VOLUME III, SEMESTER 4, CHAPTER 51, SECTION 3
Missing One Fails to Form a World, Fails to Form a System, and Fails to Form Proper Order
At the beginning of this semester a line was established, left standing there without being unpacked and explained. This section unpacks it. That line reads: missing one fails to form a world, fails to form a system, and fails to form proper order. Reading it for the first time, it is easy to take it as saying one line three times, with three "fails" sounding merely like added emphasis. Yet looking closely reveals it is not: these three failures address three distinct matters, each deeper than the last. This section brings them down to solid ground line by line, while also bringing this entire diagram to a close.
1. The First Line: Fails to Form a World
Failing to form a world addresses human persons. Missing a single item leaves human persons unable to go on living. Missing that scale measuring need, those who are first unable to go on living are infants and the elderly. Chapter 42 counted through this: for nearly half of a person's life, relying on one's own exertion leaves one unable to survive; during that half of life, it is not a matter of lacking dignity or living tightly, but of being unable to live at all. That forty-year-old weaver is the same: when cloth cannot be sold, output is zero while expenses do not lessen by a single cent; if no one catches him, he falls down, and the child's tuition along with the elderly person's medicine cause the entire family to fall down together.
Missing that scale measuring contribution, those who are unable to go on living are people willing to exert effort. When doing more or doing less yields the exact same outcome, it is not merely that he is angry, but that he works in vain; working in vain for several months leaves his family's living tight, and working in vain for another half year leads him to stop exerting that extra bit of effort altogether.
Missing that scale measuring risk, those who are unable to go on living are skilled artisans: with no one building factory floors or acquiring machinery, his full set of skills finds no place to be applied. And if the fourth scale grows without anyone watching it, the one unable to go on living is the person unable to walk away: the person nailed to the spot by a single contract and a single debt, knowing clearly it is wrong yet daring not lift a foot.
Therefore, this first line is the most solid and the heaviest: failing to form a world simply means some people cannot go on living. Those three conditions in the previous section stem precisely from here.
2. The Second Line: Fails to Form a System
Failing to form a system addresses affairs. Missing a single item leaves affairs unable to be accomplished. This line goes a layer deeper than the first. The first line spoke of people suffering, whereas the second line speaks of the entire setup failing to turn; when it fails to turn, even those whose days are passable and who suffer no hardship find the affairs in their hands equally impossible to accomplish.
Section 44 spent an entire chapter explaining precisely this. Drawing away that scale measuring contribution causes output to lessen day by day; with no rice in the pot, that safety net end has no place to settle, and those willing to contribute capital lose hope as well. Drawing away that scale measuring need causes everyone to protect themselves, hoarding money tightly; with no one buying goods in shops, orders for factories lessen in turn. Drawing away that scale measuring risk leaves exertion with no place to land, causing goods to diminish year by year.
The four items are several gears interlocking together, not four items laid side by side. Lacking one leaves the others spinning in place: spinning loudly and looking very busy, yet able to drive nothing forward. That line from Chapter 44 can be stated once more: the pain never resides in the single item drawn away, but in those remaining items left behind.
Therefore, the second line asks not who suffers, but whether this setup can still turn. When it fails to turn, often everyone is busy, everyone is exhausted, meeting follows meeting, yet affairs simply cannot be accomplished, with no one able to explain clearly where things are stuck.
3. The Third Line: Fails to Form Proper Order
Failing to form proper order addresses the yardstick. Missing a single item leaves people not knowing what rule to act upon. This line is the deepest, and also most easily treated as mere pleasantry. The term proper order speaks not of grand display nor rigid discipline; it speaks of that set of publicly recognized "shoulds and should-nots" in a place—what matters may be done, what matters may not be done, what counts as dignified, what counts as shameful, and what kind of person commands genuine respect.
Chapter 50 spoke of those few lines: debts of gratitude must be repaid, words spoken must count, and taking unfair advantage is unseemly. These few lines are precisely what proper order looks like upon a person. Yet these few lines grow out of daily affairs. If in a place those willing to exert effort suffer losses, those willing to keep agreements suffer losses, and those willing to speak the truth suffer losses, then these few lines become unable to stand firm year by year: it is not that people suddenly turn bad, nor that this generation falls short of the previous one, but that those acting according to those few lines suffer losses time after time—until later on, they cannot bring themselves to say those words when teaching their own children.
Reaching that step, the most unsightly matter appears: rules remain on paper, accounts remain, and tables remain set up, yet that yardstick inside human hearts is gone. People handling matters no longer ask whether it is right or wrong, asking only whether it is worthwhile, whether they will be caught, and whether others are doing it. Chapter 45 spoke of identity without harmony, where smooth agreement reigns on top of the table while divergence moves entirely under the table; failing to form proper order goes a layer lower than even that.
