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               CHUANG TZŬ

_Mystic, Moralist, and Social Reformer_

      TRANSLATED FROM THE CHINESE

                   BY

            HERBERT A. GILES

     _H. B. M.'s Consul at Tamsui_

                 LONDON
            BERNARD QUARITCH
                  1889

    _CONTENTS._

                                                                  _Page_

    INTRODUCTION                                                       v

    NOTE ON THE PHILOSOPHY OF CHUANG TZŬ, _by Canon Moore_         xviii

    CHAPTER      I--TRANSCENDENTAL BLISS                               1

       "        II--THE IDENTITY OF CONTRARIES                        12

       "       III--NOURISHMENT OF THE SOUL                           33

       "        IV--MAN AMONG MEN                                     38

       "         V--THE EVIDENCE OF VIRTUE COMPLETE                   56

       "        VI--THE GREAT SUPREME                                 68

       "       VII--HOW TO GOVERN                                     91

       "      VIII--JOINED TOES                                       99

       "        IX--HORSES' HOOFS                                    106

       "         X--OPENING TRUNKS                                   110

       "        XI--ON LETTING ALONE                                 119

       "       XII--THE UNIVERSE                                     135

       "      XIII--THE TAO OF GOD                                   157

       "       XIV--THE CIRCLING SKY                                 173

       "        XV--SELF-CONCEIT                                     190

       "       XVI--EXERCISE OF FACULTIES                            195

       "      XVII--AUTUMN FLOODS                                    200

       "     XVIII--PERFECT HAPPINESS                                220

       "       XIX--THE SECRET OF LIFE                               229

       "        XX--MOUNTAIN TREES                                   245

       "       XXI--T'IEN TZŬ FANG                                   261

       "      XXII--KNOWLEDGE TRAVELS NORTH                          276

       "     XXIII--KÊNG SANG CH'U                                   294

       "      XXIV--HSÜ WU KUEI                                      311

       "       XXV--TSÊ YANG                                         335

       "      XXVI--CONTINGENCIES                                    352

       "     XXVII--LANGUAGE                                         363

       "    XXVIII--ON DECLINING POWER                               370

       "      XXIX--ROBBER CHÊ                                       387

       "       XXX--ON SWORDS                                        407

       "      XXXI--THE OLD FISHERMAN                                413

       "     XXXII--LIEH TZŬ                                         423

       "    XXXIII--THE EMPIRE                                       437

    INDEX                                                            455

    ERRATA AND ADDENDA                                               466

_Introduction._

Chuang Tzŭ[1] belongs to the third and fourth centuries before Christ.
He lived in the feudal age, when China was split up into a number of
States owning a nominal allegiance to the royal, and weakly, House of
Chou.

[1] Pronounce _Chwongdza_.

He is noticed by the historian Ssŭ-ma Ch'ien, who flourished at the
close of the second century B.C., as follows:--

 Chuang Tzŭ was a native of Mêng.[2] His personal name was Chou.
 He held a petty official post at Ch'i-yüan in Mêng.[3] He lived
 contemporaneously with Prince Hui of the Liang State and Prince Hsüan
 of the Ch'i State. His erudition was most varied; but his chief
 doctrines are based upon the sayings of Lao Tzŭ.[4] Consequently,
 his writings, which extend to over 100,000 words, are mostly
 allegorical.[5]

[2] In the modern province of An-hui.

[3] Hence he is often spoken of in the book language as "Ch'i-yüan."

[4] Pronounce _Lowdza_. The _low_ as in _allow_. See p. vii.

[5] Of an imaginative character, in keeping with the visionary
teachings of his master.

 He wrote _The Old Fisherman_, _Robber Chê_, and _Opening Trunks_, with
 a view to asperse the Confucian school and to glorify the mysteries of
 Lao Tzŭ.[6] _Wei Lei Hsü_, _Kêng Saṅg Tzŭ_, and the like, are probably
 unsubstantial figments of his imagination.[7] Nevertheless, his
 literary and dialectic skill was such that the best scholars of the
 age proved unable to refute his destructive criticism of the Confucian
 and Mihist schools.[8]

 [6] See chs. xxxi, xxix, and x, respectively.

 [7] The second of these personages is doubtless identical, though the
 name is differently written, with the Kêng Sang Ch'u of ch. xxiii. The
 identity of the first name has not been satisfactorily settled.

