The Great Learning (canonical section)

Great Learning (Daxue大學) appears today as a chapter in a collection called Ritual Records (Liji 禮記), which contains texts of diverse date. The received version of the Ritual Records is probably relatively late (no earlier than the Han dynasty, and perhaps even later than that), but recent discoveries have confirmed that it includes some genuinely old material... There are too few clues, either internal or external, to permit any firm dating of Great Learning, but the text is indispensable for two reasons: first, its authority in later centuries was unquestioned, and second, it tidily encapsulates a quintessentially Confucian understanding of the connection between self-cultivation and moral governance. It is brief enough to be quoted here in full.

The Way of great learning lies in making brilliant one’s brilliant virtue, in being intimate with the people, and in coming to rest in supreme goodness. After one knows one’s resting place, one is settled; after one is settled, one can be tranquil; after one is tranquil, one can be at peace; after one is at peace, one can deliberate; after one deliberates, one can attain [the Way]. Things have their roots and branches; affairs have their beginnings and endings. If one knows what comes first and what comes last, one will be close to the Way.

Because the ancients desired to make their brilliant virtue shine throughout the world, they first ordered their states; desiring to order their states, they first regulated their families; desiring to regulate their families, they first cultivated themselves; desiring to cultivate themselves, they first rectified their hearts; desiring to rectify their hearts, they first made their intentions sincere; desiring to make their intentions sincere, they first brought about knowledge. Bringing about knowledge lies in investigating things.

After things are investigated, knowledge is brought about; after knowledge is brought about, one’s intentions are sincere; after one’s intentions are sincere, one’s heart is rectified; after one’s heart is rectified, one cultivates oneself; after one has cultivated oneself, one’s family is regulated; after one’s family is regulated, the state is ordered; after the state is ordered, the world is at peace. From the Son of Heaven down to the common people, [everyone] takes this as primary; all must take self-cultivation as their root. For the roots to be disordered and the branches ordered – this will not occur. There has never been a case [that ended well?] in which one neglected what should be emphasized and emphasized what should be neglected.

The middle paragraph, the core of the text, narrates by sorites how to bring about peace in the world: one must go back logically, step by step, to the elemental act of “investigating things” – as the opaque phrase gewu 格物 is usually understood. It can also mean “to make things arrive” or “to come to things”; since the stage of gewu is obviously pivotal in this text, commentators have been debating its precise meaning for centuries. Confucians of a rationalist bent have held that it means understanding the underlying patterns of the cosmos by studying the rhythms and correspondences of things in nature. Then one attains knowledge, whereupon one can make one’s intentions sincere, rectify one’s heart, cultivate oneself, regulate one’s family, order one’s state and finally bring peace to the world.

Great Learning not only affirms that the ultimate end of the Confucian moral project, namely good government in all quarters of the world, can be achieved in this manner, but also implies that it cannot be achieved by any other process. The only way to achieve world peace is to begin by cultivating yourself, and then spread your morality outwards, through your own family, to your body politic around you and finally the rest of the world. Nothing will be accomplished by going in the other direction.

SOURCE: Goldin, P. R. (2011). Confucianism. University of California Press, pp.31-33