 A good doctor is able to use needles and medicines and is successful in his arts when he meets with a person who has not yet died who has an illness that does not lead to death. If the person’s illness is terminal, the doctor can do nothing, even if he is a master. The allotment connected to a serious illness is such that it cannot be cured, just as disorder among the people cannot be undone. Medicine cures illness just as instruction guides and pacifies the people. They are both a matter of allotment (ming) and the times, and cannot be attained by ordering or using force. (Lunheng 53.3, author’s translation).