Page 128 - 《孟子》（三）中·英对照版

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子

presents of friendship?”
Mencius replied, “The feeling of respect.”
“How is it,” pursued Zhang, “that the declining

a present is accounted disrespectful?”
The answer was, “When one of honourable

rank presents a gift, to say in the mind, ‘Was the
way in which he got this righteous or not? I must
know this before I can receive it’—this is deemed
disrespectful, and therefore presents are not
declined.”

Wan Zhang asked again, “When one does not
take on him in so many express words to refuse the
gift, but having declined it in his heart, saying, ‘It
was taken by him unrighteously from the people,’
and then assigns some other reason for not receiving
it;—is not this a proper course?”

Mencius said, “When the donor offers it on
a ground of reason, and his manner of doing so is
according to propriety,—in such a case Confucius

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