14. ＇You collect your equipments of war, endanger your soldiers and officers, and excite the resentment of the other princes;—do these things cause you pleasure in your mind?＇
15. The king replied, ＇No. How should I derive pleasure from these things? My object in them is to seek for what I greatly desire.＇
16. Mencius said, ＇May I hear from you what it is that you greatly desire?＇ The king laughed and did not speak.
All may have the heart, but all may not be gifted, so to carry it out that it shall affect all others. We cannot wonder that the princes whom Mencius lectured should have thought his talk 迂阔, transcendental.