Which Confucian text is organized into ten sections and includes the idea of investigating things?

The Great Learning is the Confucian text organized into ten sections and associated with the idea of investigating things.

The Great Learning, or Daxue, is one of the Four Books used in later Confucian education. In the received tradition, it contains a short core text attributed to Confucius and a commentary traditionally associated with his disciple Zengzi. The commentary is arranged into ten sections explaining the text’s moral and political program.

Its famous sequence moves from self-cultivation to family regulation, state governance, and peace under Heaven. The phrase “investigating things” appears in this broader program of extending knowledge, though its interpretation has generated debate among Confucian thinkers.

Zhu Xi’s Song-dynasty interpretation gave the Great Learning an especially important place in education and examination culture. It should not be confused with the Doctrine of the Mean, another of the Four Books, which has a different structure and subject emphasis.