The attitude in life is to have the best hope,

try your best and prepare for the worst.

Everything has a unique function.

It may be the only one that can do a certain job,

or it can do it better than others.

Those who do righteous things do not do so willingly,

but simply because they do not have the ability to do evil.

Countries are lucky if they are governed by philosophers,

or if the people who govern these countries have the opportunity to learn philosophy.

To measure a person,

judge what he does when he has power.

The consequence of being indifferent to politics is that we are eventually controlled by evil people.

Plato

Born in an aristocratic family in Athens from 427 BC to 347 BC, he received a good education in his early years. He loved literature very much and wrote poems and tragedies. At the age of 20, he became a disciple of Socrates. Under the influence of his teacher, he began to devote himself to the study of philosophy. And his student was the famous philosopher Aristotle. The three masters and apprentices are also recognized as the greatest philosophers and thinkers in all of Western philosophy and even Western culture.

When the soul reflects on itself,

it passes through diversity into the realm of purity, eternity, immortality, and changelessness,

these things are related to the soul. The natures are similar,

once the soul gains independence,

gets rid of obstacles,

it will no longer be lost.

Utopia

However, medical skills themselves also have shortcomings. Because any skill is imperfect, just like the eyes cannot see clearly and the ears cannot hear. We wear glasses and hearing aids to supplement the functions of vision and hearing, but supplementary skills such as glasses and hearing aids may also have shortcomings, and other skills are needed to make up for their deficiencies. If it continues like this, the skills will become endless? Perhaps on the contrary, each skill has its own benefits and does not need other skills to remedy it? In fact, skills only benefit the object and should not seek ways to benefit other aspects or other things. What medical skills seek is not to benefit from the medical skills themselves, but to benefit the human body. Technique serves its object. Technique is used to control and regulate its object.

Real doctors serve human health, not to make money. Since a doctor is a doctor, what he should seek is not the doctor's interests, but the patients' interests. The helmsman is not an ordinary sailor, but the ruler of the sailors. What he has to care about is not what benefits he gets, but the interests of all the sailors under him. In the same way, in any government, the ruler cannot only care about his own interests and ignore the interests of the people under his command. On the contrary, everything he says and does should be for the interests of the people.

Some phenomena are so commonplace that they seem difficult to refute. For example, just people always suffer from disadvantages compared with unjust people. When the just and the unjust operate in partnership, the just will always receive less dividends. Looking at taxes again, assuming two people have equal incomes, the just person will always pay more than the unjust person. Assuming there is money to be taken, the righteous will get nothing and watch the money being swept away by the unjust. If he holds a public office, not to mention other losses, first of all, a just person will have no time to take into account his private career. Secondly, because of justice, he is unwilling to harm the public and enrich his private life. He will also offend his relatives and friends, and is unwilling to bend the law for their selfish interests. On the contrary, unjust people have the ability to make money everywhere. But this is just a superficial phenomenon and cannot explain the true meaning of justice.

Some people think that the most unjust people are the happiest, while those who are unwilling to do evil are the most disadvantaged and distressed. Those who steal the hook will be punished, and those who steal the country will be punished. Extreme injustice is the tyranny of those who steal the country. Ordinary people make mistakes and will be punished when found out. Their reputation will be ruined and they will be known as robbers, kidnappers, fraudsters, pickpockets, etc. And those who not only plunder money, but also deprive human rights and freedoms, not only have no bad reputation, but are considered blessed and powerful - so say the people who rule them, and so do those who know that they do unjust things. No wonder some people say: As long as unjust things are done in a big way, they will be more useful and gain more benefits than justice. Therefore, doing unjust things can also be wise. However, if you think this way, it is equivalent to classifying injustice into virtue and wisdom, and classifying justice into the opposite category, completely subverting right and wrong!

Every thing that has a function must have a specific quality. Eyes have their function (seeing), and they have a virtue (seeing). If the eye had no virtue, but had only its peculiar defect (the inability to see), it would not be able to fulfill its function. Things have functions precisely because of their specific virtues; things cannot function because of specific defects. The mind also has virtue. Justice is the goodness of the soul, and injustice is the evil of the soul. If the mind loses its unique virtues, it will not be able to perform its functions well. Therefore, things directed and managed by a bad mind must be bad, and things directed and managed by a good mind must be good.