Therefore, these three lines form three layers moving from shallow to deep: the first line is people being unable to live on, the second line is affairs being impossible to accomplish, and the third line is people not knowing what rule to act upon. The first two lines can still be saved by adding a sum of money or amending a rule, showing results in three to five years if done quickly; once the third line breaks, neither money nor rules can mend it, requiring generation after generation to carve it back out.
These three lines also hold an essential order: they deteriorate following this sequence, and must be repaired in reverse sequence. First comes people being unable to live on, followed by affairs failing to be accomplished item by item, and finally those few lines becoming unable to stand firm. Therefore, action ought to be taken the moment trouble appears in the first spot, when it is cheapest; by the time the third line breaks, the first two lines have actually been rotting for a long time. Chapter 50 stated that mechanisms enable willing people to avoid suffering losses; only willingness that suffers no loss can be passed down. This line is seen most clearly when viewed from here.
4. Harmony Without Identity Concludes Here
This entire diagram finally closes upon those six words of Confucius: the noble person seeks harmony without identity. These six words have been used throughout the preceding chapters, and can be laid out completely here. The four scales are completely distinct, and even sharply contradictory: one says those who do not work shall not eat, while another says asking not of labor; one requires someone to bear who pays if money is lost, while another requires that someone have a refuge without bearing anything. They are not four points along a single line, but four distinct matters.
Yet they can reach harmony. Reaching harmony requires three conditions, which have been established chapter by chapter this semester. The first is individual completeness, established in Chapter 43: wage tables must be genuinely distinct, safety nets must genuinely catch, capital must be genuinely obtainable, and that wall must be genuinely watched; accomplishing half of all four matters is no harmony, but a pot of watering down water with water.
The second is keeping to individual boundaries, established in Chapter 45: making no decisions on behalf of the other side, and stepping back when overstepping. The third is requiring human willingness to maintain, established in Chapter 50: what fills the seam is human willingness, and that bit of willingness grows upon that patch of soil.
When all three conditions are present, the four scales can reach harmony; missing one turns them either into identity or into dispersion. Turning into identity compresses all four scales into one, leaving only a single voice at the table; turning into dispersion leaves all four scales acting independently, caring for no one else, and collapsing item by item in the end.
5. This Diagram Judges No Hierarchy Nor Does It Promise
Before closing the diagram, two more lines must be made clear, which serve as the rules of this entire set of books. The first line: this diagram judges no hierarchy. The four scales hold no ranking of seats, established once in Chapter 40 and established again in Chapter 43; it is forbidden to quietly elevate distribution according to need to the highest, final, and best item, nor is it permitted to label capital a necessary evil or servitude an inherent badness. Four scales, four positions, each measuring its own affair and keeping to its own boundary. This line must be especially maintained when closing the diagram, because when drawing a diagram to its end, it is easiest to casually rank a hierarchy and place one's own favored item at the very top.
The second line: this diagram makes no promises. What has been discussed from beginning to end this semester is what has already occurred and what is currently occurring: the morning of a factory floor, a person's day and entire life, that dispute two thousand one hundred years ago, that stone and that machine, and that company making photographic film. It discusses how these four items gather together today, how they nourish each other, and how they push against each other. As for where these four items will lead hereafter, or whether they will grow into another form one day, that falls outside the station of this volume. Chapter 49 stated that when not in that position, one does not deliberate on those policies; a volume of a book functions the same way.
Therefore, this diagram is a diagram of today. It guarantees no tomorrow, nor does it sketch out a template for tomorrow. It performs a single task: letting the reader see clearly where he stands today.
6. The Layer Established in This Section, Serving Also as the Close of This Chapter
What this section establishes clearly are those three lines: failing to form a world means people cannot go on living; failing to form a system means affairs cannot be accomplished; failing to form proper order means people know not what rule to act upon. Each line goes deeper than the last—the first two lines can still be saved, but once the third line breaks, it takes a whole generation to carve it out anew.
This entire diagram closes upon harmony without identity: the four scales are distinct and even contradictory, yet they can reach harmony; reaching harmony requires three conditions—individual completeness, keeping to individual boundaries, and requiring human willingness to maintain. Lacking one leads either to dispersion or to identity.
This chapter closes the diagram. Turning back to look after closing, every single line established this semester grows out from the morning of that factory floor in Chapter 40: four scales running simultaneously, each measuring its own affair, none able to replace another, and none superior to another.
The diagram is closed, yet this volume is not yet concluded. The next chapter is the final chapter of this volume, serving also as the closing chapter for all four semesters: where that portion with no clear origin ought ultimately to be assigned; and when the four scales are placed in position, who comes to draw that boundary. Having reached this point in this volume, it is time to submit it upward—submitting it to Volume IV, Political Institutions, and to that single word that sustains everything.
Credit to the ancestors; the mistakes are mine: Tiger Lyon.
Chapter 52: Closing the Volume: Handing Over to That Word Feng