INDIVIDUAL VIRTUE
55
Tzǔ Hsia also asked about filial piety. The Master said: It can hardly be gauged from mere outward acts.[1] When there is work to be done, to relieve one's elders of the toil; or when there is wine and food, to cause them to partake thereof—is this to be reckoned filial piety?[2]
Tzǔ Kung inquired about the higher type of man. The Master replied: The higher type of man is one who acts before he speaks, and professes only what he practises.
The Master said: The higher type of man is catholic in his sympathy and free from party bias; the lower type of man is biassed and unsympathetic.
A man without charity in his heart—what has
- ↑ Literally, "colour difficult." This famous sentence, a stumbling-block to native and foreigner alike, surely marks the extreme limit to which conciseness can be carried in Chinese. "The difficulty is with the countenance" is the lame translation offered by Legge, and later scholars have mostly followed in his footsteps, even Mr. Ku Hung-ming failing badly for once. Where all have gone astray is in taking the "difficulty" to exist in the mind of the would-be filial son, instead of being that felt by the onlooker who wishes to gauge the genuineness of the quality in others. Only a few months ago, a new and ingenious interpretation was suggested by my father, Professor H. A. Giles, namely "To define it is difficult"; but after much consideration I am led to prefer the rendering in the text, inasmuch as the word sê is quite commonly used to denote the external as opposed to the internal, form as opposed to essence.
- ↑ The answer of course is—No; outward acts do not constitute filial piety, unless prompted by a genuine duteous feeling in the heart.
