. And yet the people of the neighboring kings
do not decrease, nor do my people increase--how is this?"

Mencius replied, "Your Majesty loves war; allow me to take an
illustration from war. The soldiers move forward at the sound of the
drum; and when the edges of their weapons have been crossed, on one
side, they throw away their buff coats, trail their weapons behind
them, and run. Some run a hundred paces and then stop; some run fifty
paces and stop. What would you think if these, because they had run
but fifty paces, should laugh at those who ran a hundred paces?" The
king said, "They cannot do so. They only did not run a hundred paces;
but they also ran." Mencius said, "Since your Majesty knows this you
have no ground to expect that your people will become more numerous
than those of the neighboring kingdoms.

"If the seasons of husbandry be not interfered with, the grain will be
more than can be eaten. If close nets are not allowed to enter the
pools and ponds, the fish and turtles will be more than can be
consumed. If the axes and bills enter the hill-forests only at the
proper times, the wood will be more than can be used. When the grain
and fish and turtles are more than can be eaten, and there is more
wood than can be used, this enables the people to nourish their living
and do all offices for their dead, without any feeling against any.
But this condition, in which the people nourish their living, and do
all offices to their dead without having any feeling against any, is
the first step in the Royal way.

"Let mulberry trees be planted about the homesteads with their five
acres, and persons of fifty years will be able to wear silk. In
keeping fowls, pigs, dogs, and swine, let not their time of breeding
be neglected, and persons of seventy years will be able to eat flesh.
Let there not be taken away the time that is proper for the
cultivation of the field allotment of a hundred acres, and the family
of several mouths will not suffer from hunger. Let careful attention
be paid to the teaching in the various schools, with repeated
inculcation of the filial and fraternal duties, and gray-haired men
will not be seen upon the roads, carrying burdens on their backs or on
their heads. It has never been that the ruler of a State where these
results were seen, persons of seventy wearing silk and eating flesh,
and the black-haired people suffering neither from hunger nor cold,
did not attain to the Royal dignity.

"Y