答欧阳崇一

Chongyi's letter says: 'You say virtue's innate knowledge does not come of hearing and seeing; that hearing much and choosing the good, seeing much and remembering, seeks only the twig-ends of sight and hearsay, second-best. Yet though innate knowledge exists not by sight and hearsay, the learner's knowing surely is triggered by them; sticking in them is wrong, but they are also innate knowledge's use. That it falls to second-best, I take it, is said against those who make sight and hearsay their whole study. To extend innate knowledge and seek it within hearing and seeing seems already the work of knowledge and action united. Is it so?'

Innate knowledge exists not by sight and hearsay, yet sight and hearsay are all its use: it sticks in neither, and departs from neither. Confucius: have I knowledge? I have none. Beyond innate knowledge there is no other knowing. Hence extending innate knowledge is the great head of all learning, the sage's first principle in teaching. To seek solely at the twig-ends of sight and hearsay is to lose the head and fall to second-best. Among our fellows of late hardly any do not know the phrase extending innate knowledge, yet the work of many is still hazy — just for want of this one question. Provided the head of the work is right — the one affair being extending innate knowledge — then hearing much and seeing much are all its work. Daily sight, hearsay and exchange, a thousand threads and ten thousand strands, are all innate knowledge's working and flowing; apart from them there is no innate knowledge to extend. Hence it is one affair only. To say extend innate knowledge and seek it in hearing and seeing still splits the sense in two — differing a little from the twig-end seekers, but equally short of refinement-unity. Hearing much, choose the good and follow; seeing much, remember: with choosing and remembering, innate knowledge too ran through it all — only the intent was set on choosing and remembering upon the much-heard and much-seen, and so the head was lost. You, Chongyi, must see this clearly already; today's question precisely unfolds this learning, of great use to our fellows. But where the sense is not crystal, a hair's miss is a thousand miles: fine examination may not be spared.

Your letter says: 'You said the Commentaries' what-to-think-what-to-worry means all thought is heavenly principle with no other thought — not thoughtlessness. The mind's substance being heavenly principle, what is there to think out? The learner's ten thousand thoughts only restore its substance, not something schemed by private intent — scheming is wit in selfishness. The learner's fault is mostly either dead holding of vacancy or scheming thought. In the xin-ren years I had the former; of late the latter. But thinking too is innate knowledge's working — how does it differ from private scheming? I fear taking the thief for the son, lost and unaware.'

Thinking is penetration, and penetration makes the sage. The mind's office is to think; thinking, it attains. How could thinking be lessened? Dead vacancy and scheming thought are precisely wit in selfishness, alike in forfeiting innate knowledge. Innate knowledge is where heavenly principle is bright and numinous: innate knowledge is heavenly principle, and thinking is its working. Thought that is innate knowledge's working thinks nothing but heavenly principle — naturally clear and simple, and innate knowledge knows it of itself. Thought that is private scheming is naturally tangled and harassing, and innate knowledge discerns it of itself. Of every thought's right and wrong, crooked and straight, innate knowledge cannot fail to know. Taking the thief for the son happens only because the learning of extension is dark and one does not know to recognize it upon innate knowledge.

Your letter further says: 'You said learning is lifelong one affair — affairs or none, this one thing; to say rather leave the affair undone than stint the nurturing is to make two. Yet to feel one's strength failing short of the affair — that is innate knowledge; rather leave it undone and rest — that is extension. How two? And when change drives in and the affair brooks no delay, strength flagging yet a little rallying suffices to carry on — hold the will to marshal the energies. But speech and motion lack all force, and the affair done, exhaustion is utter — is that not abusing one's energies? The weights and urgencies innate knowledge surely knows; yet pressed by circumstance, how mind one's strength? Sapped of strength, how mind circumstance? What is best?'

