A student is made steward of a country town. Before he goes, he asks his teacher about government.
The answer is two things not to do. Do not want speed, and do not look at small gains.
Nothing is said about what to do.
The Student Sent Out to a Town
The seventeenth passage of the Zi Lu book states the circumstance first. Zixia wei Jufu zai (子夏為莒父宰), six characters, Zixia was made steward of Jufu.
Jufu was a town in Lu. Not a whole state but one district, and zai (宰) is the office that actually keeps its administration turning.
Zixia is the student who, in an earlier part, asked about a line of poetry and arrived on his own at the conclusion that li comes after. He was also known for being well versed in the texts and the odes.
Now he goes from handling writing to handling people. Wen zheng (問政), he asked about government, comes at that moment.
Two Things Not to Do
The answer opens with two prohibitions.
無欲速 無見小利
wu yu su, wu jian xiao li
Do not want speed, and do not look at small gains. (Analects 13.17)
Wu yu su (無欲速) is three characters and wu jian xiao li (無見小利) is four. Both open with wu (無).
The first points at the speed of a person’s wanting and the second at the direction of his looking. Wanting to move fast, and what catches the eye first, are both things that arise naturally in someone taking up a post.
So the answer is not naming faults to avoid. It is naming what appears by itself once a man sits in that chair.
Not Arriving
Then a reason is attached to each.
欲速則不達 見小利則大事不成
yu su ze bu da, jian xiao li ze da shi bu cheng
Want speed and you do not arrive. Look at small gains and the large work is not completed. (Analects 13.17)
The first clause is five characters and the second is eight.
The character da (達) here repays attention. It is not cheng (成), to complete. It is closer to arriving, to reaching.
That changes the sense. It does not say a hurried job goes unfinished. It says the job does finish, and does not reach where it was headed.
The work is wrapped up and the report has gone in, and the thing it was originally for is not there. What the sentence pictures is not failure but divergence.
What Small Gains Are
Xiao li (小利) in the second clause is small gains. What can be taken in immediately, right in front of you.
The sentence does not say they are bad. It says jian (見), that while you are looking at them the large thing goes out of view.
So the trouble is not the size but the line of sight. Small things are near and certain and pay back quickly, which makes looking at them always the easier option.
The Large Work Is Not Completed
What is attached at the end is bu cheng (不成). Unlike the first clause, which said you do not arrive, this one says it is not completed.
That the two characters diverge shows how the sentence is built. The hurrying side is a problem of arrival and the small gains side is a problem of completion.
Go fast and you land somewhere else. Keep looking at what is near and the large thing never even starts.
Nothing About What to Do
This was given to a man about to take up a post, and there is not one item in it about what to do.
It is the sort of place where something about how to use people or how to handle the taxes might be expected. What comes instead is two things not to do, with their reasons.
The form is not rare in this book. What stands out is that it arrived in front of somebody heading into practical office.
Why This Student
One question drawing different answers from person to person is how this book works. So it is worth asking why this answer went to this student.
The original does not record the reason. Whether Zixia was somebody who hurried, or whether this is what anyone taking a first post would have been told, cannot be known.
It does read, though, as a remark about the chair he was going to sit in rather than a verdict on his character. What it describes is what comes into view first when a person takes up something new.
Today, When We Want to Move Fast
Taking up a new post, the first thing anybody settles is what to show first. A visible result is needed quickly.
What this passage points at is not that the speed keeps the work from finishing. It is that the finished work ends up somewhere other than where it was headed.
The small gains are the same. They are not bad for being small. While you are looking at them the large thing is out of view.
So the two sentences are not telling anyone to go slowly for its own sake. They are asking for a change of pace and of sight, and what to do is left as the man’s own to decide.
Has something I finished quickly lately ended up somewhere other than where it was headed?