VOLUME VII, CHAPTER 4, SECTION 1
The Four Institutions as One: This World, the Whole, Has Only Four Faces
The last chapter made plain the aim of guarding the five, and pointed to the next layer: by what is it held? By four institutions in one place, sustaining one another, checking one another. This chapter is the high point of the volume, and lays that living mechanism down, straight on. This section lays the whole of it first. Culture, economy, politics, law are not four things each standing on its own, unrelated to one another. They are the four faces of this world as one whole, whole only together, and short of any one, no longer a whole at all. See this layer, and you see why the earlier volumes had to lay them one at a time, and why here the four must be seen together as one.
One. The Four Laid in the Earlier Volumes Were Four Faces of One Whole
Look back at the earlier volumes. Volume by volume, four institutions were laid. One volume laid culture: grow that heart, cure the old habit of tormenting one another, raise a person's character. One volume laid economy: make the yield large, return it to the public, so each person has a floor and none goes hungry. One volume laid politics: turn government to service, dissolve that power that seizes people, let it tend only the people's affairs and stand over no one. One volume laid law: light up the intent of the law, set a living measure that leads a person to keep himself in check, not a coercive power that seizes people. Four volumes laid, four institutions, one by one, raised up.
Laying them one at a time was something there was no way around, and it was bound to be so. Each face has its own reasoning, its own knots. Each face had to be seen clearly one at a time, each knot undone one at a time, before it could be laid all the way through. Speak all four faces at once from the start, and every face blurs, and not one is laid clear. So the earlier volumes laid them apart, each given wholly to one face, and laid that face's knots, that face's undoing, that face's living way, one by one, down onto solid ground. This is the dividing. But lay them long apart and an error creeps in easily: as if these four faces were truly four unrelated trades, each minding its own, the well water never meddling with the river. What this chapter sets out to break is exactly that error.
But these four, are they four things each standing on its own, unrelated to one another? Are they four objects of this world set out separately? No. They are the four faces of this world as one whole: as a thing has four sides, a body four limbs, whole as one only together, and taken apart, none of them is a thing that stands on its own. They are not four things set side by side. They are one and the same whole, showing four faces toward four directions.
Two. Why Four Faces, Not One More, Not One Less
Why exactly four faces, not three, not five? Because this world has exactly these four faces that differ at the root, and they must be tended apart.
The face of culture tends what is inside a person's heart: that heart that guards others, that turn toward being good to people or tormenting them, that character, that sense of "you and I are alike real humans." This face is the inner matter of every person in this world, where the root of all things is held. The face of economy tends what is in a person's hand and belly: whether there is enough, whether one can eat one's fill, whether one can live settled, whether one can be spared going against one's heart and harming others for a living. This face is the floor of every person's staying alive. The face of politics tends this world's common instrument: what government does and does not do, for whom it is set up, whether it holds that power that seizes people, whether it can turn to serving the people. This face is the matter of how this world, as one whole, runs. The face of law tends this world's bottom line: which things may not be done, which bound may not be crossed, where that living measure stands, how a person keeps himself, how people do not harm one another. This face is the matter of that bound between person and person.
Heart, living, the common instrument, the bound. These four faces are the four faces this world, as one whole, must have. Short one face, and there is a place in this world no one tends, and it is no longer one whole.
This division into four faces is not drawn from the air. It follows the plain facts of this world and falls out of them naturally. A person lives, and first has a heart, and the turn of that heart decides whether he treats others with closeness or with cruelty. This the face of culture tends. A person lives, and must eat and be clothed, and the fullness or want of his living decides whether he can hold that heart in peace. This the face of economy tends. People gather into a group and need a common instrument to tend the affairs of the many, and the turn of that instrument decides whether it guards the people or harms them. This the face of politics tends. People live alongside one another and need a bound, and the clearness or murk of that bound decides whether living together is settled or in disorder. This the face of law tends. Heart, food, group, bound: the four roots by which the human world is the human world. So whoever tends the human world must tend these four faces apart, not one face more, not one face less. Someone may ask, why not cut it finer? Cut finer if you like, but every finer cut falls within these four faces. These four faces are the coarsest, the fullest, the one layer of division that cannot be merged any further. So those who lay institutions all lay them by these four faces. Lift the head rope and the whole net opens, and the order of things is plain of itself.
Three. Short One Face, and the Whole Cannot Stand
Not one of the four faces may be missing. Try taking one face away, and you see how the whole cannot stand.
