Analects 17.6: 陽貨 (Yang Huo)
Confucius and his disciples · Classical Chinese original · new English translation and commentary by Text Atlas
Overview
Book 17 puts learning under pressure: Confucius faces invitations to serve amid rebellion, and students question his choices. A sequence on six qualities shows how even humaneness, trustworthiness, and courage can go wrong without learning. Poetry, music, and ritual recur as practices that shape feeling and conduct; polished speech and respectable appearances repeatedly come under suspicion. The mourning debate asks whether ritual’s duration answers to gratitude and grief as well as to public continuity. The closing sayings rank rightness above courage, make room for moral hatred, generalize harshly about women and petty people, and treat a person’s reputation at forty as settled.
Analects 17.6
子張問仁於孔子、孔子曰、能行五者於天下為仁矣。請問之、曰、恭、寬、信、敏、惠、恭、則不侮、寬、則得眾、信、則人任焉、敏、則有功、惠、則足以使人。
Zizhang asked Confucius about humaneness. Confucius said, “To be able to practice five things everywhere under Heaven is to practice humaneness.” Zizhang asked what they were. “Respectfulness, generosity, trustworthiness, diligence, and kindness. Be respectful, and you will not be insulted; be generous, and you will win people over; be trustworthy, and others will rely on you; be diligent, and you will achieve results; be kind, and you will be able to call on others to serve.”
Commentary
ethics Five qualities and their consequences Each quality receives its own consequence: respectfulness prevents insult, generosity gathers people, trustworthiness invites reliance, diligence achieves results, and kindness enables service. Humaneness is made visible in repeated dealings with others. The final outcome also places these qualities in a setting where one person can call on others to work.
Basis: textual-inference
Confidence: high
philology Generosity and kindness 寬 suggests breadth and forbearance toward people; 惠 suggests kindness or beneficence shown to them. “Generosity” and “kindness” keep the two distinct. 信 concerns being dependable enough for others to rely on, and 敏 is prompt, diligent action. These words describe conduct as well as inward dispositions.
Basis: textual-inference
Confidence: medium