Quote from Mo Tzu
Mo Tzu: Basic Writings
translated by Burton Watson
Columbia University Press, New York, New York © 1963 140 pp.
Mo Tzu said: "It is the business of the benevolent man to try to promote what is beneficial to the world and to eliminate what is harmful. Now at the present time, what brings the greatest harm to the world? Great states attacking small ones, great families overthrowing small ones, the strong oppressing the weak, the many harrying the few, the cunning deceiving the stupid, the eminent lording it over the humble -- these are harmful to the world. So too are rulers who are not generous, ministers who are not loyal, fathers who are without kindness, and sons who are unfilial, as well as those mean men who, with weapons, knives, poison, fire, and water, seek to injure and undo each other.
When we inquire into the causes of these various harms, what do we find has produced them? Do they come about from loving others and trying to benefit them? Surely not! They come rather from hating others and trying to injure them. And when we set out to classify and describe those men who hate and injure others, shall we say that their actions are motivated by universality or partiality? Surely we must answer, by partiality, and it is this partiality in their dealings with one another that give rise to all the great harms in the world. Therefore we know that partiality is wrong.
. . . Now when states and cities do not attack and make war on each other and families and individuals do not overthrow or injure each other, is this a harm or a benefit to the world? Surely it is a benefit.
When we inquire into the causes of such benefits, what do we find has produced them? Do they come about from hating others and trying to injure them? Surely not! They come rather from loving others and trying to benefit them." (p. 40)
-- submitted by Jennifer Knight