Analects 7.27: 述而 (Shu Er)
Confucius and his disciples · Classical Chinese original · new English translation and commentary by Text Atlas
Overview
Book 7 builds a portrait of the Master through self-descriptions, conversations, and observations of his conduct. He loves the ancient tradition, learns through sustained attention, and teaches by asking learners to carry an indication further. Music, mourning, plain food, and illness show how these commitments enter daily life. Political judgment calls for knowing when to act or withdraw and for accepting criticism. Repeated disclaimers about his own attainment sit beside confidence in Heaven and the nearness of humaneness. The closing portrait holds warmth, firmness, respect, and ease together.
Analects 7.27
子曰、蓋有不知而作之者、我無是也。多聞、擇其善者而從之、多見而識之、知之次也。
The Master said, “There may be people who act without knowing. I am not one of them. Listen widely, choose what is good and follow it; observe widely and keep it in mind. This is the next best way of knowing.”
Commentary
philology The next best way of knowing The method combines wide exposure with selection: follow what is good in what one hears, and retain what one sees. 次 places this knowing second to something left unnamed. The earlier denial of knowledge from birth suggests an immediate or unlearned knowing as the comparison, but this sentence does not expressly identify the first kind.
Basis: textual-inference
Confidence: medium