s 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 people will cease to
discuss public matters."

"For five generations," he said, "the revenue has departed from the
ducal household. Four generations ago th