impartial mind is to hold impartiality in one's heart while disputing, seeking an impartial conclusion, not one's own victory.

These three statements turn disputation from a contest to be won into a matter of self-cultivation. Speech calls for benevolence; listening calls for learning; disputation calls for impartiality. Of the three, "listening with a learning mind" is especially rare. When ordinary people dispute, they listen to the other party's words only while waiting for them to finish so they can refute them. To listen with a learning mind is to truly wish to learn something from the other person's words. This requires great humility, and it also requires great confidence. Humility is acknowledging that the other person may be right; confidence is not fearing that one will lose if the other person turns out to be right.

7.2.2 Not Being Moved by the Crowd's Censure or Praise

The second characteristic of the scholar-noble person's disputation is a set of four negations: not moved by the crowd's censure or praise, not catering to the ears and eyes of onlookers, not currying favor with the power of the honored, not seeking advantage from the words of those who twist and distort.

Not being shaken by the crowd's praise or blame; not going out of one's way to please the ears and eyes of onlookers; not fawning upon the power and authority of the honored; not exploiting the convenient words of the deviant. These four negations describe four temptations that a disputant faces: the crowd's approval, the audience's applause, the favor of the powerful, and the convenience of heterodox claims. The scholar-noble person's heart is unmoved by all four.

This is the same spirit as the Master's "Is it not the mark of the noble person that others do not know him, and yet he feels no resentment$23" (Analects, "Xue Er"). If others do not understand me, I feel no resentment. The scholar-noble person does not dispute in order to be understood or praised by others, and so the praise or blame of others cannot shake him. The "Li Ren" chapter of the Analects also says: "Do not worry that others do not know you; seek instead to be worth knowing." Do not worry that no one understands you; seek only to have something in yourself worth understanding.

"Hence he is able to dwell in the Way without wavering, to be rebuked without abandoning his position, to be tempted by profit without drifting from his principles"—hence the scholar-noble person can hold to the Way without wavering, be reproached without giving up his stance, be lured by profit without losing his principles.

7.2.3 Why Should He Trouble Himself Over What Others Say$24

The ode Master Xun quotes here does not survive in the received text of the Book of Songs—it is a lost poem. In it, the speaker, through a long night, reflects at length on his own faults; he does not dare to be careless of the ancient Way, nor to fall short in ritual propriety and righteousness—and so, being thus, why should he trouble himself over what others say$25

The correspondence between this ode and the scholar-noble person's disputation is likewise precise. The long reflection on one's own faults corresponds to "listening with a learning mind": constantly examining one's own shortcomings. Not daring to be careless of the ancient Way, not daring to fall short in ritual propriety and righteousness, corresponds to "dwelling in the Way without wavering": holding fast to the Way, holding fast to ritual propriety and righteousness. Not troubling himself over others' words corresponds to "not moved by the crowd's censure or praise": paying no heed to others' discussion of him.

The ode for the sage's disputation is "Juan A," which speaks of "serving as the guiding standard for all quarters." The ode for the scholar-noble person's disputation is this lost poem, which speaks of paying no heed to others' words. One is accepted by the realm and becomes its guiding standard; the other is not understood, and yet holds to itself. The distinction between the sage and the scholar-noble person lies exactly in the distinction between these two odes. The sage's disputation can transform the realm; the scholar-noble person's disputation can only transform himself. But the scholar-noble person's disputation is the preparation for the sage's disputation. Without the fortitude of "why should he trouble himself over what others say," there would be no achievement of "serving as the guiding standard for all quarters."

7.3 The Speech of the Noble Person and the Speech of the Fool

7.3.1 Penetrating Yet Precise, Modest Yet Well-Ordered, Varied Yet Uniform

The thirteenth section discusses the speech of the noble person: "The noble person's speech is penetrating yet precise, modest yet well-ordered by kind, varied yet uniform. He rectifies his names and makes his statements apt, striving above all to make his intent and meaning clear. Names and statements are the emissaries of intent and meaning; once they suffice to achieve mutual understanding, he sets them aside. To cling to them beyond that is deceit. Hence, once a name suffices to point to the actuality, and a statement suffices to make the ultimate point clear, he sets them aside."

The noble person's speech is penetrating and precise, humble and well-ordered by kind, varied yet uniform. In speaking, the noble person does only one thing: he rectifies his names, makes his statements apt, and strives to make his own intent and meaning clear.

"The emissaries of intent and meaning"—names and statements are the emissaries of intent and meaning. An emissary's task is to convey his master's meaning; once it has been conveyed, the emissary may withdraw. "Once they suffice for mutual understanding, he sets them aside"—once mutual understanding is sufficiently achieved, one lets go of them. Names and statements are not the end in themselves; intent and meaning are the end. Names and statements need only be adequate—there is no need for more of them, no need for cleverness. "To cling to them beyond that is deceit"—to strive for victory through cleverness with names and statements beyond what is needed is deceit.

These lines are of a piece with the thinking of the "Great Treatise" of the Book of Changes: "Writing does not exhaust speech; speech does not exhaust meaning." Writing cannot fully express speech, and speech cannot fully express meaning. Given this, writing and speech are merely tools, and conveying meaning is the goal. The "Great Treatise" goes on to say, "the sages established images in order to exhaust meaning"—images were established in order to exhaust meaning, not for the sake of the images themselves. Master Xun says, "once a name suffices to point to the actuality, and a statement suffices to make the ultimate point clear, he sets them aside"—once names and statements suffice to point to actuality and make the ultimate point clear, one lets go of them. The two say the very same thing.

Master Zhuang, in the "External Things" (Waiwu) chapter, states it even more thoroughly: "Words exist for the sake of meaning; once one has grasped the meaning, one forgets the words." Words exist in order to convey meaning; once meaning is grasped, one forgets the words. Master Xun's "setting aside" and Master Zhuang's "forgetting the words" share the same attitude: words are a bridge, and once one has crossed the bridge, there is no need to linger on it. Confucianism and Daoism march together again on this point.

7.3.2 The Speech of the Fool

"Whatever exceeds this is called mere verbosity—it is what the noble person discards, and what the fool picks up and treasures as his own. Hence the fool's speech is muddled and coarse, clamorous and disordered by kind, chattering on as though boiling over. He seduces with names and dazzles with statements, yet has no depth of intent or meaning. Hence he exhausts his resources without limit, labors greatly without accomplishment, and is covetous yet earns no reputation."

Speech that exceeds "sufficing for mutual understanding" is called mere verbosity—something the noble person discards, and something the fool picks up and treasures. The fool's speech is muddled and coarse, clamorous and disordered by kind, chattering on endlessly like water at a boil. He seduces with names and dazzles with statements, yet has no depth of intent or meaning behind them. Hence his words go on without end, laboring greatly yet accomplishing nothing, being covetous yet earning no good name.

