VOLUME VII, CHAPTER 5, SECTION 1
The True Charge of This Living Mechanism: Guard the Root
The last chapter set out how the four institutions join into one living mechanism whose parts sustain one another and check one another. What it laid was the bone of this mechanism: how the four gather, how they hold one another up, how they bind one another. This section turns to ask something weightier: once this mechanism stands, what, in the end, is it for? Its true charge lies not in its own fineness but in guarding the root: guard the five from going out inside one body after another, put the tool back in the tool's place, and do not let it crowd out the ground the real human's share grows in. The mechanism is the form. The charge is the spirit. Once the form stands, the spirit in it must still be named.
One. The Mechanism Is Not Laid for Itself
First, break an error that comes easily. A fine living mechanism stands, and people's eyes easily rest on the mechanism itself: how the four faces divide, how they hold one another up, how they check one another, how close-wrought the build is. But marvel only at how close-wrought it is, and you have looked at it wrong.
This mechanism is not laid for its own close work, not to set out a clever construction for people to admire. It is laid for one thing: guard the five, put the tool back in the tool's place. 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. The four faces sustain one another so that the four places together hold up the whole growth of the five. The four faces check one another so that no one face grows large enough to turn around and crush the five. Every stroke of the mechanism's design points to this one root. Cut from this root, however fine the mechanism, it is only a build spinning empty. So in looking at this mechanism, the first thing to look at is not how close-wrought it is, but whether it has guarded that root or not.
This telling-apart is vital, because the world is not short of this sorrow: a finely built institution stands, runs a long time, and people slowly come to remember only the keeping of the build's close work, and forget why it was laid in the first place. The rules are set finer and finer, the clauses laid denser and denser, the procedures run longer and longer, everyone is busy keeping the build turning smoothly, and no one asks any more: all this, in the end, whom has it guarded, what has it guarded? By then the institution has become a machine that is its own end, and the more finely it turns, the farther it drifts from the root it was first meant to guard. This volume, laying this living mechanism of the four institutions, must guard against that sorrow from the very start: say plainly on the first day it is laid that it is laid not for itself, only for that root. The build is the servant, the charge is the master. However able the servant, it may not usurp the master's seat.
Two. The True Charge: Guard the Root
Then what is this mechanism's true charge? In one line: guard the root, guard the five from going out, put the tool back in the tool's place.
This root is what the whole book laid down all along the road. Guarding the five from going out inside one body after another is what all six volumes of the book, from first to last, set out to save. Putting the tool back in the tool's place and not letting it crowd out the ground the five grow in is what this volume lays. These two lines are really one line: to guard the five, you must guard the place they grow in; and the moment the tool is pushed onto the person's place, that place is crowded out, and the five have nowhere to be grown. So guarding the five and putting the tool back are two faces of one thing. The true charge of this living mechanism of the four institutions is exactly to guard both faces of this one thing: on one face, see that the five can be grown and kept alive in the body; on the other, keep those places from being crowded out by the tool, and save them for the real humans who grow the five. The mechanism is laid for exactly this one charge. Beyond the charge, the mechanism has no other end.
Say this charge one layer deeper. 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. Put together, they guard one thing: that a person, in this world, lives always as a real human, and is not ground into a shell, not replaced by a tool. This world sets up all kinds of institutions; at the far end, are they not all so that people can live like people? Culture, economy, politics, law: the heart, the living, the common instrument, the line that the four faces tend, every piece and every part of it, falls at last on one place, "letting a person live as a real human." This living mechanism twists the four faces into one strand and sends them together toward that one place. That one place is its charge, is that root. Let go of that one place, and all the clever thought of the four faces standing apart and checking one another loses its footing. It is like a bridge: all the fine reckoning of pier, arch and cable is for carrying people across the river. If there is no one to carry and no bank to reach, that whole fine build hangs in the void and is no bridge at all. This living mechanism stands to that root as a bridge stands to the crossing: however clever the build, it is only there to carry people safely to the far bank of "living as a real human."
Three. Each of the Four Faces Bears a Stretch of This Charge
This one charge, the four faces each bear a stretch of, and only together do they bear it whole.
