VOLUME VII, CHAPTER 5
The Living Mechanism, Its Charge and Its Homecoming, Back to the Human World
The last chapter set firm the bone of this living mechanism of the four institutions: the four faces join into one whole, sustain one another, and also check one another. With the bone standing, something weightier must still be asked: once this mechanism stands, what, in the end, is it for? The mechanism is the form, the charge is the spirit; once the form stands, the spirit in it must still be named. Once the spirit is named, it must also come down to solid ground, fall back into the plain days of one living person after another. The three sections of this chapter turn from the bone of the institution to its spirit, and then fall back into the days of living people. First, the charge: the true charge of this living mechanism of the four institutions lies in guarding that root, guarding the five, putting the tool back in its place. Then, the homecoming: all the lawmaking along the road must in the end fall back into the smoke and warmth of the human world, a meal and a dish, a dawn and a dusk; this is called going back to the human world. Last, how people treat one another: real humans, back in the human world, are kind to one another, help one another, respect one another, doing what the tool can never do.
Section One first breaks an error that comes easily: a fine mechanism stands, and people's eyes easily rest on the mechanism itself, marveling only at how close-wrought it is. But this mechanism is not laid for its own close work. The four faces stand apart so as to guard, each on its own, the survival of the five at four places: the heart, the living, the common instrument, the line. They sustain one another so as to hold up, together, the whole growth of the five. They check one another so that no one face grows large enough to turn around and crush the five. To guard the five is to guard the thread of life that makes a person a person; to put the tool back is to guard the ground where that thread of life can go on; the two are two faces of one thing. And the four faces each bear a stretch of the charge: culture grows, economy floors, politics keeps the seats, law lays the line. This section uses two likenesses: all the fine reckoning of a bridge is for carrying people across the river; a ruler that forgets it was for measuring things and setting a line may be taken up as a thing to beat people with. The form remains and the spirit is lost, and an institution for protecting the people can turn into a means of harassing them. So whoever holds this mechanism must ask himself at every turn: does what I do still guard the five, do I still keep the real human's places?
Section Two lays out straight the three words, back to the human world. The earlier volumes laid reasoning, rule, and frame; the home of reasoning is not in reasoning itself, but in the days of living people. This section gives a few pictures: a mother who wakes in the night the moment she hears her child cough, a craftsman handing his craft, honestly and carefully, to his apprentice, a bowl of hot soup passed between neighbors, a person asking himself late at night, "Did I do right by others today?" The five are right in these plain days. Laying law and not going back to the human world is like setting out a table of food and calling no one to eat it. Nor is going back to the human world going back to some mysterious realm; it is three meals a day, the morning market, the evening cooksmoke, sowing in spring, weeding in summer, reaping in autumn, storing in winter. This fastens without a seam to all this volume has laid along the road: the tool's home is in the tool's place, the real human's home is in the human world, and these two going homes are joined in one place, two faces of one body. This section also tells one more layer apart: going back to the human world is not retreating into the past or casting off the tool; it is using the tool and not being used by the tool, enjoying convenience and not giving the person's place to the tool.
Section Three answers what real humans do, back in the human world. The things of this world split coarsely into two kinds: the matter of yield, spending force, competing on efficiency, countable, given to the tool; and the matter of how people treat one another, warm and faithful, bound to the human heart, uncountable, which only a real human can do. If a person insists on contesting the tool at the yield, he is pitting his own short against the tool's long, until at last he has lived himself into a tool too. Kindness is that closeness between person and person; the tool says "I am glad to see you," and inside there is no gladness; kindness is the first ring of the five flowing in the human world. Help is that helping hand: neighbors passing a bowl of hot soup, trading labor at the busy farming season, sending charcoal in the snow; when the tool stands in, it stands in on command, with none of that not-bearing-it. Respect is that regard, treating every person as a whole real human; the human world differs from the jungle exactly in this. The three together are the shape of the five flowing out naturally, and they turn around and grow the five as well: when the five are full the three come out, and when the three are practiced the five grow thick.
What this chapter has set firm is the spirit and the landing place of this living mechanism: the mechanism is laid to guard that root, lawmaking must in the end go back to the human world of a meal and a dish, and real humans back in the human world treat one another with kindness, help, respect. But in the human world there are always some seats, some matters, that must be borne by those who hold the real human's place. The next chapter follows on to settle the people back in the human world: who holds the real human's place, which seats will fall away of themselves, and how the five are to be kept.
Chapter contents:
Section One. The True Charge of This Living Mechanism: Guard the Root.
Section Two. Back to the Human World: All the Law Laid Down Falls into the Days of Living People.
Section Three. What Real Humans Do, Back in the Human World: Kindness, Help, Respect.
Credit to the ancestors; the mistakes are mine: Tiger Lyon.
Section One. The True Charge of This Living Mechanism: Guard the Root.