This passage stands in exact opposition to the noble person's speech. The noble person is "penetrating yet precise"; the fool is "muddled and coarse." The noble person is "modest yet well-ordered by kind"; the fool is "clamorous and disordered by kind." The noble person is "varied yet uniform"; the fool is "chattering on as though boiling over." The noble person treats names and statements as emissaries of intent and meaning; the fool treats them as instruments of self-display. The noble person stops once meaning is conveyed; the fool "exhausts his resources without limit."

The four characters "labors greatly without accomplishment" ring a warning bell for anyone who makes a profession of disputation or a display of clever phrasing. Cleverness with names and statements, if it does not point toward intent and meaning, is simply spinning in place. However fast the spinning, it produces nothing.

7.3.3 Being Like a Demon or a Water-Spirit

Master Xun quotes the "He Ren Si" ode from the "Lesser Odes" of the Book of Songs. In it, the poet says: were you a demon or a river-spirit, you could not be seen at all—but you have a human face, and yet look upon others without any fixed constancy; I compose this fine song in order to lay bare, to their utmost, your fickle and duplicitous ways.

The correspondence between this ode and the fool's speech is the sharpest of the three odes quoted. Being like a demon or a water-spirit corresponds to "muddled and coarse": indistinct and unfixed, impossible to see clearly. Looking upon others without fixed constancy corresponds to "chattering on as though boiling over": fickle and inconsistent, without any settled standard. Laying bare to the utmost his fickleness corresponds to "test it by... and one is able to prohibit it": exposing his inconsistency to its fullest extent.

Three grades of speech, three odes. The sage's disputation is paired with "Juan A," which speaks of serving as the guiding standard for all quarters; the scholar-noble person's disputation is paired with the lost ode, which speaks of paying no heed to others' words; the noble person's speech and the fool's speech are paired with "He Ren Si," which speaks of being like a demon or a water-spirit. The three odes descend, step by step, from the sage at the summit, to the self-possessed scholar-noble person, to the fickle fool. Master Xun's quotations of these odes are not chosen at random—they are carefully selected according to the grade of speech in question. Taken together, the three odes form a map of the hierarchy of speech.

The significance of this map is that disputation is not merely a technique—it is a manifestation of character. The sage's disputation manifests the sage's character; the fool's speech manifests the fool's character. Master Xun says, "the words of the wise are easily understood upon reflection, easily carried out in practice, and easily maintained once held to"—the words of the wise person are easy to understand, easy to put into practice, easy to hold fast to. These three "easy"s are the result of speech and character becoming one. Words are easy to understand because the mind behind them is clear; they are easy to carry out because they were meant for action from the start; they are easy to hold to because they accord with one's own intent and meaning. The fool is the opposite: his words dazzle, but are unsettling to act on, and impossible to hold to, because his words are severed from his intent and meaning. The rank of speech is, in the end, the rank of the person.

8 Order and Disorder Lie in What the Mind Approves

8.1 The Mistake of Eliminating Desire and Minimizing Desire

8.1.1 Having Desire or Lacking Desire Is a Difference of Kind, of Life and Death

The fourteenth section is the center of gravity for the whole essay's philosophical argument. It opens by refuting two claims about governance: "Whoever discusses governance while waiting for people to eliminate desire is one who has no means of guiding desire, and is troubled by the very fact of having desire. Whoever discusses governance while waiting for people to have few desires is one who has no means of moderating desire, and is troubled by the very fact of having many desires."

Whoever discusses governance while waiting for people to eliminate their desires is someone with no way to guide desire, trapped by the fact that people have desires at all. Whoever discusses governance while waiting for people to reduce their desires is someone with no way to moderate desire, trapped by the fact that people's desires are many.

Master Xun's judgment is: "Having desire or lacking desire is a difference of kind, a matter of life and death, not of order or disorder. Whether desires are many or few is a difference of kind, a quantity belonging to the emotions, not a matter of order or disorder." Having desire or lacking it belongs to two different categories entirely—it is the difference between being alive and being dead, not the difference between order and disorder. Whether desires are many or few likewise belongs to two different categories—it is a quantity of the emotions, not the difference between order and disorder.

These lines strip "desire" entirely out of the question of "order and disorder." Having desire or not is a matter of life and death: every living person has desires; only the dead have none. Having many or few desires is a matter of quantity: some people have many desires, some have few—this is merely how much emotion there is. Neither has anything to do with order or disorder. To pin order and disorder on the elimination or reduction of desire is to look in the wrong place.

8.1.2 Looking in the Wrong Place

Why is this the wrong place to look$26 Because order and disorder are things that can actually be achieved, while eliminating desire and minimizing desire are things that cannot be achieved. A person cannot eliminate desire, because desire is "a fixture of nature," part of one's innate endowment. A person can hardly reduce desire either, because how much desire one has is "a quantity belonging to the emotions," an inherent quantity of feeling. To pin order and disorder on something unachievable means order and disorder can never be achieved.

Master Xun's line of thought here is extremely practical. He does not ask "how should an ideal person be," but asks "what can an actual person be." An actual person has desires, and quite a lot of them—this is a given condition. Order and disorder must be resolved within this condition. If order and disorder can only be achieved once people have no desires or few desires, then order and disorder have no hope of ever being achieved.

This is the meaning of being "troubled by having desire" and "troubled by having many desires." Those who advocate eliminating desire are trapped by the fact that "people have desire," believing that as long as desire exists, order is impossible. Those who advocate minimizing desire are trapped by the fact that "people's desires are many," believing that as long as desires are many, order is impossible. Both kinds of people are trapped by desire, unable to see where order and disorder truly lie.

8.1.3 Not Seeking It Where It Lies, but Seeking It Where It Is Absent

The end of the fourteenth section says: "Hence order and disorder lie in what the mind approves, not in what the emotions desire. Not seeking it where it lies, but seeking it instead where it is absent—though one says 'I have found it,' one has in fact lost it."

Order and disorder lie in what the mind approves, not in what the emotions desire. Rather than searching where order and disorder actually lie, one searches instead where they are not to be found; though one claims to have found it, one has in fact lost it.

"Where it lies" and "where it is absent"—this pair of phrases draws the whole passage together. Order and disorder have a place where they lie, and that place is what the mind approves. The theories of eliminating and minimizing desire go looking in the place "where it is absent," and no matter how they search, they will never find it there. Master Xun's criticism is not that eliminating or minimizing desire is bad—it is that these theories answer the wrong question. The question is order and disorder; the answer given is desire; but desire is not where order and disorder lie.

