CHAPTER 45. THE SUPERIOR MAN IS KIND TO CREATURES, LOVING TO OTHER MEN, AND AFFECTIONATE TO HIS RELATIVES.
This was intended, no doubt, against the Mihist doctrine of loving all equally. 物=animals. The second亲 is not to be understood only of parents. Compare 亲亲, D. M., xx, 12.
CHAPTER 46. AGAINST THE PRINCES OF HIS TIME WHO OCCUPIED THEMSELVES WITH THE KNOWLEDGE OF, AND REGARD FOR, WHAT WAS OF LITTLE IMPORTANCE.
1. 无不知, 无不爱 are not our "omniscient", and "allloving", but show the tendency and adaptation of the wise and the benevolent. The clauses that follow,—当务之为急, 急亲贤之为务, show in what way truly great rulers come to an administration which appears to possess those characters. The use of the之in those clauses is idiomatic. To reduce it to the ordinary usages of the particle, we must take the first as=惟当务之事为急, "but only are they earnest about the things which it is most important to know", and 惟急于亲贤之当务, "but only are they earnest about what is most important, the cultivating affection for the virtuous". The teaching of the chapter is substantially the same as that of Confucius, Ana., XII, xxii.