The face of culture bears the growing of the five directly: raising the heart that guards people, raising keep, guard, love, mercy, heart, generation after generation, and handing it down. This is the innermost layer of the charge. The five standing firm in the human heart rests wholly on this face. The face of economy bears laying a floor under the five so that no one starves: a person need not go against his own heart and harm others for a mouthful of food, and only then are the five grown in peace. The face of politics bears keeping the real human's places from being crowded out by the tool, and also keeping the common instrument from turning around and crushing the five: the seats of judging cases, treating the sick, teaching people, drafting law, which need the five to be done right, are held by a common instrument put back in its place, and kept for real humans. The face of law bears laying clear that bottom line: where the tool must stop, that a real human's seat may not be given to the tool, that crossing the line is cast out by all, all laid clear by the measure of law. The four faces each bear a stretch: culture grows, economy floors, politics keeps the seats, law lays the line. Only with the four stretches together is this one charge, guarding the five and putting the tool back, borne whole. Short one face, and one stretch of the charge has no one to bear it, and that root cannot be guarded.
This division into four stretches matches exactly the way the four faces each tend one place; it is not a second scheme laid on top. Culture tends the heart, so the stretch of growing the five falls to it. Economy tends the living, so the stretch of laying the floor against starving falls to it. Politics tends the common instrument, so the stretch of keeping the real human's places and stopping the common instrument from harming people falls to it. Law tends the line, so the stretch of laying the line where the tool must stop falls to it. The four faces each tend one place, and so each bears one stretch of the charge, as a matter of course, with no forcing needed to divide them. And yet the four stretches do not stand each alone: growing with no floor cannot keep what it grows; a floor with the seats taken cannot itself be held; seats kept with no line will in the end be lost. The four stretches, like the four faces, also sustain one another, and short any one, none is whole. So this one charge is not the four faces each finishing their own part separately. It is one whole thing the four faces bear together. Dividing is so each does its own work in full; joining is the true coming-to-pass of that charge.
Four. Lose the Charge, and the Mechanism Is Empty
Turn it about and look. If the charge is forgotten and only the shell of the mechanism is left, what then? The mechanism, though it stands, becomes a dead thing, and may even turn around and harm people.
A mechanism of four faces standing apart and checking one another, if it is not pointed at guarding the five, is left as only a build of standing apart and checking. Then it may be taken up by people and dressed into a handsome set of rules, and underneath it is still the old road of setting the tool on the person's place and grinding living people into shells. The form of the mechanism is still there; the spirit is already lost. It is like a ruler: a ruler is for measuring things, for setting a line, for leading people to keep to it themselves. Forget that it was for measuring things and setting a line, keep only the shape of a ruler, and it may be taken up as a thing to beat people with. A mechanism is the same: the form remains and the spirit is lost, and it sinks from a living mechanism that guards the five into a dead build that can be put to other uses, that can be hollowed out. So this section says again and again: the life of this mechanism is in its charge, not in its build. The build is set for the charge. Lose the charge, and the build is empty. To guard this mechanism, the first thing to guard is its charge, that root.
History is not short of such cases: a good institution laid to protect the people is handed down to later ages, and only its form is left. Those who carry out its rules have long forgotten that it was meant to protect the people, and take that whole set of procedures, clauses and build only as a tool to be worked for their own ends. And so an institution for protecting the people turns into a means of harassing them; a method for checking power turns into a field for fighting over it. The form is still that form; the spirit has gone the opposite way. So in guarding a mechanism, guarding its form is easy and guarding its spirit is hard. Clauses can be copied, a build can be imitated; only that bit of the first intent, "why it was laid," is the easiest thing to lose in the passing of years. This volume, laying this living mechanism, must above all urge this charge again and again, and hand it down from generation to generation: 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? Keep that question, and the mechanism's spirit is not lost. Forget that question, and the mechanism, though it stands, is already a shell.
Five. The Layer This Section Has Made Clear
This section has named the true charge of this living mechanism of the four institutions.
The mechanism is the form, the charge is the spirit. How the four faces divide, how they hold one another up, how they check one another: that is the form. Guarding the five from going out and putting the tool back in the tool's place: that is the spirit. The form is laid for the spirit, and the spirit moves by way of the form. Only when the form stands and does not forget the spirit is this mechanism alive. Guarding that root, guarding the five, putting the tool back in its place, is exactly the true, and the only, charge of this living mechanism. With the charge made clear, the next section follows on to another great matter of this volume: with this mechanism standing firm and its charge made clear, then, following it, where should a person go, where should he land? The answer: back to the human world. The earlier volumes laid law and undid traps all along the road; here it is time to fall back into the days of one living person after another. However whole the institutions, however finely the mechanism turns, if it does not fall back into the days of living people, it is still scripture on paper. Only when it falls back into the ordinary human world of a meal and a dish, a dawn and a dusk, has the charge of guarding the five truly touched ground. The words "back to the human world" are exactly where the charge of this living mechanism comes home.
Credit to the ancestors; the mistakes are mine: Tiger Lyon.
Section Two. Back to the Human World: All the Law Laid Down Falls into the Days of Living People.