Let’s talk about making money. The various techniques differ from each other because each has a unique function. Medical skills give us health, and navigation skills make our voyages safe.

Both can make money, but it cannot be said that medicine and navigation are the same skills. The helmsman is healthy because of sailing. He becomes healthy in the process of making money, but you cannot call his navigation skills medical skills. A doctor gets paid for practicing medicine, and you wouldn't call his medical skills a money-making skill. If there is a benefit that everyone can enjoy, it is obviously because everyone uses the same skills rather than their own unique skills. For example, medical skills bring patients health, but if the doctor does not get paid, he cannot Benefit from your skills. In other words, because we used unique skills and used money-making techniques, we got paid. It is the art of making money that generates rewards, and this is the same in all walks of life. Each art does its job, earns its labor, and benefits the object of the art.

There is no doubt that no skill or means of governance is limited to the pursuit of self-interest. They control the object in order to seek the interests of the object (that is, the weak), rather than to force the interests of the strong. Therefore, if there is no reward, no one in the world is willing to be a ruler, to take over other people's rights and wrongs, and to correct other people's evil deeds. As a ruler, he needs to be rewarded, because he uses his talents in governance to work hard, not for himself, but for the objects they want to govern. If you want someone to be willing to take on this kind of leadership work, you can only use three methods: give him fame, give him benefits, and if he is unwilling to do it, punish him.

Is punishment also a kind of reward? Of course it is! This type of compensation enables the best people to lead. You must know that coveting fame and fortune is considered shameful, and indeed it is. Therefore, good people are unwilling to be an official for the sake of fame and fortune, nor are they willing to openly take money for holding public office and be treated as servants; nor are they willing to pretend to be public servants for personal gain, cheat secretly, and be treated as thieves. Reputation cannot tempt good people because they have no ambition. Therefore, we can only use punishment to force them to become officials. The biggest punishment is: you don't take care of others, but let people who are worse than you take care of you. Good people are afraid of being punished like this, so they reluctantly come forward. They are not doing it for their own glory and wealth, but because they have no choice but to find good people who can compare with them to take on important responsibilities.

This is why everyone looks down on those who are not forced to become officials. If the whole country were full of good people, everyone would surely be vying not to be an official, just as everyone is vying to be an official now. Only then can we see that a true ruler pursues not private interests, but the interests of the common people. Therefore, a wise man would rather accept favors from others than meddle in other people's affairs.

It must be admitted that there are unjust city-states in the world, and those who use unjust means to conquer other city-states can actually put those city-states under their own servitude. The question is, since this country can conquer other countries, it must have strong power. Is this power maintained by injustice, or must it rely on justice? It can be as large as a city-state, an army, as small as a gang of thieves, or even any group that wants to co-operate in doing things that violate justice. If there is no justice in dealing with each other, it will be difficult to achieve the goal. Regardless of whether they are free people or slaves, injustice will always make people hate and fight each other, and even make them unable to act in unison, causing them to be divided, hateful, and fighting endlessly. And justice makes people friendly and harmonious.

Injustice seems to have such a power: no matter in the country, family, army or any group, injustice will first make them divided and therefore unable to act in unison; secondly, it will make them enemies of each other. Not only are they fighting among themselves, but they are also enemies of the righteous people. Similarly, if a person is unjust, his ability to be unjust will not be lost easily, but will accumulate. Gradually, the injustice will accumulate, and sooner or later, it will explode with all its abilities: first, make the person contradict himself, and make him self-contradictory. If there is a conflict, he will be unable to make up his own mind and be unable to act; secondly, he will become his own enemy and regard the righteous as his enemy.

Just people are smarter, more capable, and easier to get along with, but what about unjust people? You simply can't work with that. Therefore, it is somewhat illogical to say that unjust people can act in unison - because if they completely violate justice, the result will inevitably be internal strife. They kill their enemies without killing each other, precisely because they still have a sense of justice between them. Even with this little justice, they can achieve some results in their work; and the injustice between them will hinder their own evil deeds to a great extent.

It would be better to say that an absolutely unjust and truly bad person will never be able to do anything!

Poet Liuliji: Writing is also a process of pressing your head into the night