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The Great Learning (Daxue)
Daxue (大學)
Traditionally attributed to Zengzi · c. 3rd–2nd century BCE (dates debated) · Short (under 150 pages)
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What it is
A short Confucian text, originally a chapter of the Book of Rites, that sets out a programme of self-cultivation leading to good government. Its opening names three aims: making bright virtue shine, loving (or, in another reading, renewing) the people, and resting in the highest good. It then gives eight linked steps: investigating things, extending knowledge, making one's intentions sincere, rectifying the mind, cultivating oneself, regulating the family, ordering the state and bringing peace to all under heaven. Each step depends on the one before, so order in the world begins in a person's inner life. In the Song dynasty Zhu Xi made it the first of the Four Books, divided it into a classic text, which he attributed to Confucius, and a commentary, which he took to record Zengzi's views, and added his own passage on investigating things. His version became the basis of the civil service examinations, and Wang Yangming's return to the older text started one of the great Neo-Confucian debates.
Why read it
In a few pages it states the Confucian idea that good politics begins with personal integrity, and it is the key to the long argument between Zhu Xi and Wang Yangming.
Where to start
Read the opening section with its three aims and eight steps, then Zhu Xi's supplement, in Daniel K. Gardner's The Four Books, which includes Zhu Xi's comments.
Original text in the public domain; free translations exist online