be as Assistants?'--Besides, you
are wrong in what you said. When a rhinoceros or tiger breaks out of its
cage--when a jewel or tortoise-shell ornament is damaged in its
casket--whose fault is it?"

"But," said Yen Yu, "so far as Chuen-yu is concerned, it is now
fortified, and it is close to Pi; and if he does not now take it, in
another generation it will certainly be a trouble to his descendants."

"Yen!" exclaimed Confucius, "it is a painful thing to a superior man to
have to desist from saying, 'My wish is so-and-so,' and to be obliged to
make apologies. For my part, I have learnt this--that rulers of States
and heads of Houses are not greatly concerned about their small
following, but about the want of equilibrium in it--that they do not
concern themselves about their becoming poor, but about the best means
of living quietly and contentedly; for where equilibrium is preserved
there will be no poverty, where there is harmony their following will
not be small, and where there is quiet contentment there will be no
decline nor fall. Now if that be the case, it follows that if men in
outlying districts are not submissive, then a reform in education and
morals will bring them to; and when they have been so won, then will you
render them quiet and contented. At the present time you two are
Assistants of your Chief; the people in the outlying districts are not
submissive, and cannot be brought round. Your dominion is divided,
prostrate, dispersed, cleft in pieces, and you as its guardians are
powerless. And plans are being made for taking up arms against those who
dwell within your own State. I am apprehensive that the sorrow of the Ki
family is not to lie in Chuen-yu, but in those within their own screen."

"When the empire is well-ordered," said Confucius, "it is from the
emperor that edicts regarding ceremonial, music, and expeditions to
quell rebellion go forth. When it is being ill governed, such edicts
emanate from the feudal lords; and when the latter is the case, it will
be strange if in ten generations there is not a collapse. If they
emanate merely from the high officials, it will be strange if the
collapse do not come in five generations. When the State-edicts are in
the hands of the subsidiary ministers, it will be strange if in three
generations there is no collapse.

"When the empire is well-ordered, government is not left in the hands of
high officials.

"When the empire is well-ordered, the common peo