Page 217 - 《孟子》（三）中·英对照版

告
子
上

Mencius said, “The trees of the Niu mountain
were once beautiful. Being situated, however, in the
borders of a large state, they were hewn down with
axes and bills; —and could they retain their beauty?
Still through the activity of the vegetative life day
and night, and the nourishing influence of the rain
and dew, they were not without buds and sprouts
springing forth, but then came the cattle and goats
and browsed upon them. To these things is owing
the bare and stripped appearance of the mountain,
and when people now see it, they think it was
never finely wooded. But is this the nature of the
mountain? And so also of what properly belongs to
man; —shall it be said that the mind of any man was
without benevolence and righteousness? The way
in which a man loses his proper goodness of mind is
like the way in which the trees are denuded by axes
and bills. Hewn down day after day, can it—the
mind—retain its beauty? But there is a development

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