VOLUME III, SEMESTER 2, CHAPTER 23, SECTION 2
Merit Set Against Merit, Roads Apart That Come to One Home
Both uses are set out. This section sets them side by side and compares them stroke by stroke. Before comparing, set the rule straight first: one set’s core is loosed to the freest, one set’s core is the state gives the direction, these are two different cores, not one high and one low. This section compares merit only, the cost is left to the next. As you look, press down that line in your heart, which is better, for by the end of this section, you will find that line was asked wrong.
One. The first pair, from zero to one, against, from one to ten thousand
The first pair, look at the making of new things. That set of loosed to the freest is best at from zero to one: from nothing to having, out of a blank suddenly comes a thing never had before. Why? Because it can afford to lose: guarded strict, able to begin again on losing, and the daring are many, a hundred people venture, ninety-nine botch, one comes off, and that one is the zero to one.
That set of the state gives the direction is best at from one to ten thousand. A new thing has come up, still only that one machine in the laboratory, and to make it into thousands upon thousands, made fast and cheap, so the person in the mountains can use it too, this matter wants the strength gathered over and spread out in one breath. See clear: one is good at bearing that one, one is good at turning that one into ten thousand.
Two. The second pair, set the rule, against, be the engine
The second pair, look at doing business to the whole world. That set of loosed to the freest is best at setting the rule and building the frame: sea routes, ports, contracts, settlement, it first stood up this whole skeleton of cross-border trade, and only then could goods sell from this end to that, and this matter it did first, this is fact.
That set of the state gives the direction did another thing: it made the engine. What you wear on your body, use in your hand, set in your house, turn it over and look, how much of it is what this set made. It did not first set that rule, yet it became, on that rule, the machine best able to put out goods. One builds the skeleton, one is the engine, one person laid the road well, and another runs on it, and both sides are set moving.
Three. The third pair, allot money by finance, against, allot money by the state
The third pair, go back to the gathering chapter twenty-one spoke of: gather the little scattered in ten million hands into a sum that can do a great matter, this is the first thing this force does. Yet how to gather, the two uses differ.
That set of loosed to the freest leans on finance: bank, stock market, bond market, that money willing to risk, where return is high there money runs of itself, and this way is fast, and nimble, yet its short place chapter eighteen looked at: the hair grown thicker than the hide. That set of the state gives the direction leans on concentration: it gathers the money in first, then puts it out by direction, lays that railway that does not earn, brings power to that village in the mountains, and this way is steady, and long, yet its short place is that the money may be put in the wrong direction, and one putting is a great sum. One hands the allotting to the differential, one hands the allotting to people.
Four. The fourth pair, the rule steady, against, the direction steady
The fourth pair, look at a thing most crucial yet seldom spoken of: steady. Any great matter to be done many years, done by many people together, wants one thing: to let a person dare put in his money, his time, his whole life, and that thing is steady.
That set of loosed to the freest gives the rule steady: the law is written there, this year it is so, ten years on it is still so, and you dare to invest because you trust that sheet of paper. That set of the state gives the direction gives the direction steady: this direction is fixed, ten years unchanged, twenty years unchanged, and you dare to invest because you trust that road. Two kinds of steady, both are steady, one is the rule will not change, one is the direction will not change, and a person daring to stake his holding leans, both times, on this one thing.
Five. The fifth pair, rush up first, against, lift the broad face up
The fifth pair, look at whether the days go well. That set of loosed to the freest is most marked in height: it lifted the days of a part of people first, up to a height not had in thousands of years. That set of the state gives the direction is most marked in the face: it lifted more than seven hundred million people, from the bottommost layer, up all together. See clear the difference of these two things: one lifted the top higher first, one held the bottom up first.
Five pairs of comparison, set out. Step back and look at the five: from zero to one, and from one to ten thousand, build the skeleton, and be the engine, allot money by finance, and allot money by the state, the rule steady, and the direction steady, rush up first, and lift the broad face up. What is seen? The two uses walk two wholly different roads, yet the merit they make, landing at the last, is one and the same matter: to let a person live longer, eat fuller, come to read letters, travel farther.
Six. What this section set, crossing to the next
This matter, the ancestors spoke long ago in the Book of Changes.
All under heaven comes to one home by roads apart, reaches one point through a hundred cares, runs the line in the Book of Changes, in the Appended Words, the lower. The people of all under heaven walk different roads, yet the place they come to is one and the same, the ways in their hearts are a hundred kinds, yet the place they would reach is one only. Take these four characters, roads apart, one home, into your notebook: two roads, one home.
This volume never takes a side. Walked to here, this section likely makes it plain: taking a side, in itself, is asking the wrong question. It is not which set is better, it is which set, on which matter, walks the smoother. Yet a word of warning: this is only half the matter. Do not by any means be dazzled by these five handsome comparisons into thinking both sets are so good, each with its own strength, all happy together. The last chapter nailed a line: the merit and the cost are two faces of one and the same thing. Then behind these five merits there are five costs, pasted one by one on the back. The next section turns to the back. And it keeps digging, digging to the root the two frames’ costs hold in common, and that root is the deepest stroke of this whole volume.
Credit to the ancestors; the mistakes are mine: Tiger Lyon.
Section 3 Cost Set Against Cost, Digging to That Root Held in Common