Page:Sacred Books of the East - Volume 27.djvu/438

 prevent) his burning a pile of firewood in sacrificing to the spirit of the furnace. Now that sacrifice is paid to an old wife. The materials for it might be contained in a tub, and the vase is the (common) wine-jar."

1. The rules of propriety may be compared to the human body. When the parts of one's body are not complete, the beholder will call him "An imperfect man;" and so a rule which has been made unsuitably may be denominated "incomplete."

Some ceremonies are great, and some small; some are manifest, and some minute. The great should not be diminished, nor the small increased. The manifest should not be hidden, nor the minute made great. But while the important rules are 300, and the smaller rules 3000, the result to which they all lead is one and the same. No one can enter an apartment but by the door.

2. A superior man in his observance of the rules, where he does his utmost and uses the greatest care, is extreme in his reverence and the manifestation of sincerity. Where they excite admiration and an