prevent) his burning a pile of firewood in sacrificing to the spirit of the furnace. Now that sacrifice is paid to an old wife. The materials for it might be contained in a tub, and the vase is the (common) wine-jar."
Section II.
1. The rules of propriety may be compared to the human body. When the parts of one's body are not complete, the beholder[1] will call him "An imperfect man;" and so a rule which has been made unsuitably may be denominated "incomplete."
Some ceremonies are great, and some small; some are manifest, and some minute. The great should not be diminished, nor the small increased. The manifest should not be hidden, nor the minute made great. But while the important rules are 300, and the smaller rules 3000, the result to which they all lead is one and the same[2]. No one can enter an apartment but by the door.
2. A superior man in his observance of the rules, where he does his utmost and uses the greatest care, is extreme in his reverence and the manifestation of sincerity. Where they excite admiration and an
- ↑ The text has here "the superior man," for which Callery has "au dire du sage."
- ↑ See Book XXVIII, ii, paragraph 38. What the 300 and 3000 rules are is very much disputed. The "one and the same result" is, according to most, "reverence and sincerity;" according to some, "suitability."
tablet of Hsî above that of Wǎn; and Wǎn-kung made no protest. Of the other irregularity mentioned in the text we have not much information; and I need not try to explain it. It seems to me that it must have been greater than the other.
