CHAPTER VIII
1. Mencius said, "Anciently, the establishment of the frontier-gates was to guard against violence.
2. "Nowadays, it is to exercise violence."
饭=食, "to eat". The "embroidered robes" are the imperial dress. On Shun＇s lute, see V, Pt. I, ii, 3. 果used for 婐, wo, "a female attendant".
CHAPTER 7. HOW THE THOUGHT OF ITS CONSEQUENCES SHOULD MAKE MEN CAREFUL OF THEIR CONDUCT.
Choo He observes that this remark must have been made with some special reference,—吾今而后. It is a maxim of Chinese society, that "a man may not live under the same heaven with the slayer of his father,nor in the same state with the slayer of his elder brother", but the remark does not seem to regard that so much as to take occasion from it to warn rulers to make their government firm in the attachment of their subjects, and not provoke their animosity by oppressive acts. 一间耳,—"there is only one interval";that is, the death of a man＇s father or brother is the consequence of his previous conduct, the slayer only intervening.