wanted, she will not be far from it. A mother does not first learn to nurse a child, and afterwards contract marriage.”
When families are virtuous, the nation will arise virtuous; when families are yielding and polite, the nation will arise yielding and polite; when individuals are covetous and perverse, a nation will be reduced to anarchy. Such are the first movements of [political] matters. This is what is expressed by [the proverb] “one word ruins an affair.” One man fixes the state of a nation.
Yao and Shun ruled the empire by virtue, and the people imitated them: Kie and Cheu ruled the empire by violence, and the people imitated them. That which they ordered they did not like to do themselves; and the people did not obey them.
Therefore the prince must himself practise virtue, and then he may call on others to practise it. He must himself reject vice, and then he may reprove it in others. That what we adhere to ourselves may be bad, and yet we be able to command men that which is good!—We have no such doctrine.
