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Confucianism -> Lunheng -> Ziran -> 4

Somebody might object
that Duke Huan knew Guan Zhong to be a wise man,
and therefore appointed him,
and that but for Guan Zhong
he would also have given vent to his displeasure.
使Meeting with men like Yao and Shun Heaven would certainly not have reprimanded people either.
I beg to reply,
that, if Heaven can reprimand,
it might as well purposely appoint a wise prince,
select a genius like Yao and Shun,
confer the imperial dignity upon him,
and leave the affairs of the empire to him
without taking further notice of them.
Now it is different.
Heaven creates very inferior princes,
who have no principles, and neglect virtue,
and therefore has to reprove them every now and then.
Would it not be afraid of the trouble?
Cao Can, a minister of the Han, was given to wine, songs, and music, and did not care about government.
When his son remonstrated with him, he gave him two hundred blows with the bamboo.
天下At that period there was no insurrection in the empire.
In Huaiyang people coined counterfeit money, and the officials were powerless to check the abuse.
Ji An was prefect then.
He did not destroy a single furnace,
or punish a single individual.
Quite indifferent, he was comfortably reclining on his couch,
and the conditions of Huaiyang became well ordered again.
Cao Can behaved himself,
as though he were not a minister,
and Ji An administered his prefecture,
as if nobody were living in it.
Albeit yet the empire of the Han had no troubles,
and in Huaiyang the punishments could be discontinued.
So perfect was the virtue of Cao Can, and so imposing Ji An’s dignity.
The majesty of Heaven and its virtue
are quite something else than those of Cao Can and Ji An,
but to affirm that Heaven entrusts an emperor with the government,
and then reproves him,
would amount to nothing less than that Heaven's virtue is not as exalted as that of Cao Can,
and its majesty not as imposing as that of Ji An.
蘧伯玉子贡使:“?”When Qu Boyu was governing Wei, Zigong asked him through somebody, how he governed Wei.
The reply was,
。” "I govern it by not governing."
– Government by not governing
is inaction as a principle.


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