8.2 Desire Is Received from Heaven, Seeking Is Received from the Mind

8.2.1 Desire Need Not Wait Upon the Possibility of Attainment, but the Seeking Follows What Is Approved

In the middle of the fourteenth section are several lines that constitute the most precise analysis in the whole essay: "That desire need not wait upon the possibility of attainment, while the seeking follows what is approved: that desire need not wait upon the possibility of attainment is what is received from Heaven; that the seeking follows what is approved is what is received from the mind."

Desire does not arise only once attainment becomes possible; but seeking follows whatever the mind approves. That desire arises without waiting for possibility of attainment is something received from Heaven; that seeking follows what the mind approves is something received from the mind.

Here two things are distinguished: desire and seeking. Desire is wanting; seeking is pursuing. Wanting is innate, not something a person controls—one wants whatever one wants, regardless of whether it can be attained. But pursuing is determined by the mind: if the mind approves, one pursues; if the mind does not approve, one does not pursue.

This distinction is the key to the entire passage. Desire is not governed by the mind; seeking is governed by the mind. Order and disorder do not lie in desire, but in seeking; seeking is governed by the mind, and so order and disorder lie in the mind. "The single desire received from Heaven, when regulated by the many considerations received from the mind, can hardly be classed together with what is received from Heaven alone." The single desire given by Heaven, once moderated by the many considerations given by the mind, can hardly be regarded as the same kind of thing as what Heaven alone provides.

8.2.2 Some People Go from Life to Death

Master Xun then offers an extremely powerful example: "That men desire life is extreme indeed, that men hate death is extreme indeed; and yet there are people who go from life to death of their own accord—not because they do not desire life and desire death, but because they judge that they may not live, and may die."

People's desire to live is extremely strong; people's aversion to death is extremely strong. And yet there are those who give up life and choose death—not because they do not want to live and want to die, but because they judge that they cannot go on living, and that they may rightly die.

This example demonstrates the separation between desire and mind. Wanting to live is desire, given by Heaven, and extremely strong. And yet the mind judges "one may not live, and one may die," and so the person gives up life. The mind's "may" overrides desire's "want." If order and disorder lay in desire, then given how strong the desire to live is, no one should ever give up life. But some people do give up life, which shows that what determines action is not desire, but what the mind approves.

This is the same phenomenon expressed in two different ways as Master Meng's discussion of fish and bear's paw in "Gaozi I." Master Meng says: "Life is what I desire; righteousness is also what I desire. When the two cannot both be had, I would give up life and choose righteousness." "There are things I desire more than life, and things I hate more than death." Master Meng speaks of righteousness itself as a kind of desire, a desire even stronger than the desire for life. Master Xun does not put it this way—he says that giving up life for death is not because one desires death, but because the mind judges that "one may die." Master Meng places righteousness on the level of desire; Master Xun places it on the level of what the mind approves. The two men are describing the same phenomenon: that a person can give up life for righteousness. But Master Xun's formulation more clearly separates mind from desire.

8.2.3 The Mind Restraining It, and the Mind Impelling It

"Hence when desire exceeds what is needed but action falls short of it, this is the mind restraining it. If what the mind approves accords with reason, then however many the desires, what harm do they do to order$27 When desire falls short of what is needed but action exceeds it, this is the mind impelling it. If what the mind approves departs from reason, then however few the desires, how could this halt disorder$28"

Desire exceeds what is needed, yet action does not follow so far—this is the mind restraining it. If what the mind approves accords with reason, then however many the desires may be, what harm do they do to order$29 Desire falls short of what is needed, yet action exceeds it—this is the mind impelling it. If what the mind approves departs from reason, then however few the desires may be, how could this stop disorder$30

These four lines are the hinge of the whole essay. Desire being great while action does not overreach is the mind restraining it; desire being small while action overreaches is the mind impelling it. Whether action overreaches or falls short is determined by the mind, not by desire. Hence order and disorder lie in the mind.

Here Master Xun poses two rhetorical questions: "however many the desires, what harm do they do to order$31" and "however few the desires, how could this stop disorder$32" Many desires do no harm to order; few desires cannot halt disorder. This is the final blow against the theories of eliminating and minimizing desire. They both assume that desire is the root of order and disorder; Master Xun says: it is not. A person of many desires, if his mind accords with reason, achieves order; a person of few desires, if his mind departs from reason, falls into disorder. Order and disorder have nothing whatsoever to do with the quantity of desire.

8.3 A Comparison with Master Meng's "Minimizing Desire"

8.3.1 Nothing Nourishes the Mind Better Than Minimizing Desire

At this point, a question cannot be avoided: Master Meng once said, "For nourishing the mind, nothing is better than minimizing one's desires" ("Jin Xin II"). The Most High also said, "Display plainness and embrace simplicity, lessen self-interest and minimize desire" (Daodejing, chapter 19). Master Xun says that "whoever discusses governance while waiting for people to have few desires" is "troubled by having many desires"—is this a criticism of Master Meng and the Most High$33

A close reading of the text shows that it is not. Master Meng speaks of "nourishing the mind"; Master Xun speaks of "discussing governance." Nourishing the mind is a matter of personal cultivation; discussing governance is a matter of order and disorder in the realm. Master Meng says that the best way to nourish one's own mind well is to minimize one's desires—this is addressed to an individual. Master Xun says that in discussing the order and disorder of the realm, one cannot wait for everyone to minimize their desires—this is addressed to a true king. The two men are not speaking on the same level.

What follows Master Meng's "nothing nourishes the mind better than minimizing desire" is this: "One whose character has few desires will, even if he loses something of his good mind, lose only a little; one whose character has many desires will, even if he retains something of his good mind, retain only a little." A person of few desires, even if his good mind is somewhat lost, loses only a little of it; a person of many desires, even if his good mind is somewhat preserved, preserves only a little of it. Master Meng is speaking of the relationship between desire and the preservation of the good mind—a question of the mind's cultivation. Master Xun does not deny this level at all. In the fifteenth section he says, "though desire cannot be eliminated, the seeking of it can be moderated"—desire cannot be eliminated, but the pursuit of it can be moderated. To moderate one's pursuit is precisely to nourish the mind.

8.3.2 A Difference of Level, Not of Opposition

So the difference between Master Xun and Master Meng is not an opposition over "whether desire should be minimized," but a distinction of level over "where order and disorder reside."

Master Meng's "minimizing desire" is a requirement of personal cultivation addressed to the individual noble person. A noble person who has fewer desires will have a somewhat clearer mind. There is nothing wrong with this. Master Xun's "order and disorder" is a judgment about the order of the entire realm. It is not possible for everyone in the entire realm to minimize their desires, and order and disorder cannot be made to depend on this. There is nothing wrong with this either.

