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Again, "Never has there been a case of a sovereign loving benevolence, and the people not loving righteousness," Mencius follows close at his heels and says, "Instances are on record where individuals attained to supreme power in a single state, without benevolence, but never have I heard of a whole empire falling into the hands of one who lacked this virtue."
If Chwangtse had lived before Mencius, or Mencius after Chwangtse, Chwangtse could have afforded to see Confucius in his true light, as Liehtse did; but the power and influence of the mind of Mencius were such that in his time there was no looking at the Master except through his glasses.
We cannot read Plutarch, without a tingling of the blood; and I accept the saying of the Chinese Mencius: "As age is the instructor of a hundred ages. When the manners of Loo are heard of, the stupid become intelligent, and the wavering, determined." This is the moral of biography; yet it is hard for departed men to touch the quick like our own companions, whose names may not last as long.
"Certainly," answered Mencius; "it is when ruler and people share each other's joys and sorrows that the sovereign attains to his highest dignity. Moreover, a ruler, when moving amongst his people ought to copy the ancient sovereigns.
As economists speak of demand as being effectual or ineffectual, similarly we may call the mercy of bushi effectual, since it implied the power of acting for the good or detriment of the recipient. Priding themselves as they did in their brute strength and privileges to turn it into account, the samurai gave full consent to what Mencius taught concerning the power of Love.
And how could it be ascertained whom Heaven had destined as successor if the existing dynasty was brought down? Mencius replied that the voice of the "people", that is to say of the upper class and its following, would declare the right man, and that this man would then be Heaven's nominee. This theory persisted throughout the history of China.
It was the Restoration that taught the people to use the "drum-backing" thunder as their messenger, and to make use of the railroad instead of the palanquin. It was the Restoration that set the earth in motion, and proved that there is no rabbit in the moon. It was the Restoration that bestowed on Socrates and Aristotle the chairs left vacant by Confucius and Mencius.
Finally, Mencius declared that for whatever evil men may commit, their natures can in nowise be blamed.
Mencius, in his reply, observed that the man who outrages every principle of virtue and good conduct is rightly treated as a mere robber and villain. "I have heard of the killing of a robber and a villain named Chou; I have not heard about the killing of a king."
The smaller feudal states had been swallowed up by larger ones, the princes were constantly at war with one another, and there was but little loyalty to the occupant of the imperial throne; moreover, the moral standard of things had lowered very much. At about the age of forty-five Mencius became Minister under Prince Hsuan, of the Chi state.
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