'Confine yourself to simple statements of fact, shorn of all superfluous expression of feeling, and your risk will be small.'
"In trials of skill, at first all is friendliness; but at last it is all antagonism. Skill is pushed too far. So on festive occasions, the drinking which is in the beginning orderly enough, degenerates into riot and disorder. Festivity is pushed too far. It is in fact the same with all things: they begin with good faith and end with contempt. From small beginnings come great endings.
"Speech is like wind to wave. Action is liable to divergence from its true goal. By wind, waves are easily excited. Divergence from the true goal is fraught with danger. Thus angry feelings rise up without a cause. Specious words and dishonest arguments follow, as the wild random cries of an animal at the point of death. Both sides give way to passion. For where one party drives the other too much into a corner, resistance will always be provoked without apparent cause. And if the cause is not apparent, how much less will the ultimate effect be so?
"Therefore it is said in the _Fa-yen_, 'Neither deviate from nor travel beyond your instructions.
"Travel beyond your instructions," is literally, "urge a settlement."
"To deviate from, or to travel beyond instructions, may imperil the negotiation. A settlement to be successful must be lasting. It is too late to change an evil settlement once made.
"Therefore let yourself be carried along without fear, taking refuge in _no alternative_ to preserve you from harm on either side. This is the utmost you can do. What need for considering your obligations? Better leave all to Destiny, difficult as this may be."
It is passing strange that this exposition of the _laissez-aller_ inaction doctrine of TAO should be placed in the mouth of Confucius, who is thus made in some measure to discredit his own teachings. The commentators, however, see nothing anomalous in the position here assigned to the Sage.
was about to become tutor to the eldest son of Prince Ling of the Wei State. Accordingly he observed to Chü Poh Yü,
"Here is a man whose disposition is naturally of a low order. To let him take his own unprincipled way is to endanger the State. To try to restrain him is to endanger one's personal safety. He has just wit enough to see faults in others, but not to see his own. I am consequently at a loss what to do."