te Chinese rm meaning ‘moral charisma’ or ‘virtue’. In its earliest use, te is the quality bestowed on a ruler by Heaven (t’ien) which makes his subjects willingly follow him. Rule by te is traditionally thought to be not just ethically preferable to rule by force but also more effective instrumentally. It is a necessary condition for having te that one be ethically exemplary, but traditional thinkers differ over whether being virtuous is also sufficient for the bestowal of te, and whether the bestowal of te makes one even more virtuous. Te soon came also to refer to virtue, in the sense of either a disposition that contributes to human flourishing (benevolence, courage, etc.) or the specific excellence of any kind of thing. B.W.V.N.