Master Deng Xi

Deng Xi was the first lawyer in Chinese history, and he paid for it. A minister of Zheng in the age of Confucius, he wrote his own penal code on bamboo, took fees to argue lawsuits, and was said to make right wrong and wrong right, until the government put him to death. The short book under his name sets out a philosophy of names and realities, of the ruler who governs by fixed standards without favour, and of the dangers of speech and the uses of silence. With the Yin Wen Zi and the Gongsun Long Zi it belongs to the tradition of the School of Names. This complete new English translation gives both surviving chapters, the Absence of Kindness and the Rotating Words.