Appendix I - Nathanael Vincent’s Translation of Confucius’s ‘Great Learning’ (1685)

Summary

The intent of great Men in Knowledge and Instruction, does consist in the enlightning of our Spiritual Power conveyed to us from Heaven, by the Virtues. It does consist in renewing the World by Exhortation and Example. It consists in setling firmly upon the chiefest good. When People know wherein they are to settle, then they have the end. When they have resolved themselves in the end, then they can be at rest. When their mind is at rest, then they can strengthen it. When they have strengthened the Mind, then they can distinguish Good from Evil. When they have made this distinction, then they can attain the end, by acting according to Reason. There is in things that which is more and less Excellent, as the Body and the Branches in the Tree. Affairs have an end and a beginning. To obtain effectively the perfection of Good, is the end; to know where we are to settle firmly, is the beginning. To know those things that are to be preferred, and those that are to be undervalued, is to approach to the knowledge of great Men.

When the Ancients would make proof of the Spiritual Power in Government, they took care in the first place to govern their Kingdoms well: when they would govern their Kingdoms well, their first care was the right ordering of their Families: when they would order their Families well, it was their first business, to attire their own Persons with the Ornaments of Virtue: when they would deck themselves with the Virtues, they first fashioned their Hearts: when they would fashion their Hearts, they first confirmed their Intentions in the banishing of every disguise: when they would confirm their Intentions, they would first enlarge their Understandings: which enlargement of the Understanding, consisteth in the comprising of Matters, in forecasting business, in making a convenient provision for every present occasion; or rather by penetrating that most perfect Harmony of Nature in Humane Reason.