Note 124 — BOOK XII
Leonard Arthur Lyall translation
T'ang's chief minister. Yi-yin said, Whomsoever I serve, is he not my lord? Whomsoever I rule, are they not my people? He came in when there was order, and came in too when there were tumults. He said, When Heaven begat the people, the man that first understood was sent to waken those slow to understand, and the man that first woke was sent to waken those slow to wake. I am he that woke first among Heaven's people. With the help of the Way, I shall wake the people! For man or wife, of all the people below heaven, to have missed the blessings of Yao and Shun was the same, he thought, as if he himself had pushed him into the ditch. The burden he shouldered was the weight of all below heaven. (Mencius, Book X, chapter 1.)