小兒辨日

　　In the middle of Confucius's travel round all the states, he saw two children arguing with each other.

　　He stopped and asked them what they argued about. One child said, "I think the sun is closer to us when it first rises in the morning, and farther away from us at noon." The other child said, "I think the sun is farther away from us when it first rises in the morning, and closer to us at noon," The former child then said, "When it first rises, the sun looks as big as a canopy(天篷，華蓋). At noon, it looks only as big as a plate. " According to the rule that the farther away. An object is from us, the smaller the object looks, and the closer the bigger, I am sure the us is closer to us in the morning and farther away from us at noon." The latter one said, "It is cool when the sun first rises, and it is hot at noon. The sun must be closer to us for us to feel hot, and it must we farther away when it is cool."

　　Confucius could not adjudicate(裁定，宣判) and ordered the wagoner to leave.

　　孔子周游列國(guó)的途中，見兩個(gè)小孩在相互爭(zhēng)辯，便停下車來(lái)問(wèn)他們?cè)跔?zhēng)什么。

　　一個(gè)小孩說(shuō)：“我覺(jué)得太陽(yáng)剛升起時(shí)離人近，中午時(shí)離人遠(yuǎn)。”另一個(gè)則說(shuō)：“我覺(jué)得太陽(yáng)剛升起離人遠(yuǎn)，中午時(shí)才離人近。”前者說(shuō)：“日出時(shí)，太陽(yáng)像車蓋那么大，中午卻只有盤子那么小，根據(jù)遠(yuǎn)的小、近的大的原則，我認(rèn)為早晨近，中午遠(yuǎn)。”后者說(shuō)：“日出時(shí)很涼快，中午就熱得很，只有熱的才近，遠(yuǎn)的就涼快了。”

　　孔子認(rèn)為這個(gè)問(wèn)題自己無(wú)法裁決，便命令車夫馬上離開這里。