The fundamental point on which the two men agree is that both place the mind above desire. Master Meng says, "first establish what is greater, and what is lesser cannot take it away"—the greater is the mind, the lesser is the desires of ear and eye. Master Xun says, "order and disorder lie in what the mind approves, not in what the emotions desire." Both take the mind as master and desire as subordinate. The only difference is this: Master Meng speaks from the standpoint of cultivating the mind, urging the reduction of desire's interference with the mind; Master Xun speaks from the standpoint of the mind's judgment, holding that as long as the mind accords with reason, an abundance of desire does no harm.

As for the Most High's "lessening self-interest and minimizing desire," this is spoken from the standpoint of the Way. The nature of the Way is plainness, and for a person to accord with the Way is to be plain, and plainness means lessened self-interest and minimized desire. This too is a statement on the level of cultivation, not on the level of order and disorder. What the Most High himself says about governance is: "I do nothing, and the people transform themselves; I love stillness, and the people rectify themselves; I engage in no affairs, and the people prosper themselves; I have no desires, and the people become simple of themselves" (chapter 57). The Most High's governance relies on the ruler's own lack of desire to transform the people, not on the people's own elimination of desire. In this respect—that governance does not need to wait for the people to eliminate desire—this is actually rather close to Master Xun's own approach of "overseeing them with authority, guiding them with the Way."

8.3.3 The Way: Advancing, One Comes Close to Fulfillment; Retreating, One Moderates Seeking

At the end of the fifteenth section, Master Xun gives his own attitude toward desire: "Though desire cannot be fully satisfied, one can come close to fully satisfying it. Though desire cannot be eliminated, the seeking of it can be moderated. Though what is desired cannot all be attained, the one who seeks can still come close to attaining all of it; though desire cannot be eliminated, when what is sought cannot be had, the one who deliberates will moderate his seeking. As for the Way: advancing, one comes close to fulfillment; retreating, one moderates one's seeking—nothing under Heaven surpasses it."

Desire can never be fully satisfied, but one can come close to full satisfaction. Desire can never be eliminated, but the pursuit of it can be moderated. Though what is desired cannot all be attained, the one who seeks can still come close to attaining all of it; though desire cannot be eliminated, when what is sought cannot be had, the one who reflects will moderate his pursuit. The Way—advancing, it can come close to full satisfaction; retreating, it can moderate the pursuit—nothing under Heaven is better than it.

These lines state Master Xun's position with great completeness. He does not advocate eliminating desire, nor does he advocate minimizing desire—he advocates the Way. What is the Way$1 It is the mind's approval according with reason. When the mind accords with reason, advancing it can come close to fully satisfying its desires, and retreating it can moderate its pursuit. Being fitting whether advancing or retreating—this is where order truly lies.

This echoes the earlier statement that "even a gatekeeper cannot be rid of desire—it is a fixture of his nature; even the Son of Heaven cannot exhaust his desires." The gatekeeper cannot be rid of desire; the Son of Heaven cannot exhaust his desires. From the lowest to the highest, desire is always present. Since desire is bound to be present, order must be resolved on the premise that desire is present. The solution is not to annihilate desire, but to let the mind use the Way to judge one's seeking. When the mind judges by the Way, it makes no difference whether desires are many or few. This is the whole of Master Xun's position. It acknowledges human nature without being trapped by it; it neither overestimates people nor underestimates them. This is, precisely, a middle way.

9 The Way: The True Balance Across Past and Present

9.1 Balance-Beam and Weight

9.1.1 No Action of a Person Can Ever Be Without Weighing

The seventeenth section opens by saying: "In every case of a person taking something, what he desires never comes to him in pure form alone; in every case of his relinquishing something, what he dislikes never departs alone in pure form either. Hence no action of a person can ever be without weighing."

When a person obtains something, what he desires never arrives in pure, unmixed form—it always carries along with it something he does not want. When a person gives something up, what he dislikes never departs in pure, unmixed form either—it always takes with it something he wanted. So every action a person takes cannot help but involve weighing.

These lines describe the human condition with great clarity. There is no purely good thing in the world, and no purely bad thing either. Every act of taking or relinquishing is a choice made between gain within loss and loss within gain. Given this, a person cannot help but weigh things. The weight (quan) is the steelyard's counterweight; the balance (heng) is its beam. Every time a person acts, gain and loss must be placed on the scale and weighed.

This character quan (权, weighing, or discretionary judgment) is a major concept in Confucianism. The "Zi Han" chapter of the Analects records the Master saying: "One may study together with someone, yet not necessarily be able to walk the Way together with him; one may walk the Way together with someone, yet not necessarily be able to stand firm together with him; one may stand firm together with someone, yet not necessarily be able to weigh things together with him." One may study together yet not necessarily walk toward the Way together; walk toward the Way together yet not necessarily stand firm together; stand firm together yet not necessarily weigh together. Weighing is the highest level—the judgment made in the face of a concrete situation, after the Way has already been established. Master Meng says in "King Hui of Liang I": "Only after weighing does one know what is light and what is heavy; only after measuring does one know what is long and what is short. All things are like this, and the mind especially so." Only after weighing does one know light from heavy; only after measuring does one know long from short; all things are so, and the mind is especially so.

9.1.2 When the Balance Is Not True, the Heavy End Rises

"When the balance is not true, the heavy end rises, and people take it for light; the light end drops, and people take it for heavy—this is why people are deluded about light and heavy. When the weighing is not true, misfortune is concealed within desire, and people take it for good fortune; good fortune is concealed within what is disliked, and people take it for misfortune—this too is why people are deluded about fortune and misfortune."

When the balance beam is untrue, and a heavy object is hung on it, the beam tips up, and people take the object to be light; a light object is hung on it, the beam dips down, and people take the object to be heavy. This is why people are deluded about light and heavy. When one's weighing is untrue, misfortune hides inside desire, and people take it for good fortune; good fortune hides inside aversion, and people take it for misfortune. This too is why people are deluded about fortune and misfortune.

This metaphor is extremely precise. When a scale is untrue, it is not that the weight of the object has changed—it is that the scale displays it wrongly. When a person's judgment of fortune and misfortune is wrong, it is likewise not that fortune and misfortune themselves have changed—it is that the scale within the person's mind is displaying them wrongly. A misfortune remains a misfortune, but hidden within desire, desire tips the beam up, and the person takes it for good fortune. A good fortune remains a good fortune, but hidden within aversion, aversion presses the beam down, and the person takes it for misfortune.

This is why order and disorder lie in what the mind approves. The mind is the scale; when the scale is accurate, taking and relinquishing are correct; when the scale is inaccurate, taking and relinquishing go wrong. The fourteenth section says, "what the mind approves accords with reason"—according with reason is the scale being accurate. The seventeenth section expresses this same principle through the image of the scale.

