First Reading of Chapter One of the Upper Xici: Heaven and Earth Take Their Places, and Virtue Is Formed Through Ease and Simplicity
A close reading of Chapter One of the Upper Xici within the context of pre-Qin thought, moving through the layers of Heaven and Earth, Qian and Kun, the firm and the yielding, image and form, change, ease and simplicity, virtue and achievement, and the taking of one's place -- to see how the Yi runs through the Way of Heaven, the Way of Earth, and the Way of Man.
XXXII. "Having Merit, It Can Grow Great": Greatness Is Not Momentum, but the Expansion of the Scope of Achievement
Only after there is merit can there be greatness; this sequence cannot be reversed. People of the world often seek great renown, great position, and great scale first, and only afterward try to make up the actual effect; the Yi, however, says that a matter must first have real, substantial effect before it possesses the condition for expanding into greatness. What cannot be accomplished in a small way, if suddenly magnified, will only magnify its flaws along with it. Only when one can rectify one's own person, harmonize one's household, and bring order to one's town can one gradually extend this further and wider.
"Can grow great" is not "must grow great." Merit provides the possibility, but one must still gauge the time and the configuration. A good policy effective in one locality must, when extended to the whole realm, take custom and terrain into account; a method of teaching that succeeds with one person cannot be applied to the multitude without first discerning their differing talents and dispositions. Kun's bringing things to completion respects difference, and so the expansion of merit cannot rely on mechanical duplication. Greatness must accommodate the multitude; only by being able to accommodate the multitude does it avoid losing its simplicity.
Master Meng, discussing how extending kindness can secure the four seas, cited King Xuan of Qi's compassion at the sight of a trembling ox being led to slaughter, demanding that this immediate feeling be extended to the common people. The logic here is precisely expanding from an existing sprout. It is not manufacturing a new benevolent heart, but letting the compassion already present not be obscured by outward voice and appearance. That one's kindness could reach an animal, and yet one's merit does not reach the common people, shows that the reach of the heart's function has been blocked by private opinion. Extend it and fill it out, and merit can grow great.
Master Xun's emphasis on accumulation is likewise a matter of small becoming great. An individual's accumulated practice of ritual propriety and righteousness forms virtuous character; the multitude, each holding to their proper share and righteousness, forms an age of order. Greatness does not descend from Heaven, but is the convergence of countless small actions within institutions and moral instruction. A mountain is built from accumulated earth, the sea from accumulated water, and a state's order, likewise, from the accumulation of countless everyday acts of fairness, trustworthiness, and diligent labor. To see only the great decisions of great figures, and not the small merits of the multitude, is not to understand the Way of Kun.
The Most High said, "The sage never strives to be great, and thereby is able to accomplish his greatness." Not striving to be great means not first claiming a great name for oneself, not pressing down the small with the great; and it is precisely because he does not contend, does not harm the multitude of things, that he is instead able to accomplish greatness. That the rivers and seas, being good at lying below, become king of the hundred valleys, likewise accomplishes their vastness through accommodation. The Yi's "having merit, it can grow great" communicates with this: greatness is the result of achievement naturally expanding, not a posture of self-aggrandizement.
Great political achievement should be measured by the people's livelihood, not by figures of territory. If the land grows broader while the people grow more impoverished, this cannot be called great merely because it is broad; if the treasury grows richer while the countryside withers, this cannot be called achievement merely because it is rich. A truly great undertaking is one that lets more people be nourished, more relations be set right, and more kinds of things fulfill themselves. If greatness departs from the completion of things, it retains only outward appearance.
Nor need an individual mistake the possibility of greatness for a requirement that everyone occupy a high position. A person who, in his own place, fully carries out his human relations and duties, so that those around him benefit, has already achieved merit; his conduct can move others, and his virtue can be transmitted to later students -- and this already holds the possibility of greatness. Greatness is measured not only by the scope covered by power, but also by whether one's righteousness and principle penetrate through time. Many worthy people of antiquity never attained high position in their whole lives, and yet their words and conduct have been transmitted for a long time -- this is precisely the greatness of virtue and achievement.