Analects 8.9: 泰伯 (Tai Bo)
Confucius and his disciples · Classical Chinese original · new English translation and commentary by Text Atlas
Overview
Book 8 places personal conduct beside the use and relinquishment of power. Taibo’s yielding opens the book; praise of Shun, Yu, Yao, and Zhou closes it. Between these stands a sequence in Master Zeng’s voice, beginning in illness and extending to the lifelong burden of humaneness. Ritual gives qualities their measure, while poetry and music form a person’s response. Learning is tested against talent, salary, public service, and withdrawal. The book ends with Yu’s choices: little for personal comfort, full care for ritual and waterworks.
Analects 8.9
子曰、民可使由之、不可使知之。
The Master said, “The people can be made to follow it; they cannot be made to understand it.”
Commentary
politics Following and understanding The repeated 使 concerns making or getting others to do something. With this punctuation, 可 and 不可 contrast the possibility of securing conduct with the possibility of securing understanding. The English keeps that categorical contrast. The object 之, “it,” remains unnamed: a course of conduct or the Way may be meant. The saying leaves open whether the limit falls on the people’s capacity or on a ruler’s ability to bring them to understanding.
Basis: textual-inference
Confidence: medium
philology Permission and a different pause 可 can express permission as well as possibility; on that reading, the saying permits directing conduct while withholding understanding. Chinese Wikisource records a different division: 民可，使由之；不可，使知之. Read conditionally, this can mean: if the people are able, let them follow; if not, bring them to understanding. That reading moves the pauses from those in the displayed text.
Basis: sourced
Confidence: medium