9.1.3 The Way Is the True Weighing Across Past and Present

"The Way is the true weighing across past and present; to depart from the Way and choose according to oneself alone is to be ignorant of where fortune and misfortune are concealed." The Way is the accurate scale, unchanging across past and present. To depart from the Way and make choices purely according to one's own mind is to not know where fortune and misfortune are hidden.

This sentence supplies a standard for "weighing." Weighing is a scale, but a scale needs a basis for its calibration. What is that basis$2 The Way. The Way is "the true weighing across past and present," a scale accurate and consistent from past to present. When a person uses his own mind to weigh, if the mind accords with the Way, the scale is accurate; if the mind departs from the Way and "chooses according to itself alone," selecting purely by its own likes and dislikes, the scale is inaccurate.

The three words "chooses according to itself alone" (nei zi ze) matter. This does not mean a person cannot choose for himself—it means a person must not depart from the Way and rely solely on his own choosing. One's own likes and dislikes are the object placed on the scale, not the scale itself. To use the object as though it were the scale can hardly yield an accurate weighing.

The "Great Treatise" of the Book of Changes says: "Through compliance one carries out weighing." Compliance (xun) is yielding, being humble. To carry out weighing requires compliance—compliance with what$3 With the Way. Weighing is not arbitrary judgment—it is judgment that complies with the Way. Master Xun's "the Way is the true weighing across past and present" is exactly the meaning of "through compliance one carries out weighing." Weighing must comply with the Way, not with the self.

9.2 Trading One for Two

9.2.1 A Clear Ledger

The seventeenth section goes on to turn the principle of the Way into a matter of accounting: "In an exchange, trading one for one, people say: neither gain nor loss. Trading one for two, people say: no loss and some gain. Trading two for one, people say: no gain and some loss. The calculating person takes the greater amount; the planning person follows what is feasible. No one would trade two for one—the arithmetic is plain."

In an exchange, trading one thing for one thing, people say there is neither gain nor loss. Trading one thing for two things, people say there is no loss but some gain. Trading two things for one thing, people say there is no gain but some loss. Someone skilled at calculation takes the greater amount; someone skilled at planning follows what is feasible. No one would trade two things for one, because the arithmetic is plain to see.

These lines are utterly plain and down to earth. Everyone knows that trading one for two is a good deal, and trading two for one is a bad one. This is arithmetic that needs no teaching. Master Xun goes on to say: "To proceed from the Way is like trading one for two—what is there to lose! To depart from the Way and choose according to oneself alone is like trading two for one—what is there to gain!" Following the Way is like trading one for two—what is lost by it$4 Departing from the Way and choosing on one's own is like trading two for one—what is gained by it$5

This is Master Xun's mode of argument: he does not say the Way is sacred, exalted, and not to be violated—he says the Way is simply a good deal. Following the Way, one gains much; departing from the Way, one loses much. Everyone can do this arithmetic—why, when it comes to the Way, does no one seem able to do it$6

9.2.2 Trading a Hundred Years of Desire for a Moment's Grudge

"Yet people trade the accumulated desires of a hundred years for the satisfaction of a single moment's grudge, and still go ahead and do it—this is failing to grasp the arithmetic." To accumulate the desires of a hundred years and trade them away for a moment's fleeting satisfaction, and still go ahead and do it, is simply not understanding the arithmetic.

This sentence gives a concrete description of "departing from the Way and choosing according to oneself alone." When a person departs from the Way and chooses by his own likes and dislikes, it is usually for the sake of a moment's fleeting satisfaction. A moment's satisfaction is "one"; a hundred years of desire is "a hundred." Trading a hundred for one is a far worse deal than trading two for one. And yet people still do it, because they cannot work out the arithmetic.

Why can they not work it out$7 Because "the balance is not true." The moment's satisfaction is right in front of them, and the beam dips down, making it look very heavy; the hundred years of desire lies far off, and the beam tips up, making it look very light. The scale displays it wrongly, and the person comes to believe that a moment's satisfaction outweighs a hundred years of desire.

This is precisely "misfortune concealed within desire, and people take it for good fortune." The moment's satisfaction is desire, and misfortune is hidden within it. The person sees only the desire, not the misfortune. By the time the misfortune arrives, the hundred years of desire have already been forfeited.

9.2.3 Grasping the Arithmetic

"Grasping the arithmetic" is the key phrase of this passage. Master Xun repeatedly says "grasping the arithmetic" and "failing to grasp the arithmetic." To grasp the arithmetic is to calculate it clearly. The principle of the Way, in the end, is a ledger that can be calculated clearly.

This claim echoes, from a distance, the ninth section's "verifying actuality and fixing its number." Names must be able to fix a number; the Way, too, must be able to make its arithmetic clear. The number of a name is the count of actualities; the number of the Way is the count of gain and loss. Both require clear counting. Master Xun's thought has a strong quality of computability: everything must be checkable, countable, verifiable. Names are so; the Way is so; order and disorder are so.

This is not a demotion of the Way to mere calculation. On the contrary, it makes the Way something no one can escape. If the Way were only lofty, people could revere it from a distance and leave it alone; but if the Way is a good deal, no one has any reason not to follow it. With this ledger, Master Xun pulls the Way down from the heavens onto the scale, forcing every person capable of doing arithmetic to acknowledge the benefit of the Way.

9.3 The Metaphor of Traveling South

9.3.1 The Desire to Go South Is No Small Thing, and the Aversion to Going North Is No Small Thing

The sixteenth section offers a metaphor: "Suppose there is a person who desires to go south—his desire is no small thing—and dislikes going north—his dislike is no small thing either. Would he, simply because the south cannot be traversed to its very end, abandon traveling south and run north instead$8"

Suppose there is a person who wants very much to travel south, and dislikes very much traveling north. Would he, simply because the south has no end to be reached, give up traveling south and run north instead$9

This metaphor addresses the fact that "desire can never be fully satisfied." Someone might say: since desire can never be completely satisfied, what is the point of pursuing it$10 Master Xun answers: the south has no end—does that mean one should travel north instead$11 Desire cannot be fully satisfied—does that mean one should go and do what one finds hateful instead$12

"What people desire now is no small thing, and what they dislike is no small thing either. Would they, simply because what is desired cannot be exhausted, abandon the way of attaining what is desired and take up what is disliked instead$13" What people desire is extremely great, and what they dislike is extremely great. Would they, simply because what is desired has no end to be reached, abandon the path toward attaining what is desired and take up what they dislike instead$14

9.3.2 Approving the Way and Following It

"Hence, if one approves the Way and follows it, what could ever diminish it and bring about disorder$15 If one disapproves of the Way and departs from it, what could ever augment it and bring about order$16"

So, if a person approves of the Way and follows it, is there anything that could diminish it and lead to disorder$17 If a person disapproves of the Way and departs from it, is there anything that could augment it and lead to order$18

The meaning of these two lines is: order and disorder depend solely on following or departing from the Way, and on nothing else. Follow the Way, and nothing can diminish it—order is certain. Depart from the Way, and nothing can augment it—disorder is certain. The earlier metaphor of "traveling south" says that once the direction is right, however far one travels remains right; here it is said that once the Way is right, nothing can alter its rightness.

