Good Governance

The men of old, wanting to clarify & diffuse throughout the empire that light which comes from looking straight into the heart & then acting, first set-up good government in their states;


wanting good government in their states, they first established order in their own families;


wanting order in the home, they first disciplined themselves;


desiring self-discipline, they rectified their own hearts;


& wanting to rectify their hearts, they sought precise verbal defintions of their inarticulate thoughts;


wishing to attain precise verbal defintions, they set to extend their knowledge to the utmost.


This completion of knowledge is rooted in sorting things into organic categories.


[Confucius, from 'The Great Digest']