Page 120 - 《孟子》（三）中·英对照版

?孟
子

用上敬下，谓之尊贤。贵贵、尊贤，其义一也。”

Wan Zhang asked Mencius, saying, “I venture
to ask the principles of friendship.”

Mencius replied, “Friendship should be
maintained without any presumption on the ground
of one’s superior age, or station, or the circumstances
of his relatives. Friendship with a man is friendship
with his virtue, and does not admit of assumptions
of superiority. There was Meng Xian, chief of a
family of a hundred chariots. He had five friends,
namely, Yuezheng Qiu, Mu Zhong, and three others
whose names I have forgotten. With those five men
Xian maintained a friendship, because they thought
nothing about his family. If they had thought
about his family, he would not have maintained his
friendship with them. Not only has the chief of a
family of a hundred chariots acted thus. The same
thing was exemplified by the sovereign of a small

98