The sixteenth section opens by saying: "There is no one who does not follow what he approves and abandon what he disapproves. There has never been anyone who, knowing that the Way is incomparable, still fails to follow it." No one exists who does not follow what he approves and depart from what he disapproves. There has never been a person who knows that the Way is beyond comparison in goodness and yet still fails to follow it.

This line reveals Master Xun's basic trust in people. People will follow whatever they approve of. So the only question is whether a person "knows that the Way is incomparable"—whether he knows that the Way is the best of all things. Once he knows this, he is certain to follow it. Those who do not follow it do so only because they do not know.

9.3.3 The Wise Discuss Only the Way

"Hence the wise discuss only the Way, and everything the petty schools' cherished doctrines hoped for has withered away." So the wise person discusses only the Way, and everything the treasured doctrines of the petty schools hoped to achieve has come to nothing.

This sentence is the conclusion of the sixteenth section, and also the conclusion of the entire discussion of desire. Eliminating desire, minimizing desire, indulging desire—all the various theories about desire are, in Master Xun's view, "the cherished doctrines of petty schools." Each seizes upon one aspect of desire, believing it has found the root of order and disorder. Master Xun says: the root of order and disorder does not lie in desire, but in the Way; the wise discuss only the Way, not desire.

The "Way" here, brought down to concrete terms, is precisely "what the mind approves according with reason." The mind takes the Way as its weight, the Way as its scale; taking and relinquishing rightly, it makes no difference whether desires are many or few. This is "discussing only the Way." All the disputes about desire lose their meaning in the face of the Way.

This is also why the Rectification of Names, an essay ostensibly about names, turns in its second half to desire and mind. Because whether a name is rectified or not is, in the end, determined by whether the mind is rectified or not; and whether the mind is rectified or not is, in the end, determined by whether the mind takes the Way as its weight. Name, mind, and Way—the three form a single line. Name is the manifestation of the Way in speech; mind is the artisan-steward of the Way within the person; the Way is the ultimate ground of both name and mind. Proceeding from name to mind, and from mind to the Way—this line runs through the entire essay. And the Way, in this section, is rendered as a scale, a ledger, a direction. It is not something unreachably lofty—it is something every person capable of arithmetic, every person capable of recognizing direction, can understand. This is Master Xun's Way.

10 The Self Enslaved to Things, and Valuing the Self and Putting Things to Service

10.1 What Is Hidden and Difficult to See

10.1.1 A Chain of Links, Each Locked to the Next

The eighteenth section opens by saying: "Try to look deeply into what is hidden and difficult to see: there is no one whose intent slights reason and yet does not value external things; there is no one who values external things externally and yet does not carry inner anxiety; there is no one whose conduct departs from reason and yet does not face external danger; there is no one who faces external danger and yet does not carry inner fear."

Try to look deeply into these hidden and hard-to-perceive principles: there is no one whose mind slights reason and yet does not come to value external things; there is no one who values external things and yet remains free of inner anxiety; there is no one whose conduct departs from reason and yet remains free of external danger; there is no one who faces external danger and yet remains free of inner fear.

This is a chain of links, each locked to the next: slighting reason leads to valuing things; valuing things leads to inner anxiety; departing from reason leads to external danger; external danger leads to inner fear. Master Xun calls this "what is hidden and difficult to see." Why hidden$19 Because the relationship between each link is not immediately apparent. A person who slights reason does not instantly come to value things; valuing things does not instantly bring anxiety. But given enough time, this chain will surely manifest itself, link by link.

The starting point of this chain is "slighting reason"; the endpoint is "inner fear." From slighting reason to fear runs a path through valuing things, inner anxiety, departing from reason, and external danger. Master Xun traces out this chain in order to make people see: the root of inner fear lies in slighting reason. People believe fear is caused by external things, but in fact it is caused by their own slighting of reason.

10.1.2 A Mouth Full of Fine Meat, Yet Not Knowing Its Taste

"When the mind is anxious and fearful, then the mouth, though full of fine meat, does not know its taste; the ear, though listening to bells and drums, does not know their sound; the eye, though gazing on embroidered patterns, does not know their form; and the body, though wrapped in light warm clothing and resting on a smooth mat, does not know its comfort. So, facing the beauty of the myriad things, one cannot be satisfied by it."

When the mind is anxious and fearful, the mouth, full of rich, fine meat, does not know its taste; the ear, listening to bells and drums, does not know their sound; the eye, gazing on beautifully embroidered patterns, does not know their form; the body, dressed in light warm clothing and resting on a smooth, even mat, does not know its own comfort. So, facing the beauty of the myriad things, one cannot find satisfaction in it.

These lines bear a striking resemblance to a passage in the "Great Learning" (Daxue) chapter of the Book of Rites: "When the mind is not present, one looks and does not see, listens and does not hear, eats and does not know the taste." When the mind is absent, the eye looks yet does not see, the ear listens yet does not hear, the mouth eats yet does not know the taste. The "Great Learning" speaks of "the mind not being present"; Master Xun speaks of "the mind being anxious and fearful." Whether the mind is absent or anxious and fearful, the senses lose their function. Fine meat, bells and drums, embroidered patterns, light warmth—the beauty of the myriad things is all there, but if the mind is absent or anxious and fearful, this beauty has nothing to do with the person at all.

The Most High also discusses the five flavors and the five colors, but in the opposite direction. Chapter 12 of the Daodejing says: "The five colors blind a person's eyes; the five tones deafen a person's ears; the five flavors dull a person's palate." The five colors blind the eyes, the five tones deafen the ears, the five flavors damage the palate. The Most High is saying that things injure people: too many things, too beautiful, ruin a person's senses. Master Xun is saying that when the mind is lost, things go to waste: when the mind is anxious and fearful, no matter how beautiful the thing, it cannot get through to the person. The Most High places the responsibility on things; Master Xun places the responsibility on the mind.

This difference is no small matter. Because the Most High held that things injure people, he wanted people to keep their distance from things—"acting for the belly, not for the eye." Because Master Xun held that when the mind is lost, things go to waste, he wanted people to rectify their minds; once the mind is rectified, things can naturally be enjoyed. Both see that people are trapped by things, but the Daoist way out is to distance oneself from things, while Master Xun's way out is to rectify the mind.

