1. The duke Ting asked whether there was a single sentence which could make a country prosperous. Confucius replied, "Such an effect cannot be expected from one sentence.

2. "There is a saying, however, which people have —'To be a prince is difficult; to be a minister is not easy.'

13. THAT HE BEPERSONALLY CORRECT ESSENTIAL TO AN OFFICER OF GOVERNMENT. Comp. ch. 6. That the subject is here an officer of gov., and not the ruler, appears from the phrase 从政; see note on VI. 6. With reference to the other phraseology of the ch., the 备旨 says that 从政 embraces 正君, 'the rectification of the prince', and 正民, 'the rectification of the people'.

14. AN IRONICAL ADMONITION TO YEN YEW ON THE USURPING TENDENCIES OF THE KE FAMILY. The point of the ch. turns on the opposition of the phrases 有政 and 其事也;—at the court of the Ke family, that is, they had really been discussing matters of government, affecting the state, and proper only for the prince's court. Conf. affects not to believe it, and says that at the chief's court they could only have been discussing the affairs of his house.不吾以,—an inversion, and 以=用, 'although I am now not employed', 与, low 3d tone.—'I should have been present and heard it.' Superannuated officers might go to court on occasions of emergency, and might also be consulted on such, though the gen. rule was to allow them to retire at 70. See the Le Ke, I. i. 28.

3. "If a ruler knows this,—the difficulty of being a prince, —may there not be expected from this one sentence the prosperity of his country?"

4. The duke then said, "Is there a single sentence which can ruin a country?" Confucius replied, "Such an effect as that cannot be expected from one sentence. There is, however, the saying which people have—'I have no pleasure in being a prince, only in that no one offer any opposition to what I say!'

5. "If a ruler's words be good, is it not also good that no one oppose them? But if they are not good, and no one opposes them, may there not be expected from this one sentence the ruin of his country?"