Analects 15.34: 衛靈公 (Wei Ling Gong)
Confucius and his disciples · Classical Chinese original · new English translation and commentary by Text Atlas
Overview
Book 15 tests exemplary conduct under pressure: hunger, going unrecognized, bad government, and the pull of clever speech. Its sayings ask how learning becomes judgment, how humaneness directs action, and how ritual gives that action form. The portraits of unwavering straightness and timely withdrawal leave room for different responses to public disorder. Praise must answer to examination, and responsibility repeatedly returns to oneself. Short assurances sit beside difficult tensions about reputation and the cost of humaneness. The book closes with the Master guiding a visitor through a room, giving the call for consideration a precise human setting.
Analects 15.34
子曰、民之於仁也、甚於水火、水火吾見蹈而死者矣、未見蹈仁而死者也。
The Master said, “Humaneness is more vital to people than water or fire. I have seen people step into water or fire and die; I have never seen anyone step into humaneness and die.”
Commentary
ethics Stepping into humaneness 蹈 gives the same stepping image to water, fire, and humaneness. The book places this assurance beside 15.8’s willingness to sacrifice life for humaneness. One possible distinction is between harm caused by a course of action and death accepted to uphold it. That helps read the pair, but remains an interpretation: neither saying explicitly resolves the tension with the other.
Basis: textual-inference
Confidence: medium