Mencius – Chapter 14.3

Mencius said, “To believe the Book of Documents entirely is as bad as not having the Book of Documents at all. Regarding the ‘Wu Cheng’ (Successful Completion of the War) chapter in it, I accept only two or three bamboo slips. A truly benevolent person has no enemies in the world. How could there be a slaughter so severe that blood flowed enough to float the pestles, when the ultimate benevolent one (King Wu) was punishing the ultimate unfeeling one (King Zhou)?”

Note

This passage from the Jin Xin II chapter of the Mencius is a timeless quote regarding Mencius’ “method of reading” and his “political ideals.” Drawing on historical context and Confucian classics, we can understand its underlying thought through the following dimensions:

• The Critical Spirit of Independent Thinking: “To Believe the Book Entirely is as Bad as Not Having the Book at All”
  This is the earliest and most famous discourse on the “method of reading” in ancient China. Mencius emphasized that books (even those revered as classics like the Book of Documents) are written by humans and inevitably carry the limitations of their era or exaggerations by later generations. Blindly worshipping books would cause one to lose the ability to think independently. Mencius advocated for “doubting antiquity” and “seeking truth,” insisting that reading must be subjected to rational scrutiny and moral verification. This thought profoundly influenced the later academic trends of “textual criticism” and “authenticity verification” in Chinese scholarship.
• The Supreme Political Ideal of Confucianism: “A Benevolent Person Has No Enemies in the World”
  Mencius proposed a highly idealistic political assertion: true benevolence possesses absolute appeal. When King Wu of Zhou used “ultimate benevolence” to punish the “ultimate unfeeling” King Zhou of Shang, he was following the hearts of all the people. According to Mencius’ logic, wherever a righteous army went, the people should have “welcomed the king’s army with baskets of food and jugs of drink,” and enemy troops would have defected. There should have been no need for a brutal, bloody war. This embodies Mencius’ core political view that “those who follow the Way have many helpers, while those who abandon it have few.”
• The Clash Between Historical Reality and Moral Logic: “How Could Blood Flow Enough to Float the Pestles?”
  The “Wu Cheng” chapter records the brutal battlefield scene of “blood flowing enough to float pestles” during King Wu’s conquest of Shang. Starting from moral logic, Mencius believed this did not conform to the common sense of “a benevolent person having no enemies,” and therefore concluded it was an exaggeration by historians, choosing to “accept only two or three bamboo slips.” Although from the perspective of modern historiography and archaeology, King Wu’s conquest indeed involved the fierce Battle of Muye, and bloodshed was an objective historical reality; Mencius was not doing historical textual criticism. He was using “moral ought” to tailor “historical is.” Through this seemingly “unreasonable” questioning, he fiercely defended the absolute purity of the Confucian “benevolent governance.”

孟子曰：“尽信书，则不如无书。吾于武成，取二三策而已矣。仁人无敌于天下。以至仁伐至不仁，而何其血之流杵也？”