1. The Master said, "Alas! there is no one that knows me."

2. Tsze-kung said, "What do you mean by thus saying—that no one knows you?" The Master replied, "I do not murmur against Heaven. I do not grumble against men.

35. VIRTUE, AND NOT STRENGTH, THE FITSUBJECT OF PRAISE. 骥 was the name of a famous horse of antiquity who could run 1000 le in one day. See the dict. in voc. It is here used generally for 'a good horse'.

36. GOOD IS NOT TO BE RETURNED FOR EVIL; EVIL TO BE MET SIMPLY WITH JUSTICE. 1. 德=恩惠, 'kindness'.怨, 'resentment', 'hatred', here put for what awakens resentment, 'wrong', 'injury'. The phrase 以德报怨 is found in the 道德经 of Laoutsze, II. 63, but it is likely that Conf. questioner simply consulted him about it as a saying which he had heard and was inclined to approve himself. 2. 以直, 'with straightness', i.e., with justice.—How far the ethics of Confucius fall below the Christian standard is evident from this chapter. The same expressions are attributed to Confucius in the Le-ke, XXXII. 11, and it is there added 子曰, 以德报恩, 则宽身之仁(=人), which is explained,—'He who returns good for evil is a man who is careful of his person.' i.e., will try to avert danger from himself by such a course. The author of the 翼注 says, that the injuries intended by the questioner were only trivial matters, which perhaps might be dealt with in the way he mentioned, but great offences, as those against a sovereign, a father, may not be dealt with by such an inversion of the principles of justice. The Master himself, however, does not fence his deliverance in any way.

37. CONFUCIUS, LAMENTING THAT MEN DID NOT KNOW HIM, RESTS IN THE THOUGHT THAT HEAVEN KNEW HIM. 1. 莫我知,—the inversion for 莫知我, 'does not know me'. He referred, comm. say, to the way in which he pursued his course, simply 为己, out of his own conviction of duty, and for his own improvement, without regard to success, or the opinions of others. 2. 何为其莫知子也, 'what is that—no man knows you?' 下学, 上达, —'beneath I learn, above I penetrate;'—the meaning appears to be that he contended himself with the study of men and things, common matters as more ambitious spirits would deem them, but from those he rose to understand the high principles involved in them,—'the appointments of Heaven(天命)', according to one commentator. 知我者, 其天乎—'He who knows me—is that Heaven?'

My studies lie low, and my penetration rises high. But there is Heaven;—that knows me!”