《墨经》"义,利也"校诂

《经》文以“利”释“义”,即用“利”字为“义”下定义;意思是:凡“义”即“利”而非非利,非“利”则非“义”。《经说》三句:(１)“芬”字,毕沅释为“美”,是;其他还有一些解法,则不必是。(２)原文本无讹误,下一“能”字,实应训“安”,是把“义”定义为“能安利”“天下”。(３)墨子实在是十分汲汲于用世的,虽又主张“爱民者非为用”,但并未绝对地排斥“用”,“非为用”也绝不是“必不用”;这里的意思是,“利”天下不是为了“用”天下,即“不必用”而“利之”,是“以天下为芬”而“利之”的。

Interpreting "Righteousness Is Profit" in Mo Tzu

The word "righteousness" is defined in Mo Tzu with the word "profit", i.e., righteousness is profit and not non-profit, and non-profit is non-righteousness. Three points are made in the Annotations of Mo Tzu: (1) Bi Yuan interpreted the term "fen" (fragrant) as "beauty", which is aptly put, but other explanations may be wrong; (2) there are no wrong words in the original and the next word "neng" (enable) should be "an" (peace), which was intended to define righteousness as something that "enables a peaceful world"; and (3) Mo Tzu had extremely desired to go to office. Although he advocated the so-called "people are born to be loved but do not have to be used", hedid not reject "using" them. "Do not have to be used" does not mean "must not be used". Rather, he meant that "profiting" the people is not "taking advantage of" the people. Indeed, "profiting them" through "not having to be used" is "profiting them" by thinking that "the people are fen (fragrant)".