Mencius. Book VI: Kâo Tsze. Part II. Chapter X.
Legge's summary: An ordained State can only subsist with a proper system of taxation, and that originating with Yâo and Shun is the proper one for China.
1. Pâi Kwei said, 'I want to take a twentieth of the produce only as the tax. What do you think of it?'
2. Mencius said, 'Your way would be that of the Mo.
3. 'In a country of ten thousand families, would it do to have only one potter?' Kwei replied, 'No. The vessels would not be enough to use.'
4. Mencius went on, 'In Mo all the five kinds of grain are not grown; it only produces the millet. There are no fortified cities, no edifices, no ancestral temples, no ceremonies of sacrifice; there are no princes requiring presents and entertainments; there is no system of officers with their various subordinates. On these accounts a tax of one-twentieth of the produce is sufficient there.
5. 'But now it is the Middle Kingdom that we live in. To banish the relationships of men, and have no superior men;-- how can such a state of things be thought of?
6. 'With but few potters a kingdom cannot subsist;-- how much less can it subsist without men of a higher rank than others?
7. 'If we wish to make the taxation lighter than the system of Yâo and Shun, we shall just have a great Mo and a small Mo. If we wish to make it heavier, we shall just have the great Chieh and the small Chieh.'
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Translated by
James Legge, published in 1861 and revised for publication in 1895. Prepared as etext by Stephen R. McIntyre. Noded by
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