"
Tsz-chang asked how otherwise he would describe the learned official who
might be termed influential.
"What, I wonder, do you mean by one who is influential?" said the
Master.
"I mean," replied the disciple, "one who is sure to have a reputation
throughout the country, as well as at home."
"That," said the Master, "is reputation, not influence. The influential
man, then, if he be one who is genuinely straightforward and loves what
is just and right, a discriminator of men's words, and an observer of
their looks, and in honor careful to prefer others to himself--will
certainly have influence, both throughout the country and at home. The
man of mere reputation, on the other hand, who speciously affects
philanthropy, though in his way of procedure he acts contrary to it,
while yet quite evidently engrossed with that virtue--will certainly
have reputation, both in the country and at home."
Fan Ch'i, strolling with him over the ground below the place of the
rain-dance, said to him, "I venture to ask how to raise the standard of
virtue, how to reform dissolute habits, and how to discern what is
illusory?"
"Ah! a good question indeed!" he exclaimed. "Well, is not putting duty
first, and success second, a way of raising the standard of virtue? And
is not attacking the evil in one's self, and not the evil which is in
others, a way of reforming dissolute habits? And as to illusions, is not
one morning's fit of anger, causing a man to forget himself, and even
involving in the consequences those who are near and dear to him--is not
that an illusion?"
The same disciple asked him what was meant by "a right regard for one's
fellow-creatures.
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