The saying rather-leave-undone-than-stint-nurturing, told to beginners, is not without use; taken as two things, the defect enters. Mencius's always-having-the-task makes the noble person's lifelong learning one affair only: accumulating rightness. Rightness is fitness: the mind finding its fit. Extending innate knowledge, the mind finds its fit — hence accumulating rightness is only extending innate knowledge. The noble person amid ten thousand changes: move when to move, stop when to stop, live when to live, die when to die — weighing and adjusting, all of it extending innate knowledge for self-content alone. Hence the noble person does what is proper to the station, and thought strays not beyond it. All scheming beyond one's strength and forcing beyond one's knowing fail to be extending innate knowledge; while all that taxes the sinews, starves the body, empties the self, confounds the doings — stirring the mind, steeling the nature, to increase what one cannot — is precisely extending innate knowledge. As for rather-leave-undone-than-stint-nurturing: there too a calculating heart of profit and loss runs first, weighing success and failure, love and hate, taking and leaving — so finishing affairs becomes one thing and nurturing another. That is approving the inner and condemning the outer, wit in selfishness, rightness made external, the sickness of failing-in-the-heart yet seeking-not-in-the-energies — no longer the work of extending innate knowledge toward self-content. Your rallying to carry through and collapsing after; your pressed by circumstance, sapped of strength — all from doing it as two things. In the work of learning, one is sincerity, two is pretense; all this is the intent of extension wanting singleness and earnestness. The Great Learning: making the intention sincere is hating a stench as a stench, loving beauty as beauty — this is self-content. Ever see one who hates a stench or loves beauty needing to rally and prop himself? Ever see him collapse when done? Pressed by circumstance, sapped of strength? From this the seat of the disease may be known.

Your letter further says: 'Human deceit takes a hundred shapes: meeting it with unsuspecting trust, one is often cheated; on guard, one falls into surmising deceit and doubting faith. Surmising deceit is itself deceit; doubting good faith, itself faithlessness; being cheated is not awareness either. Not surmising, not doubting, yet ever aware beforehand — that, I suppose, belongs only to one whose innate knowledge is crystal through. Yet between the flicker of a moment, those who turn from awareness and side with deceit are many.'

Not-surmising-not-doubting-yet-aware: Confucius said it because his age set its heart on surmising deceit and doubting faith, sinking itself into deceit and faithlessness; while others who did not surmise, knowing nothing of extending innate knowledge, were often cheated in turn. It was no lesson to store the mind with this and aim at smelling out others' deceit and faithlessness beforehand. To store the mind so is the trade of the suspicious and mean of later ages; that single thought already bars one from the way of Yao and Shun. The not-surmising yet cheated have still not first done ill — only they rank below those who extend innate knowledge and are aware beforehand of themselves. Your the crystal-through of innate knowledge has caught the point; yet it is the catch of quick wit, perhaps not the tasted fact. Innate knowledge in the human mind, through all ages, filling the universe, is everywhere one: knowing without deliberation, ever-easy to know danger; able without learning, ever-simple to know obstruction; prior to heaven, yet heaven does not contradict it. Heaven not contradicting — how much less men? How much less ghosts and spirits?

Those who turn from awareness and side with deceit: not surmising against others, yet perhaps not free of self-deception; not doubting others, yet perhaps not truly self-trusting; ever craving awareness beforehand, yet not ever self-aware. Ever craving awareness beforehand has already slid into surmising and doubting, enough to veil one's own innate knowledge — hence their inability to escape siding with deceit. The noble person learns for his own sake: never anxious lest others cheat him — only never cheating his own innate knowledge; never anxious lest others distrust him — only never distrusting his own innate knowledge; never seeking to sniff out others' deceit and faithlessness — only seeking ever to be aware in his own innate knowledge. Not cheating, innate knowledge is without pretense and hence sincere; sincere, hence bright. Self-trusting, innate knowledge is without doubt and hence bright; bright, hence sincere. Brightness and sincerity beget each other, and innate knowledge is ever aware, ever mirroring: a bright mirror hung on high — whatever comes cannot escape its fair-or-foul. Why? Not cheating and sincere, there is no room for cheating against one — the least cheating is felt; self-trusting and bright, no room for faithlessness — the least faithlessness is felt. That is the easy knowing danger, the simple knowing obstruction — Zisi's utmost sincerity like a spirit, able to know beforehand. Yet Zisi's like a spirit and able to know beforehand still speaks two: expounding the fruit of thinking-sincerity, said for those who cannot yet be aware beforehand. Of utmost sincerity itself, its wondrous working is the spirit — no need of like; utterly sincere, it knows nothing yet nothing it knows not — no need of beforehand.