10.1.3 Nourishing Life, or Selling One's Years$20

"Suppose one gets a moment's leisure and is satisfied for a while—then one cannot bear to part with it. So, facing the beauty of the myriad things, one falls into extreme anxiety; possessing the beauty of the myriad things all at once, one suffers extreme harm. A person like this, in seeking after things—is he nourishing his life, or selling his years$21"

Suppose one gets a moment's leisure and finds satisfaction in it for a while—then one can never again bear to be parted from it. So, facing the beauty of the myriad things, such a person falls into extreme anxiety; possessing the beauty of the myriad things all at once, he suffers extreme harm. A person like this, in his pursuit of external things—is he nourishing his life, or selling his years$22

"Nourishing his life, or selling his years$23" This question is extremely sharp. To sell is to trade away. A person pursues external things originally in order to nourish life, to live well. But when intent slights reason and values things, valuing things brings inner anxiety, and inner anxiety means not knowing taste, not knowing sound, not knowing form, not knowing comfort. The result of pursuing external things is the complete loss of the flavor of life itself. This is not nourishing life—it is selling one's years.

The phrase "nourishing life" (yang sheng) calls to mind Master Zhuang's "The Primacy of Nourishing Life" (Yangsheng Zhu). In that chapter Master Zhuang says: "Do good, but stay clear of fame; do wrong, but stay clear of punishment; follow the central meridian as your constant guide—this can preserve the body, keep life whole, nourish one's parents, and complete one's allotted years." Master Zhuang's way of nourishing life is to follow the middle course, seeking neither fame nor closeness to punishment. Master Xun's way of nourishing life is that the mind must not be anxious and fearful, for only then can things nourish a person. Both men oppose nourishing life through external things alone. Master Zhuang's "Mastering Life" (Da Sheng) chapter says, "nourishing the physical form is not enough to preserve life"—nourishing the body is not sufficient to preserve life, because life is more than the body. Master Xun says, "wishing to nourish one's nature, one endangers one's body instead"—wanting to nourish one's nature but instead endangering one's body, because the method is wrong.

"So there are those who, wishing to nourish their desires, indulge their emotions instead; wishing to nourish their nature, endanger their bodies instead; wishing to nourish their pleasure, injure their minds instead; wishing to nourish their reputation, throw their conduct into disorder instead. A person like this, even if enfeoffed as a lord or styled a ruler, is no different from a bandit; even riding in a carriage and wearing a cap of office, is no different from one who has no feet at all. This is called making oneself a slave to external things." So there are people who, wishing to nourish their desires, end up indulging their emotions instead; wishing to nourish their nature, end up endangering their bodies instead; wishing to nourish their pleasure, end up injuring their minds instead; wishing to nourish their reputation, end up throwing their conduct into disorder instead. A person like this, even if enfeoffed as a lord or styled a ruler, is no different from a common bandit; even riding in a fine carriage and wearing an official's cap, is no different from a person who has no feet at all. This is called making the self a slave to external things.

"The self enslaved to things"—these five characters sum up the whole passage. A person ought properly to put things into service; instead, he is enslaved by things. A person ought properly to be master; instead, he becomes servant. This is the final outcome of an intent that slights reason.

10.2 Valuing the Self and Putting Things to Service

10.2.1 When the Mind Is Calm and Content, Colors Below the Ordinary Can Still Nourish the Eye

The nineteenth section stands in exact contrast to the eighteenth: "When the mind is calm and content, colors that fall short of the ordinary can still nourish the eye, sounds that fall short of the ordinary can still nourish the ear, coarse grain and vegetable soup can still nourish the mouth, coarse cloth garments and coarse-strapped sandals can still nourish the body. A cramped room, a reed screen, a straw mat, a worn stool and mat can still nourish the physical form. So even without the beauty of the myriad things, one can still nourish one's pleasure; even without a position of power and rank, one can still nourish one's reputation."

When the mind is calm and content, colors below the ordinary can still nourish the eye, sounds below the ordinary can still nourish the ear, coarse grain and vegetable soup can nourish the mouth, coarse cloth garments and coarse straw sandals can nourish the body. A small room, a reed screen, a straw mat, a worn-out stool—these can nourish the physical form. So even without the beauty of the myriad things, one can still nourish one's pleasure; even without a position of power and rank, one can still nourish one's reputation.

The eighteenth section says that when the mind is anxious and fearful, even fine meat has no taste; the nineteenth section says that when the mind is calm and content, even coarse grain can nourish the mouth. Taken together, the two sections show that the beauty or ugliness, the goodness or badness, of a thing has an effect on a person entirely dependent on the mind. When the mind is anxious and fearful, the beauty of the myriad things cannot nourish a person; when the mind is calm and content, even coarse things and a humble dwelling can nourish a person. The thing is passive; the mind is active. This is "valuing the self and putting things to service": holding oneself as what matters, and letting things serve oneself.

10.2.2 Eating Coarse Food and Drinking Water

The spirit of this passage is entirely of a piece with the state attained by the Master and Master Yan (Yan Hui). The "Shu Er" chapter of the Analects records the Master saying: "Eating coarse food and drinking water, with a bent arm for a pillow—there is joy in this too. Wealth and rank obtained through unrighteous means are to me like floating clouds." Eating coarse food, drinking water, using a bent arm as a pillow—joy is present even so. Wealth and rank gained unrighteously are, to me, like drifting clouds. The "Yong Ye" chapter of the Analects records the Master praising Master Yan: "How worthy was Hui! A single basket of rice, a single gourd of drink, living in a mean alley—others could not have endured the distress of it, yet Hui did not let it change his joy. How worthy was Hui!"

"Eating coarse food and drinking water" is exactly "coarse grain and vegetable soup can still nourish the mouth"; "a bent arm for a pillow" is exactly "a worn stool and mat can still nourish the physical form"; "there is joy in this too" is exactly "even without the beauty of the myriad things, one can still nourish one's pleasure." The joy of the Master and Master Yan came not from favorable material conditions, but from their minds being calm and content. Master Xun spells out the principle behind this state: when the mind is calm and content, even meager things can nourish a person.

"If, being such, one is further entrusted with the realm, then one accomplishes much for the realm, and little for one's own private pleasure." A person whose mind is calm and content, if entrusted with the realm, will accomplish much for the realm and pursue little for his own private pleasure. This means: a person who values the self and puts things to service not only lives well himself, but can also govern the realm. Because he is not enslaved by things, he will never harm the realm for the sake of things.

