Record of Places Outside the Tributaries

A spread of a traditional Chinese woodblock-printed book. The right side contains a vertical grid with no text, except for a blue rectangular collector's stamp at the bottom. The left side contains the preface text in vertical columns, with a title in larger characters and a marginal annotation at the top.

This record has great significance to the world; it is fully laid out in the preface by the clan member.

Preface to the Story of Jiao and Hong at the Mandarin Duck Tomb

The current Emperor broadly encourages moral transformation, punishing those who wear the clothes of the refined but behave like birds and beasts. Some say, "Such-and-such person is a man of Daoxue Neo-Confucianism/study of the Way, whom everyone respects as a virtuous man. He has read books and understands principles and righteousness; how could he sink to the level of a dog or pig in his conduct?" I reply, "Alas, such people are not suffering from a lack of understanding of principles and righteousness. It is because they know these principles that they use them to deceive the world. Their true feelings and innate nature are different from those of other people, so they fall into the category of the non-human without even realizing it." Emotion and nature are the roots of principle and righteousness. If people do not sharpen one another through their true natures, then in their relationships as ruler and subject, father and son, brother to brother, friend to friend, and husband and wife, they are merely drifting like duckweed meeting by chance in the rivers and lakes. How many cold, ungrateful, rebellious, or debased deeds under heaven are endured in this way!