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Text 9 Dàxúe 大學 1

The Dàxúe is the most concise summation of early Confucian ethics. It was probably
written close to the time of the brief Qín 秦 Dynasty (221-208 B.C.), and is composed in
an unusually clear style (although this is partially due to the fact that the version of the
text most usually used now was edited for clarity during the twelfth century by the great
Neo-Confucian scholar Zhu Xi 朱熹). The essay was included as a chapter of the Lǐjì 禮
記, but since Zhu Xi’s time, it has generally been studied independently, along with
another chapter of the Lǐjì (the Zhongyong 中庸 [“Doctrine of the Mean”] and the Lúnyǔ
and Mencius. These texts are collectively known as the sì-shu 四書 (“The Four Books”).
The selection below represents the summative opening portion of the text, one of the
most often memorized passages in human history.

TEXT