VOLUME III, SEMESTER 4, CHAPTER 44, SECTION 1

VOLUME III, SEMESTER 4, CHAPTER 44, SECTION 1

Pull One Out, and the Other Three All Sicken

The last chapter set coexistence: the four are all there, none can throw out another, none can stand alone to the end, and each must grow whole, not take a middle value that gets every one done to a half. But coexistence, said to the bottom, is still only being on the same ground together. Things on the same ground can be unconcerned with one another, each growing its own, well water not touching river water.

So this chapter asks a deeper line: is there any tie between them at all? Do they each live their own, or do they still feed one another? This section tries first the dullest and most forceful way: pull one out, one at a time, and see what comes of the rest. If the rest go on well after, then they only coexist. If the rest sicken one by one, then they are not only coexisting, they are living off one another.

One, where coexistence and common life differ

First pull these two words apart, lest the further we go the muddier it grows. Coexistence speaks of being there: all four on the scene, none has walked. Common life speaks of leaning: one can live well because the other three live well too, their good and their bad tied on one thread.

The first is like four shops on one street, each doing its own trade, none in another’s way. The second is like the root, the trunk, the leaf, the fruit on one tree, looking like four things, in truth one matter: the root rots and the leaves yellow, the leaves fall bare and the root does not live long, the fruit does not set and next year there is not even a seed.

The difference between these two ties matters. If it is only coexistence, then short one is no more than short one, the rest pass their days as before, each minding his own. If it is common life, then short one, and not one of the rest can hold itself apart, none may say this is no concern of mine.

Below we pull, one at a time, and see which side it falls on. No need to guess in the air as we pull, the pictures of the earlier chapters are all still here: that chair shop, that thirty-eight-year-old, that forty-year-old weaver, all can be taken up as a rule to measure by.

Two, pull out the rule of labor, and see what comes

First pull out the rule that measures what is put in. More done and less done come to the same, the one early and late and the one who sleeps till the sun is high take the same number at month end. The first few months show nothing, people still keep face, the work in hand still gets done. But by the third month that fastest cutting hand will first stop a while: the stock he turns out in a day is one and a half times another’s, and he takes the same. He is no bad man, and he does not mean to strive against anyone, he only cannot see why he should put out one and a half times another’s strength. Once he stops, the second and the third slow too, and the stock coming off thins by the day.

The stock thins, and the next to sicken is the other three, not one dodged. The rice in the pot is less, and the floor-under end is first with nothing to draw on, for what need shares is always the thing already made. The yield stops in place, and the one willing to stake the money to raise a shop loses his hope too, the stake with nowhere to go. Most of all the fourth: now someone will grow anxious for a way, and the least-effort way is to send down an order, forbid a man to leave, forbid a man to slow, hand out work by the head.

This layer is most worth holding: pull out a rule, and mostly it is not a grid left empty, it is the fourth rule filling in. The last chapter said four ways of standing alone had four ways of falling; here add a line more solid: force, that one, mostly does not grow of itself, it is invited up onto the stage after another rule is pulled away.

Three, pull out the rule of need, and see what comes

Now pull out the rule that measures need. Sick, bear it yourself; old, save for yourself; the child’s schooling see to yourself; out of work find your own road—none of it asked. The first year shows nothing, and on the account it even looks specially fine, for a great sum is saved and the number reported out is more decent than anyone’s. But the mind of the people shifts first: that thirty-eight-year-old dares not change trade from now, dares not fall sick, dares not want one more child, dares not try a thing without a sure hold. He saves his money hard, for he knows one fall and no one catches him.

One man thinking so is no matter; a whole street thinking so, a whole city thinking so, and the thing is wholly changed. No one buys in the shops, and the orders at the works thin with them. The ones willing to come out and open a new venture are fewer too, for a loss is the whole family gone under. That forty-year-old weaver no one catches, and twenty years on no one is willing to set down the old craft in hand and learn a new one.

So pull this out, and the sick are not only the fallen. The strength end sickens too, the stake end sickens too, the whole street slows. Here one thing can be seen clear: that floor-under share is not only for the ones dropped, it is a share of nerve for the ones still standing.

