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德 Teh
Chapter 62

1. Tâo has of all things the most honoured place.
No treasures give good men so rich a grace;
Bad men it guards, and doth their ill efface.

2. (Its) admirable words can purchase honour; (its) admirable deeds can raise their performer above others. Even men who are not good are not abandoned by it.

3. Therefore when the sovereign occupies his place as the Son of Heaven, and he has appointed his three ducal ministers, though (a prince) were to send in a round symbol-of-rank large enough to fill both the hands, and that as the precursor of the team of horses (in the court-yard), such an offering would not be equal to (a lesson of) this Tâo, which one might present on his knees.

4. Why was it that the ancients prized this Tâo so much? Was it not because it could be got by seeking for it, and the guilty could escape (from the stain of their guilt) by it? This is the reason why all under heaven consider it the most valuable thing.

六 十 二 章

道 者 , 萬 物 之 奧 。
善 , 人 之 寶 ;
不 善 , 人 之 所 不 保 。
美 言 可 以 市 尊 , 行 可 以 加 人 。
人 之 不 善 , 何 棄 之 有 ？
故 立 天 子 , 置 三 公 , 雖 有 拱 ○ 以 先 駟 馬 , 不 如 坐 進 此道 。
古 之 所 以 貴 此 道 者 何 ？
不 曰 求 以 得 , 有 罪 以 勉 , 故 為天 下 貴 。

Key Terms

Observations and Comments

Legge Translation Notes

###, 'Practising the Tâo.' ###, 'The value set on the Tâo,' would have been a more appropriate title. The chapter sets forth that value in various manifestations of it.

Par. 1. For the meaning of ###, see Confucian Analects, III, ch. 13.

Par. 2. I am obliged to adopt the reading of the first sentence of this paragraph given by Hwâi-nan, ###;—see especially his quotation of it in XVIII, 10 a, as from a superior man, I have not found his reading anywhere else.

Par. 3 is not easily translated, or explained. See the rules on presenting offerings at the court of a ruler or the king, in vol. xxvii of the 'Sacred Books of the East,' p. 84, note 3, and also a narrative in the Zo Kwan under the thirty-third year of duke Hsî.