 [8] See p. 17.

 His teachings were like an overwhelming flood, which spreads at its
 own sweet will. Consequently, from rulers and ministers downwards,
 none could apply them to any definite use.[9]

 [9] This last clause is based upon a famous passage in the _Lun
 Yü:--The perfect man is not a mere thing; i.e._, his functions are
 not limited. The idea conveyed is that Chuang Tzŭ's system was too
 far-reaching to be practical.

 Prince Wei of the Ch'u State, hearing of Chuang Tzŭ's good report,
 sent messengers to him, bearing costly gifts, and inviting him to
 become Prime Minister. At this Chuang Tzŭ smiled and said to the
 messengers, "You offer me great wealth and a proud position indeed;
 but have you never seen a sacrificial ox?--When after being fattened
 up for several years, it is decked with embroidered trappings and led
 to the altar, would it not willingly then change places with some
 uncared-for pigling?... Begone! Defile me not! I would rather disport
 myself to my own enjoyment in the mire than be slave to the ruler of
 a State. I will never take office. Thus I shall remain free to follow
 my own inclinations."[10]

[10] See p. 434.

To enable the reader to understand more fully the writings of Chuang
Tzŭ, and to appreciate his aim and object, it will be necessary to go
back a few more hundred years.

In the seventh century B.C., lived a man, now commonly spoken of as Lao
Tzŭ. He was the great Prophet of his age. He taught men to return good
for evil, and to look forward to a higher life. He professed to have
found the clue to all things human and divine.

He seems to have insisted that his system could not be reduced to
words. At any rate, he declared that those who spoke did not know,
while those who knew did not speak.

But to accommodate himself to conditions of mortality, he called this
clue TAO, or THE WAY, explaining that the word was to be understood
metaphorically, and not in a literal sense as the way or road upon
which men walk.

The following are sentences selected from the indisputably genuine
remains of Lao Tzŭ, to be found scattered here and there in early
Chinese literature:--

 All the world knows that the goodness of doing good is not real
 goodness.

 When merit has been achieved, do not take it to yourself. On the other
 hand, if you do not take it to yourself, it shall never be taken from
 you.

 By many words wit is exhausted. It is better to preserve a mean.

 Keep behind, and you shall be put in front. Keep out, and you shall be
 kept in.

 What the world reverences may not be treated with irreverence.

 Good words shall gain you honour in the market-place. Good deeds shall
 gain you friends among men.

 He who, conscious of being strong, is content to be weak,--he shall be
 a cynosure of men.

 The Empire is a divine trust, and may not be ruled. He who rules,
 ruins. He who holds by force, loses.

 Mighty is he who conquers himself.

 He who is content, has enough.

 To the good I would be good. To the not-good I would also be good, in
 order to make them good.

 If the government is tolerant, the people will be without guile. If
 the government is meddling, there will be constant infraction of the
 law.

 Recompense injury with kindness.

 The wise man's freedom from grievance is because he will not regard
 grievances as such.

Of such were the pure and simple teachings of Lao Tzŭ. But it is upon
the wondrous doctrine of _Inaction_ that his claim to immortality is
founded:--

 Do nothing, and all things will be done.

 I do nothing, and my people become good of their own accord.

 Abandon wisdom and discard knowledge, and the people will be benefited
 an hundredfold.

 The weak overcomes the strong, the soft overcomes the hard. All the
 world knows this; yet none can act up to it.

 The softest things in the world override the hardest. That which has
 no substance enters where there is no fissure. And so I know that
 there is advantage in _Inaction_.

Such doctrines as these were, however, not likely to appeal with force
to the sympathies of a practical people. In the sixth century B.C.,
before Lao Tzŭ's death, another Prophet arose. He taught his countrymen
that _duty to one's neighbour_ comprises the whole duty of man.
Charitableness of heart, justice, sincerity, and fortitude,--sum up the
ethics of Confucius. He knew nothing of a God, of a soul, of an unseen
world. And he declared that the unknowable had better remain untouched.

Against these hard and worldly utterances, Chuang Tzŭ raised a powerful
cry. The idealism of Lao Tzŭ had seized upon his poetic soul, and he
determined to stem the tide of materialism in which men were being fast
rolled to perdition.

