Tzu-hsing upon perceiving the weighty import of what he propounded,
"Please explain," he asked hastily, "the drift (of your argument)." To
which Yue-ts'un responded: "Of the human beings created by the operation
of heaven and earth, if we exclude those who are gifted with extreme
benevolence and extreme viciousness, the rest, for the most part,
present no striking diversity. If they be extremely benevolent, they
fall in, at the time of their birth, with an era of propitious fortune;
while those extremely vicious correspond, at the time of their
existence, with an era of calamity. When those who coexist with
propitious fortune come into life, the world is in order; when those who
coexist with unpropitious fortune come into life, the world is in
danger. Yao, Shun, Yue, Ch'eng T'ang, Wen Wang, Wu Wang, Chou Kung, Chao
Kung, Confucius, Mencius, T'ung Hu, Han Hsin, Chou Tzu, Ch'eng Tzu, Chu
Tzu and Chang Tzu were ordained to see light in an auspicious era.
Whereas Ch'i Yu, Kung Kung, Chieh Wang, Chou Wang, Shih Huang, Wang
Mang, Tsao Ts'ao, Wen Wen, An Hu-shan, Ch'in Kuei and others were one
and all destined to come into the world during a calamitous age. Those
endowed with extreme benevolence set the world in order; those possessed
of extreme maliciousness turn the world into disorder. Purity,
intelligence, spirituality and subtlety constitute the vital spirit of
right which pervades heaven and earth, and the persons gifted with
benevolence are its natural fruit. Malignity and perversity constitute
the spirit of evil, which permeates heaven and earth, and malicious
persons are affected by its influence. The days of perpetual happiness
and eminent good fortune, and the era of perfect peace and tranquility,
which now prevail, are the offspring of the pure, intelligent, divine
and subtle spirit which ascends above, to the very Emperor, and below
reaches the rustic and uncultured classes. Every one is without
exception under its influence. The superfluity of the subtle spirit
expands far and wide, and finding nowhere to betake itself to, becomes,