10.2.3 Treating Things as Things, Without Being Treated as a Thing by Things

Master Zhuang's "Mountain Tree" (Shanmu) chapter says: "Treat things as things, and do not let yourself be treated as a thing by things—how then could anything ever burden you!" To treat things as things, without being treated as a thing by things—what then could ever burden the self$24 This carries exactly the same meaning as Master Xun's "valuing the self and putting things to service." To put things to service is to "treat things as things"; to make the self a slave to things is to "be treated as a thing by things."

Master Zhuang's "Mending the Inborn Nature" (Shanxing) chapter also says: "Those who lose themselves in things and lose their nature in worldly custom are called people who have things upside down." Those who lose themselves amid things, who lose their nature amid worldly custom, are called people with things turned upside down. This term "upside down" (daozhi) carries exactly the same meaning as Master Xun's "the self enslaved to things": properly, the person is master and the thing is servant; turned upside down, the thing becomes master and the person becomes servant.

Confucianism and Daoism are, once again, in complete agreement on this point. A person ought not be enslaved by things; a person ought to put things into service. The only difference lies in how this is achieved. The Daoist method is "selflessness," "forgetting things"—dissolving the distinction between self and thing at its root. Master Xun's method is "the mind calm and content"—settling the mind, so that things naturally come to serve the self rather than enslaving it. Daoism proceeds by dissolution; Master Xun proceeds by settling. The two paths lead to the same place.

The "Great Treatise" of the Book of Changes says: "Delighting in Heaven and knowing one's fate, one is therefore free of anxiety." Delighting in Heaven and knowing one's fate frees one from anxiety. Master Xun's "mind calm and content" is precisely this state of being free of anxiety. And the ground of being free of anxiety lies in knowing reason. The chain of the eighteenth section begins with "intent slighting reason"; the calm, content mind of the nineteenth section is grounded in the mind valuing reason. Valuing reason means not valuing things; not valuing things means no inner anxiety; no inner anxiety means the mind is calm and content; a calm, content mind means things can nourish the self. Run this chain in reverse, and one travels from "the self enslaved to things" to "valuing the self and putting things to service."

10.3 Verification

10.3.1 The Encounters Allotted to One Are Called Fate

Return to the last of the ten names in the second section: "the encounters allotted to one are called fate." Fate (ming) is "allotted encounter"—something one meets at a certain juncture.

This definition pulls fate out of the realm of mystery. Fate is not something fixed by Heaven, unchangeable—fate is an encounter. At this moment you meet with this thing—that is fate. It is contingent, it is external, it is not something you can determine.

The Master says, "One who does not know fate has no means of becoming a noble person" (Analects, "Yao Yue"). Master Meng says, "Nothing happens that is not fate; accept its rightful course with equanimity" ("Jin Xin I"). Master Zhuang says, "To know that something cannot be helped, and to accept it with the equanimity due to fate, is the highest form of virtue" ("In the Human World," Renjianshi). All three take the same attitude toward fate: acknowledge it, accept it, and do not let it change who you are. By defining fate as "allotted encounter," Master Xun turns this attitude into a name: fate is what you encounter—it is not something you can alter; what you can alter is your mind, your seeking.

This connects with the "Discourse on Heaven" chapter's "master the Mandate of Heaven and put it to use." The Mandate of Heaven cannot be changed, but it can be used. An encounter cannot be changed, but it can be met with the right disposition. The nineteenth section says, "even without a position of power and rank, one can still nourish one's reputation"—without power or rank, one can still nourish one's reputation. Power and rank are allotted encounter, are fate; nourishing one's reputation is a matter of the mind, one's own affair. Fate belongs to fate; mind belongs to mind. The mind is not thrown into disorder by fate—this is how "valuing the self and putting things to service" manifests itself with respect to fate.

10.3.2 Words Without Verification, Conduct That Has Not Been Seen, Plans That Have Not Been Heard Of

The final line of the whole essay: "Words without verification, conduct that has not been seen, and plans that have not been heard of—the noble person is cautious about these."

Words that cannot be checked, conduct no one has witnessed, plans no one has heard reported—the noble person is cautious about all three. This sentence closes the whole essay. The preceding nineteen sections have discussed names, disputation, mind, desire, weighing, and things, and in the end all of it comes to rest on a single character: ji (verification).

Ji is checking and examining. The ninth section says, "this is how one verifies actuality and fixes its number"—the essential pivot of instituting names lies in the ability to verify actuality. The seventeenth section says, "grasping the arithmetic"—the principle of the Way lies in being able to calculate it clearly. The eighteenth section says, "try to look deeply into what is hidden and difficult to see"—looking deeply is verifying those hidden chains. Throughout the whole essay, verification is everywhere at work. Names must verify actuality; explanations must verify reason; desires must verify the mind; things must verify the self. What cannot be verified, the noble person is cautious about.

This line also bears a relationship to the second section's "the encounters allotted to one are called fate." Fate is encounter, and encounter can be verified, because it has already happened. But words without verification, conduct that has not been seen, and plans that have not been heard of are things that have not happened, that cannot be checked. Toward an encounter that has already happened, the noble person accepts its rightful course with equanimity; toward words, conduct, and plans that cannot be checked, he is cautious and does not believe them. Taken together, these two attitudes form a person's basic stance toward the world: toward what is real, acceptance; toward what is unfounded, disbelief.

10.3.3 Name and Mind

Having read through all twenty sections, one can now look back at the essay as a whole. It opens with "the completed names of the later kings" and closes with "words without verification, the noble person is cautious about." The opening discusses where names come from; the ending discusses how words cannot be trusted without verification. In between, it discusses how names are fixed, how they are used, how they are verified; the grades of disputation; the distinction between desire and mind; the Way as the true weighing; and the self enslaved to things versus valuing the self and putting things to service.

On the surface, this content belongs to several different domains—language, politics, psychology, ethics—but in fact there is only one thread running through it: names must be rectified, and the mind must be rectified. Names are fixed by the mind; the mind is rectified by the Way. Once names are rectified, actualities are distinguished; once the mind is rectified, desires cannot fall into disorder. Name and mind are the two poles of this essay. Name is outer; mind is inner. Name is the manifestation of the Way in speech; mind is the artisan-steward of the Way within the person.

In this essay, Master Xun brings together the Confucian tradition of "rectifying names" with the Daoist insight of "valuing the self" and "putting things to service." He begins from the Master's "It would certainly be to rectify names!", passes through the place where Master Zhuang says "a thing comes to be so by being called so," passes through the place where the Most High speaks of "knowing when to stop," and finally returns to the place where the Master speaks of "eating coarse food and drinking water, with joy present even so." He does not stop at any single one of these masters, yet neither does he depart from any of them. This is the Rectification of Names. Its title is name; its destination is mind; its method is verification. Once the three characters—name, mind, verification—are understood, all twenty sections fall into place.