VOLUME IV, CHAPTER 14, SECTION 3
What This Work Is, to the Reader Five Hundred Years From Now
This is the last section of the whole volume. Having walked the long road from a child given a name, through enfeoffment, the examination, and centralized authority, to the comparison of claims and the highest vision, one last question remains to answer: where does this book actually stand? Who wrote it? And to whom does it hand the word? This section is the close of the whole volume, and the close of the questions this volume opened.
Where does this book stand? The answer is clear and has been set firm several times through the whole Part: this book is not a continuation of the Western Enlightenment, and not a development of Marxism, it is a carrying-forward of what the ancestors said twenty-two hundred years ago. Its root is in China's twenty-two-hundred-year political tradition. Centralized authority carries on from Han Feizi, Li Si, and the First Emperor. The examination carries on from the thirteen-century practice founded in the Sui and the Tang, and from the ideal of raising up the able that Confucius, Mozi, and Xunzi set firm earlier. The will of the people carries on from Guanzi, Mencius, and Xunzi. Governing through virtue carries on from Confucius. Governing a great state like cooking a small fish carries on from Laozi. Writing both merit and fault, not flattering and not demeaning, carries on from Sima Qian. This book takes the political wisdom the ancestors set firm across two thousand years, plus the present-day experience of the running of countries the world over today, and compiles it into a textbook that can be handed to those who come after. This book does not deny the contribution of the great thinkers of the West of the past five hundred years, taking their work in a posture of humility as the starting point and reference of its study, but the root of this book is not there, its root is with the ancestors. This positioning has been set firm several times, and is set firm here once more at the close of the volume, so that the reader holds it clearly: what they read is not the continuation of some Western doctrine, and not the promotion of some ideology, it is the ancestors' wisdom of two thousand years, said again in the plain language of today.
Who wrote this book? Here this book states plainly. The one who compiled this book is a real person, born in the city of Guangzhou on the twenty-ninth of May, nineteen sixty-two, this book compiled under the name Tiger Lyon. This book is not the work of some institution, not the product of some think tank, not a task assigned by some authority, it is the independent compiling of an ordinary person, born of a lifetime's thinking and study, out of care for the common future of humankind, hoping to leave those who come after a tool for seeing the world clearly. This person makes no claim to be the founder of any thought, calling himself only a compiler, taking the wisdom of the ancestors plus the experience of today and compiling it into a book others can read. Why state one's birth and name plainly? Because this book must be responsible for what it says. It is not an anonymous work and not a collective work skirting responsibility, it is the independent compiling of a person with a name and a birth, willing to answer for every claim in it, an honest posture. This person also knows his own limits, his learning finite, his sight finite, his life finite, so this book surely has places said shallowly, crookedly, or wrongly, and these mistakes are all this compiler's, and have nothing to do with the ancestors, and nothing to do with those who carry the teaching forward after. This is the whole meaning of the line, credit to the ancestors, the mistakes are mine, that has closed every section of the whole book: what is right belongs to the ancestors, and the mistakes belong only to the one who held the pen.
To whom does this book hand the word? The answer may surprise you: to the reader five hundred years from now. Why five hundred years? Because the value of this book is not to be tested in the present. What the present can see is limited, the disputes of the present many, the passions of the present easily stirred, and to judge this book in the present is easily swayed by the standpoint, the interest, and the emotion of the moment. Only after the wash of five hundred years, the disputes of the present settled, the passions of the present cooled, the standpoints of the present faded, can it be seen clearly whether the claims of this book truly hold, whether its tools are truly usable, whether its vision is truly realized. This book is written for the reader five hundred years hence. If, five hundred years from now, the reader opens this book and finds that the institutions of enfeoffment are still the political institutions, that the examination is still running, that centralized authority is still a life-level law, that expansion is still the goal, that to leave the people is still to perish, then the claims of this book will have passed the test of five hundred years. If, five hundred years from now, humankind has truly neared the state of output greater than need and no torment, then the vision of this book will have proved a realizable dream. And if, five hundred years from now, the reader finds some claim of this book to be wrong, then correct it, and go on teaching, for this book has never feared being corrected, it fears only that no one carries it forward.
To the reader five hundred years from now, this book has a few plain words to say. First, whatever the age you live in, the several root things this book covers most likely still run, because they are not the phenomena of one age, they are life-level laws, and so long as human beings still form groups, still need positions, still need to select talent, still need a decision-center, these laws still hold. Second, if this book has helped you understand the world you are in, then the credit is not this compiler's, it is the ancestors', who set firm this wisdom twenty-two hundred years and more ago, and this compiler only carried it to you. Third, if you find this book of use, then carry it forward, teach it to more people, and go on thinking from where it left off, for the value of this book is not in itself, it is in whether it can go on being carried forward, generation after generation. Fourth, whatever age you live in, hold to two things, the tool of cross-domain centralized authority for seeing the world clearly, and the posture of laying out both sides for treating the world fairly, and these two things do not go out of date with the age, they are usable across the ages.
The book is done, and let a few last plain words close the whole volume. This volume, from a child given a name, covered enfeoffment, and covered that a position is lifted up from below by the group. It covered the examination, and covered that the person in the position is selected by merit through the will of the people plus the enlightened ruler plus merit selection. It covered centralized authority, and covered that a decision-center is a life-level law crossing every organized group. It covered expansion, laying out both sides and passing no verdict. It covered where this book stands, carrying on from the ancestors and handing the word to the future. Through the whole volume, one line closed every section, credit to the ancestors, the mistakes are mine, not a formula, but the deepest posture of this book: the good things belong to those who came before, the mistakes belong only to the one who holds the pen, and the future belongs to every reader willing to carry it forward. This book is a gift, free forever, for sale nowhere. How far it can travel is not decided by the one who wrote it, it is decided by one generation after another willing to read it, willing to teach it, willing to go on thinking from where it left off. If you have read to here, then you are already one of those who carry this book forward. Thank you for reading to here.
So here is the position this section lays down, and the position the whole volume lays down. This book stands with the ancestors, carrying on from what they said twenty-two hundred years ago, not a continuation of the West and not a development of Marxism. This book was compiled by a real person, born in Guangzhou in nineteen sixty-two, answering for every claim in it, its rights all the ancestors' and its mistakes all his own. This book hands the word to the reader five hundred years from now, its value to be tested after the wash of five hundred years, not by the disputes of the present. The real thing for the reader is: if this book has helped you, carry it forward, teach it, and go on thinking from where it left off, for the value of this book is not in itself, it is in whether it can be carried forward generation after generation. Here Volume Four, Political Institutions, comes to a close. The next volume, Legal Institutions, covers the guarantee of enforcing force, how the rules a political institution sets firm gain the force to hold, and how law secures that no torment becomes the social custom. Turn to Volume Five, and read on.
Credit to the ancestors; the mistakes are mine: Tiger Lyon.