the use of gifts and offerings between host and guest, we have the utmost expression of what is right. Therefore when the superior man would see the ways of humanity and righteousness, he finds them rooted in these ceremonial usages.
19. A superior man has said, "What is sweet may be tempered; what is white may be coloured. So the man who is right in heart and sincere can learn the (meaning of the) rites." The rites should not be perfunctorily performed by the man who is not right in heart and sincere. Hence it is all important (in the performance of them) to get the proper men.
20. Confucius said, "One may repeat the three hundred odes, and not be fit to offer the sacrifice where there is (but) one offering of the cup. He may offer that sacrifice, and not be fit to join in a great sacrifice. He may join in such a sacrifice, and not be fit to offer a great sacrifice to the hills. He may perform that fully, and yet not be able to join in the sacrifice to God. Let no one lightly discuss
the subject of rites[1]."
- ↑ It is not easy to trace satisfactorily the progress of thought here from one sacrificial service to another. "The great sacrifice" is understood to be the triennial or quinquennial sacrifice to all the ancestors of the ruling House. It is a great step to that from a small sacrifice where only one cup was presented. What "the great sacrifice to the hills was" is uncertain. It is in the text Tâ Lü (大旅). The meaning of Lü as a sacrifice to the spirit of a hill is well established from the Analects III, 6. Once the phrase Tâ Lü appears as used in the Kâu Lî, Book V, 91, of the royal sacrifice to God ("Lorsque l'empereur offre un grand sacrifice au Seigneur Supreme," Biot); but it cannot have that meaning here, because the text goes on to speak of that sacrifice as superior to this. Kǎng Hsüan made Tâ Lü to be the sacrifice to the "five Tîs," or the five Planetary Gods, which view, as