Four, pull out the rule that carries risk, and see what comes

Now pull out that man who cannot sleep at night. No one stakes the money, no one carries whose the loss is. The shop is no longer raised, the machine no longer added; a thing with no shadow yet no one is willing to put money down to try, every matter waits for another to move first. The strength of twenty-odd people is still there, the craft still there, but no place to land. The last section’s reasoning turned round holds too: the one who puts out strength must have work to do, and the work must be set out by someone first.

Next to sicken is the need end. Where does the rice in the pot come from? Grown out of the field, made in the works, come from that matter someone was willing to take a risk on first. No one willing to risk the new, and the thing thins year by year, and shared out, everyone’s share is only everyone’s little bit.

The last chapter said, this matter cannot be pulled out, it only changes who carries it. Truly pull it out, and that share of risk is still in place, only moved from one man’s ledger to another, and wherever it moves someone there must lose sleep over it. This section does not judge which way of carrying is better, it points one thing only: leave this grid empty, and the other three slow together.

Five, the fourth is not pulled out, it is watched or not

The fourth must be said on its own. The first three asked pull out or not, the fourth asks not pull out or not, but watch or not, and this layer chapter forty section three spoke of, with a word of measure: to the first three the word is cannot be pulled out, to the fourth the word is cannot go unwatched.

Not watched, what comes? It grows first in the least-noticed place: a contract forbidding a man to go elsewhere, a debt he cannot walk from, an order that only a few houses may make. When these first grow no one takes them for that thing, and grown full, the other three are pushed out one by one. The wage need no longer be reckoned clean, for the man cannot leave anyway. The thing need no longer be made well, for other houses may not make it. The floor need no longer be held in earnest, for no one dares speak.

So the fourth’s tie to the other three runs reverse: the other three feed one another, the fourth is the one most to be guarded against in this feeding of one another. Yet it cannot be wiped out, the last chapter said, that thought is in the human heart. This is the true shape of the four together: three feeding one another, one at the side always watched, and the strength to watch it comes just from the other three growing sturdy. The wage reckoned clean, the man able to leave, the floor able to hold, and that wall cannot be raised high.

Set these four pullings side by side, and one common place shows: the one that sickens was never the one pulled out, it is the ones left. Pull out labor, and the first to cry out is the one who gets no share. Pull out need, and the first to slow is the orders at the works. Pull out the risk-carrying one, and the first with no work is the one with real craft in hand. Every time, the ache is elsewhere. This is common life’s most vital mark: its account settles not on itself, it settles on the neighbor.

Six, the ancestors’ line: the two hold each other and grow

Pulled all round, the finding is plain: pull out any one, and not one of the rest can hold itself apart. This is not coexistence, this is common life. This thing Xunzi spoke best of in the Discourse on Ritual: let desire never be worn out by things, and things never be bent under desire, the two hold each other and grow. A person’s wanting cannot grow so great it burns the things away, the plenty of things cannot press a person’s wanting dead. The two ends prop each other, and grow together.

Hold each other, look at these two words close. It is not yielding to each other, not each stepping back a pace. To hold is to prop, two hands each pressing one end, butting against each other, neither falling. Two logs leant aslant against one another, look at either alone and it will not stand, leant in one place they stand steady, and the wind comes and they do not fall. This is called holding each other and growing.

The third semester set this line in the chapter on need, and there it spoke of wanting and things, these two ends. This section blows it up onto the four. The four rules are just these few logs propping one another: pull one log, the rest fall together; propped in one place, they stand after all.

Seven, what this section sets

What this section sets is a line: these four are not only standing side by side, they feed one another, and pull one out and the rest all sicken. Pull out labor, and no rice in the pot, and the fourth invited up. Pull out need, and everyone guards himself, and the strength end and the risk end slow together. Pull out the risk-carrying one, and strength has no place to land, and the thing thins year by year. Do not watch the fourth, and the other three are pushed out one by one.

The next two sections walk a little nearer, no longer pulling one at a time but looking two by two: first at capital and labor, then at labor and need. These two are the pair that bites tightest and quarrels fiercest of the four. Look at how these two make each other whole, and how they hold each other back, so that neither may walk to the end.

Credit to the ancestors; the mistakes are mine: Tiger Lyon.

Two, Capital and Labor: One End Puts Out Strength, One End Carries Risk