廣弘明集 18.62

18.62

維再問。論云。或道廣而事狹。或事是而人非。今不可以事之小大而格道之粗妙。誠哉斯言。但所疑不在此耳。設令周孔實未盡極。以之應世。故自居宗。此自是世去聖遠未足明極。夫降妙數階以接群粗。則粗者所不測。然數階之妙非極妙之謂。推此而言。撫世者於粗為妙。然於妙猶粗矣。以妙乘粗。則無往不盡。以粗求妙。則莫覩其原。無往不盡。故謂之窮理。莫覩其原。故仰之彌高。今豈可就顏氏所崇而同之極妙耶。

Wei asks again: The treatise states that either the Way is broad while phenomena are narrow, or phenomena are right while persons are wrong. Now one cannot determine the crudeness or subtlety of the Way by the size of phenomena; true indeed are these words! But our doubt does not lie here. Suppose the Duke of Zhou and Confucius truly did not exhaust the ultimate, but used it to respond to the world and thus naturally took the central position; this would simply mean that the worldly times were far removed from sages and insufficient to clarify the ultimate. When one lowers the subtle by several grades to receive the masses of the crude, the crude cannot fathom it; yet the subtlety of several grades is not what is meant by the ultimate subtlety. Inferring from this, he who governs the world is subtle relative to the crude, but still crude relative to the subtle. If one mounts the crude by means of the subtle, then wherever one goes, all is exhausted; if one seeks the subtle by means of the crude, none can glimpse its source. Because wherever one goes, all is exhausted, it is called 'exhausting principle'; because none can glimpse its source, one looks up to it and finds it ever higher. Now how could one take what Yan Yuan revered and equate it with the ultimate subtlety?