of goodness loses it [1].'
Second. The insisting on personal excellence in all who have
authority in the family, the state, and the kingdom, is a great
moral and social principle. The influence of such personal
excellence may be overstated, but by the requirement of its
cultivation the writer deserved well of his country.
Third. Still more important than the requirement of such
excellence, is the principle that it must be rooted in the state of

1 Comm. x. 11.


the heart, and be the natural outgrowth of internal sincerity. 'As a
man thinketh in his heart, so is he.' This is the teaching alike of
Solomon and the author of the Great Learning.
Fourth. I mention last the striking exhibition which we have
of the golden rule, though only in its negative form:-- 'What a man
dislikes in his superiors, let him not display in the treatment of
his inferiors; what he dislikes in inferiors, let him not display in
his service of his superiors; what he dislikes in those who are
before him, let him not therewith precede those who are behind
him; what he dislikes in those who are behind him, let him not
therewith follow those who are before him; what he dislikes to
receive on the right, let him not bestow on the left; what he
dislikes to receive on the left, let him not bestow on the right.
This is what is called the principle with which, as with a
measuring square, to regulate one's conduct [1].' The Work which
contains those principles cannot be thought meanly of. They are
'commonplace,' as the writer in the Chinese Repository calls
them, but they are at the same time eternal verities.