For example, "lust" and "stench", seeing lust and smelling stench is a physical feeling, that is, at the moment of this feeling, it corresponds to good and evil emotionally. A person's love for lewdness and aversion to stench are all internal feelings and consciousness that have nothing to do with others and are unknown to others.
Just as a gentleman likes his face and hates his smell, so does morality. Although no one else is observing and supervising him, he can act according to his true feelings and consciousness. And a villain, when no one is alone, does all kinds of evil. What he did was not what he thought, and what he did was not what he wanted. However, when a villain meets a gentleman, he hides evil and promotes good. But this kind of concealment is meaningless, because the eyes that look attentively will certainly see the consistency or inconsistency between external behavior and internal emotion and consciousness.
In the view of "university", sincerity, as the most important meaning of caution, means to have a true emotional state, and then act according to the true inner feelings, so that the external behavior is completely consistent with the inner feelings. Compared with the university question that pays attention to the consistency between internal emotional state and external action, the golden mean emphasizes caution and independence, and pays attention to the unified relationship between internal emotional state and reflective consciousness. "The Doctrine of the Mean" said: "Those who are also Taoist must be inseparable for a moment; You can stay, but you can't.
Therefore, a gentleman should be cautious about what he has not seen. Fear is almost unheard of. Don't be invisible, don't be subtle, so a gentleman is cautious. "Tao is related to people's subjective feelings, and people's actions are mostly driven by feelings. In the real development and realization of feelings, there is a saying. The so-called "cautious independence" in The Doctrine of the Mean emphasizes that Taoism is inseparable for an instant, highlights the "cautious fear" that precedes "not seeing but not seeing", and focuses on introspection when the hermit has not yet appeared. Its essence is to emphasize that the internal diversity of the subject's affection is conscious in the "respect" before the specific action, thus making affection a true and impartial force.
The realization of love makes love real; Conscience and affection make people sincere. The unity of emotion and consciousness is the honesty of the mean. In this way, all realistic and concrete actions of people are real. The Doctrine of the Mean emphasizes that when people can't see, what a gentleman does is just beyond the reach of ordinary people: "What a gentleman can't reach, others can't see." Comparatively speaking, "University" pays attention to the "Daoism" which is material and emotional.
The doctrine of the mean focuses on "respecting morality" that is understood before the feeling of specific things. Of course, the so-called sincerity in the golden mean should also be understood in the unified whole of "erudition, interrogation, deliberation, discernment and perseverance" in order to get its complete meaning.