"Do you two little brats know who this is?" Lu Zhi's disciples immediately became indignant.
"Quiet. May I ask you two children, where is the stench, and where is the disorder?" Lu Zhi asked seriously.
"The stench is that this is talk from an old cesspit. The disorder is that you don't understand what logical relationships are at all. Then again, our Patriarch said that the greatest flaw of the Confucian School was that it never spoke of logic. Forcing far-fetched connections was its greatest specialty. Ever since Confucianism alone was honored, the study of logic vanished completely. They only altered their doctrines to suit the preferences of emperors and ministers, with no principles left to uphold." Child A said disdainfully.
That was precisely what children were like: they spoke bluntly and freely, without caring about anyone's face or status.
"Exactly. If a person is upright, then affairs will be upright? If you're a gentleman, you can do good things? Isn't that nonsense? Confucius was a sage, yet he couldn't even distinguish whether the sun was near or far. Do you expect yourself to surpass Confucius?" Child B was equally contemptuous.
Lu Zhi was deeply ashamed and found himself speechless.
His thinking had always been fixed on the belief that as long as gentlemen governed, the country would be peaceful and prosperous.
It was one thing for him to think that way, but more than a thousand years later, many people would still think the same way.
That was truly sad.
It was not that gentlemen were bad, but that accomplishing things depended on capability and systems. The two complemented each other.
Relying on personal moral conduct was the least reliable thing of all. That was merely falling into idealism.
After all, an incorruptible person might be tempted the very