Section 36.1
Confucius said: “When names are not correct, speech will not comply.”
1 Now if you state that the nature is already good [at birth], is that not like saying that [people] should not be educated and should follow their natural tendencies? And also that it does not comply with the Way of Governance? Moreover, the term [“nature”] refers to the substance [of the nature] and the substance refers to [the nature] unadorned.
2When [the unadorned nature] has not been educated, how can it suddenly become good? Goodness resembles the rice kernel, and nature resembles the rice plant.
Although the rice plant begets the rice kernel, the rice plant still cannot be called a rice kernel.
Although the nature begets goodness, the nature still cannot be called good.
The rice kernel and goodness are what people inherit from Heaven and complete externally. They do not lie inside the sphere of what Heaven does internally. What Heaven does arrives at a certain point and stops.
What lies inside [this sphere] is called Heavenly.
What lies outside [this sphere] is called kingly education.
Kingly education lies outside the nature, but the nature must not fail to follow it. Therefore I say that the nature possesses the stuff of goodness but that it still cannot be called good. Who would dare argue differently, given that its inner substance is like this?
3What Heaven does stops with the cocoon, hemp, and rice plant.
Using hemp to make cloth,
the cocoon to make silk,
the rice plant to make food,
and the nature to make goodness—
these all are things that the sage inherits from Heaven and advances. They are not things that the unadorned substance of the emotions and the nature is able to achieve. Thus they cannot be called “the nature.”
One corrects [the time of] dawn and dusk by observing the North Star;
one corrects suspicions and doubts by observing the sage.
Whatever was named by the sage [Confucius], the world must consider correct. Delving into the words of the sage, we find that originally he said nothing about nature being good, but there is [the statement] “A good man is not mine to see.”
4 If the myriad commoners were by nature already capable of being good, how is it possible [that Confucius] could not observe any good people? Looking into the meaning of Confucius’s statement, he must have considered that goodness is very difficult to match. Yet Mencius held that by their very nature, all the myriad commoners were capable of matching it. He was mistaken.
The nature of the sagely person cannot be termed [human] nature in general, just as the nature of [people who are] “mere utensils” cannot be termed [human] nature in general.
5 The term [“human] nature” [denotes] the nature of the average person. The nature of the average person is like a cocoon or egg.
An egg depends on being incubated for twenty days before it can become a chicken;
a cocoon depends on being unwound in boiling water before it can become silk thread;
and [human] nature depends on being gradually steeped in education and admonition before it can become good.
Goodness is the outcome of education and admonition. It is not something that can be achieved by the unadorned basic substance. Hence one cannot say it is the nature.
[When referring to] the nature, one should be aware of what it denotes. It is what arises without being dependent on anything else. It is what people themselves possess at birth. What goodness naturally comes from is education and admonition alone; it is not from the nature. Hence,
a rice kernel emanates from the rice plant, but the rice plant cannot be called a rice kernel;
jade emanates from an unpolished stone, but an unpolished stone cannot be called jade;
and goodness emanates from the nature, but the nature cannot be called good.
If you consider this so for the vast majority of comparable things in the world, but not so for the nature, how can [this principle] not penetrate [all] categories [alike]? The nature of an egg is still not able to make a chicken; the nature of a cocoon is not still not able to make silk; the nature of hemp is still not able to make cloth; and the nature of the rice plant is still not able to make a rice kernel.
The Spring and Autumn distinguishes the inner principles of things to rectify their names. A name and its referent each must accord with what is true.
True to its meaning,
true to its character,
only then is it considered a [correct] name. Hence, when designating “falling stones [in Song],” the
Spring and Autumn mentioned the number five last, and when designating [herons] flying backward, it mentioned the number six first.
6 For this reflected the true situation. In the sage’s speech, there was simply no place for casual remarks.
7[Human] nature refers to the Heaven-endowed substance in its unadorned state. Goodness refers to the transformation produced by kingly education. Without the basic substance, kingly education could not transform, and without kingly education, the unadorned substance could not become good. If you rely on the basic substance to apply the name “goodness” to human nature,
8 the name will not be correct; consequently, it will not be accepted. [36/47/9–28]