Culture without economy: grow the heart however well, but there is not enough, the person is in hunger and cold, and that heart cannot hold, and in the end he goes against it for a mouthful of food. Economy without culture: there is enough, but the greed, the reckoning, the thought of harming others in the heart have never been cured, and with surplus wealth he goes and harms others instead. Culture and economy without politics: the heart grown, the living full, but that common instrument still turns around and crushes the people, taxing them savagely, and that little bit of heart and that little bit of surplus cannot be kept. Culture, economy, politics without law: the heart grown, the living full, the common instrument back in its place, but with no bottom line laid clear, no living measure, the bound between person and person falls into disorder, and harming one another still rises up again. Of the four faces, take away any one, and the other three cannot stand whole. For this world to stand, the four faces must all be there, not one missing.
This layer is exactly why so many good laws and fine intents through the ages came to nothing in the end. Some set themselves wholly to growing the heart, speaking of morals and spreading teaching, and their effort could not be called anything but diligent. But they did not tend the living, the people were in hunger and cold, and the teaching was like water poured on sand, nothing kept. Some set themselves wholly to enriching the state, raising the hundred trades and gathering goods and wealth, and their results could not be called anything but plain to see. But they did not grow the heart, wealth full and virtue thin, and the surplus became the means of harming one another instead. Some set themselves wholly to putting the common instrument in order, setting discipline and making reward and punishment clear. But they did not lay the bottom line that guards the people, and that discipline slid easily into a tool for seizing people. Some set themselves wholly to laying the law, the clauses close and fine. But with the heart ungrown and the living not met, the people would not keep it and could not keep it, and the law, however fine, was a dead letter. None of these failed because that one face was laid poorly. They laid only one face and paid no heed to the rest, short three of the four, and so the one face, however well laid, could not hold up the whole world. See that not one of the four faces may be missing, and you know that the way of ordering the world was never in pushing some one face to the extreme. It is in raising the four faces together, each holding up the others.
This also answers a common question: since there are four faces, which is heavier, which lighter, which first, which last? The answer: the four faces have no heavier and lighter, no first and last. Short one, and the whole does not stand, just as with a thing's four sides, a body's four limbs, there is no saying which side matters more, which limb can be spared. Some prize culture, thinking that once the heart is set right, all things are put in order. Some prize economy, thinking that once the granaries are full, the people know the rites of themselves. Some prize politics, thinking that once the common instrument is clean, all under heaven is at peace of itself. Some prize law, thinking that once the law is clear, the wicked draw back of themselves. Each of these sayings holds one end, lifting some one face up as the root and taking the other three as the branches. Little do they know that the four faces have no root and branch to begin with. They are four directions of one and the same whole, not one of which may be missing. To hold one as the root and see three as the branches is only another face of the same sickness, short three of the four.
Four. Only With All Four Faces Is It One Whole
Turn it around. With all four faces there and joined in one place, the living mechanism of this world stands up.
Every person has in his heart that heart that guards others, grown (what culture tends), in his hand that floor so he does not go hungry (what economy tends), over his head that common instrument turned to service (what politics tends), and under his feet that bottom line that lights up the intent and leads people to keep themselves in check (what law tends). The four faces joined in one person's body: this is how this set of institutions looks when it lands on a single person. The four faces joined in one household, one village, one country, one age: this is how this world looks when, as one whole, it runs in peace. These four faces are not four sets of procedures unrelated to one another. They are four directions of one and the same whole. Only with the four faces each in its place and joined as one does this world stand steady and go far.
What must be seen clearly above all is that the four faces joined in one person's body are not four things simply put together. The four faces soak into one another, you in me and me in you. That grown heart must have the floor of a living holding it up before it can be kept grown. That floor of a living must have the common instrument guarding it and the law keeping it before it can be held secure. That common instrument back in its place must have the heart holding it up and the law reining it before it will not slide back into harming the people. That bottom line laid clear must have hearts willing to keep it and a living able to keep it before it becomes a living measure and not a dead letter. In one person, the four faces are one tangle, wound together, each the inside and outside of the others, not something that can be cut cleanly into four lengths. So when we say the four faces are one, it is not four added to make four. It is four faces woven together into one living whole.
Five. The Layer This Section Makes Plain: From Here On, Seen Together
This section has laid the four institutions down as four faces of one whole.
They are not four things each standing on its own, unrelated to one another. They are four faces of this world as one whole that differ at the root: heart, living, the common instrument, the bound, whole only together, and short of any one, no longer a whole. See this layer, and you know why the earlier volumes had to lay them one at a time: that was laying each of the four faces all the way through first. And you know why at this chapter they must be seen together: only by seeing them together do you see the living mechanism of that whole. But the four faces joined in one place, how exactly are they joined? Each minding its own, running side by side without crossing, or bound to one another more deeply? The next section first lays one layer: why laying one face alone is not enough, and how the four faces hold one another up and sustain one another.
Credit to the ancestors; the mistakes are mine: Tiger Lyon.
Section Two. The Four Faces Sustain One Another: No Face Stands Alone, All Four Hold Each Other Up.