The essence of government

The elements constituting the Heavenly way, are yin and yang. The elements constituting the Earth, are soft and harsh. The elements making out the way of Man, are humanity and righteousness. Yin and yang are combined to be the aerial essence of Heaven, harsh and soft together build the shape of all objects, and humanity and righteousness are the network for all human activities. This is called "the way". Therefore, the basic elements for government are rules and education, nothing else. Education is the transformation of yang, rules are symbol of yin. Humanity means, to be benevolent; righteousness means, to be adequate; ritus means, to follow the rules of the ancient; trust means, to keep shure these rules; wisdom means, to know how to act. Therefore, good and bad serve to clear those, joy and anger serve to make them present; sadness and gladness serve to sympathize with them. Thus, if the two extremes of education and rules will not be too strong, if the five virtues (humanity, righteousness, rites, trust and wisdom) will not be left, and if the six connections will not be confronted, the three realms of Heaven, Earth and Man will be in appropriate order, the five affairs complete each other, the hundred works will be correct, and all achievements will be peacefully and happy [...]

Honor and dishonor are the flowering essence of reward and punishment. Therefore, rites and education, honor and dishonor can be put upon a noble man to make his character better. Whip and cudgel are put upon a small-minded person to be a punishment for him [...] For the average man, a mix between punishment and ritual treatment would be best [...]

Reward and punishment are the two handles for government. A ruler who enlightens the rewards, must also use punishment, examine loyalty and carefully give orders. Reward is useful to encourage good people, punishment can be used to chastise the bad. The ruler of men should not recklessly make use of rewards; he would not only stick to his subject's abilites, but good people are not encouraged. And he should not precipitantly make use of punishments; he should not only carefully think about punishments, but really bad people will not be punished if he recklessly practises punishment.