Examine Yourself to Know Others, and the Present to Know the Past

“Examine yourself and you may know others; examine the present and you may know the past.” The line appears in the “Examining the Present” chapter of the Lüshi Chunqiu. The passage argues that although past and present differ, human concerns and patterns of affairs can still be comparable, allowing the self to illuminate other people and the present to illuminate earlier times.

Here, “examine” does not mean guessing from intuition. It means reasoning from experience that can be observed directly. The sentence reminds us that distant subjects are inevitably approached through measures available now. Yet analogy is not proof. One person’s situation does not represent everyone, and present institutions cannot simply be projected backwards. Sound understanding needs resemblance, but it must also let evidence and difference revise the first judgement.

https://ctext.org/lv-shi-chun-qiu/cha-jin/zh