This equilibrium is the great root of the world, and this harmony is its universal path.' What is here called 'the state of equilibrium,' is the same as the nature given by Heaven, considered absolutely in itself, without deflection or inclination. This nature acted on from without, and responding with the various emotions, so as always 'to hit [2]' the mark with entire 1 See the 續文獻通考, Bk. cxcix, art. 子思,--曾子得之于隨事省察,而子思 之學,則直達天德,庶幾顏氏之妙悟. 2 中節. correctness, produces the state of harmony, and such harmonious response is the path along which all human activities should proceed. Finally. 'Let the states of equilibrium and harmony exist in perfection, and a happy order will prevail throughout heaven and earth, and all things will be nourished and flourish.' Here we pass into the sphere of mystery and mysticism. The language, according to Chu Hsi, 'describes the meritorious achievements and transforming influence of sage and spiritual men in their highest extent.' From the path of duty, where we tread on solid ground, the writer suddenly raises us aloft on wings of air, and will carry us we know not where, and to we know not what. 3. The paragraphs thus presented, and which constitute Chu Hsi's first chapter, contain the sum of the whole Work. This is acknowledged by all;-- by the critics who disown Chu Hsi's interpretations of it, as freely as by him [1]. Revolving them in my own mind often and long, I collect from them the following as the ideas of the author:-- Firstly, Man has received from Heaven a moral nature by which he is constituted a law to himself; secondly, Over this nature man requires to exercise a jealous watchfulness; and thirdly, As he possesses it, absolutely and relatively, in perfection, or attains to such possession of it, he becomes invested with the highest dignity and power, and may say to himself-- 'I am a god; yea, I sit in the seat of God.' I will not say here that there is impiety in the last of these ideas; but do we not have in them the same combination which we found in the Great Learning,-- a combination of the ordinary and the extraordinary, the plain and the vague, which is very perplexing to the mind, and renders the Book unfit for the purposes of mental and moral discipline? And here I may inquire whether we do right in calling the Treatise by any of the names which foreigners have hitherto used for it? In the note on the title, I have entered a little into this question. The Work is not at all what a reader must expect to find in what he supposes to be a treatise on 'The Golden Medium,' 'The Invariable Mean,' or 'The Doctrine of the Mean.' Those l Compare Chu Hsi's language in his concluding note to the first chapter:-- 楊氏所謂一篇之禮要, and Mao Hsi-ho's, in his 中庸說, 卷一, p. 11:-- 此中庸一書之領要也.