Analects 6.19: 雍也 (Yong Ye)
Confucius and his disciples · Classical Chinese original · new English translation and commentary by Text Atlas
Overview
Book 6 asks how character becomes visible in governing, learning, giving, and answering other people. Judgments of practical ability sit beside a refusal of office. Yan Hui’s love of learning, steadiness in humaneness, and joy under hardship are framed by grief at his early death. The short sayings test relations between substance and refinement, knowledge and delight, reverence and distance. The closing exchange moves from the achievement of helping the people on a vast scale to a nearby method of humaneness: using one’s own desire for a firm footing and progress to help others find theirs.
Analects 6.19
子曰、中人以上、可以語上也、中人以下、不可以語上也。
The Master said, “With people above average ability, you can discuss higher matters. With those below average, you cannot discuss higher matters.”
Commentary
philology A limit on what can be discussed “Ability” supplies the measure implicit in 中人, people at a middling level, and 上 marks both a higher level of recipient and higher subject matter. The saying sets a threshold for that discussion. The exact capacity, the higher subjects, and the treatment of people at the middle point remain unspecified; the passage does not say whether capacity can change.
Basis: textual-inference
Confidence: medium