What the Great Learning teaches is to illustrate illustrious virtue, to renovate the people, and to rest in the highest excellence. The point where to rest being known, the object of pursuit is then determined.

Things have their root and their branches. Affairs have their end and their beginning. To know what is first and what is last will lead near to what is taught in the Great Learning. The ancients who wished to illustrate illustrious virtue throughout the kingdom first ordered well their own states.

Wishing to order well their states, they first regulated their families. Wishing to regulate their families, they first cultivated their persons. Wishing to cultivate their persons, they first rectified their hearts.

From the Son of Heaven down to the mass of the people, all must consider the cultivation of the person the root of everything besides. It cannot be, when the root is neglected, that what should spring from it will be well ordered.