To nurse virtue

 

Reason gives life to them

Virtue nurses them.

Concrete things shape them.

Energy completes them.

Therefore the ten thousand things

no one not honors reason and esteems virtue.

Reason's honorableness virtue's esteemableness,

however, no one it commands,

but always they are spontaneous.

Therefore reason gives life to them,

virtue nurses them, raises them,

nurtures them, completes them,

matures them, rears them, protects them,

to give life to but not to own,

to make but not to claim;

to raise but not to rule;

this is called profound virtue.