| Prince and Minister: |
In the days of antiquity, before the time when there were princes and ministers, superiors and inferiors, the people were disorderly and were not well administered, and so the sages made a division between the noble and the humble; they regulated rank and position, and established names and appellations, in order to distinguish the ideas of prince and minister, of superior and inferior. As the territory was extensive, the people numerous and all things many, they made a division of five kinds of officials, and maintained it; as the people were numerous, wickedness and depravity originated, so they established laws and regulations and created weights and measures, in order to prohibit them, and in consequence there were the idea of prince and minister, the distinctions between the five kinds of officials, and the interdicts of the laws and regulations, to which it was necessary to pay heed. If, when occupying the position of prince, one's mandates are not carried out, one is in peril; when there is no constancy in the distinctions between the five kinds of officials, there is disorder; when laws and regulations have been set up and yet private notions of virtue are practised, then people do not stand in fear of punishment. When the prince is respected, his mandates are carried out; when officials have been well-trained, there is constancy; and when laws and regulations are clear, people stand in fear of punishment. If laws and regulations are not clear, then it is impossible to obtain from the people the observance of mandates. If the people do not observe the mandates, but you want the prince to be respected, even a man with the wisdom of Yao and Shun would not be able to govern well. The way in which an intelligent prince administers the empire is to do so according to the law, and to reward according to merit. It is the hankering for rank and emoluments that prompts people to fight energetically and not to shun death. The way in which an intelligent prince administers a state is to award soldiers, who have had the merit of making decapitations or of capturing prisoners, with such rank as will really give honour, and to grant them such emoluments as will be sufficient for them to live on and to farmers, who do not leave their ground, sufficient to nourish both their parents and to keep their family affairs in order. Thus soldiers in the army will fulfil their duty even to death, and farmers will not be negligent. |