He failed, of course. It was, indeed, too great a task to persuade the
calculating Chinese nation that by doing nothing, all things would be
done. But Chuang Tzŭ bequeathed to posterity a work which, by reason
of its marvellous literary beauty, has always held a foremost place.
It is also a work of much originality of thought. The writer, it is
true, appears chiefly as a disciple insisting upon the principles of
a Master. But he has contrived to extend the field, and carry his own
speculations into regions never dreamt of by Lao Tzŭ.

It may here be mentioned that the historian Ssŭ-ma Ch'ien, already
quoted, states in his notice of Lao Tzŭ that the latter left behind
him a small volume in 5,000 and odd characters. Ssŭ-ma Ch'ien does
not say, nor does he give the reader to understand, that he himself
had ever seen the book in question. Nor does he even hint (see p. v.)
that Chuang Tzŭ drew his inspiration from a book, but only from the
"sayings" of Lao Tzŭ.

Confucius never mentions this book. Neither does Mencius, China's
"Second Sage," who was born about one hundred years after the death of
the First.

But all this is a trifle compared with the fact that Chuang Tzŭ himself
never once alludes to such a book; although now, in this nineteenth
century, there are some, happily few in number, who believe that we
possess the actual work of Lao Tzŭ's pen. It is, perhaps, happier still
that this small number cannot be said to include within it the name
of a single native scholar of eminence. In fact, as far as I know,
the whole range of Chinese literature yields but the name of one such
individual who has ever believed in the genuineness of the so-called
_Tao-Tê-Ching_.[11] Even he would probably have remained unknown to
fame, had he not been brother to Su Tung-p'o.[12]

[11] The Canon of Tao, and of Tê, the exemplification thereof. See p.
125. I have discussed the claims of this work at some length in _The
Remains of Lao Tzŭ_: Hong Kong, 1886.

[12] The brilliant philosopher, statesman, poet, &c., of the Sung
dynasty (A.D. 1036-1101).

Chuang Tzŭ, indeed, puts into the mouth of Lao Tzŭ sayings which are
now found in the _Tao-Tê-Ching_, mixed up with a great many other
similar sayings which are not to be found there. But he also puts
sayings, which now appear in the Tao-Tê-Ching, into the mouth of
Confucius (p. 275)! And even into the mouth of the Yellow Emperor (pp.
277-278), whose date is some twenty centuries earlier than that of Lao
Tzŭ himself!!

Two centuries before the Christian era, an attempt was made to destroy,
with some exceptions, the whole of Chinese literature, in order that
history might begin anew from the reign of the First Emperor of united
China. The extent of the actual mischief done by this "Burning of the
Books" has been greatly exaggerated. Still, the mere attempt at such a
holocaust gave a fine chance to the scholars of the later Han dynasty
(A.D. 25-221), who seem to have enjoyed nothing so much as forging, if
not the whole, at any rate portions, of the works of ancient authors.
Some one even produced a treatise under the name of Lieh Tzŭ, a
philosopher mentioned by Chuang Tzŭ, not seeing that the individual in
question was a creation of Chuang Tzŭ's brain!

And the _Tao-Tê-Ching_ was undoubtedly pieced together somewhere about
this period, from recorded sayings and conversations of Lao Tzŭ.[13]

[13] A curious parallelism will be found in _Supernatural Religion_,
vol. i, p. 460:--

"No period in the history of the world ever produced so many spurious
works as the first two or three centuries of our era. The name of every
Apostle, or Christian teacher, not excepting that of the great Master,
was freely attached to every description of religious forgery."

Chuang Tzŭ's work has suffered in like manner. Several chapters are
clearly spurious, and many episodes have been interpolated by feeble
imitators of an inimitable style.

The text, as it now stands, consists of thirty-three chapters. These
are a reduction from fifty-three, which appear to have been in
existence in the fourth century A.D.[14] The following is the account
given in the Imperial Catalogue of the first known edition:--

[14] On the authority of the _I-wên-chih_.

 Chuang Tzŭ, with Commentary, in 10 books. By Kuo Hsiang of the Chin
 dynasty (A.D. 265-420).

 The _Shih-shuo-hsin-yü_[15] states that Kuo Hsiang stole his work from
 Hsiang Hsiu.[16] Subsequently, Hsiang Hsiu's edition was issued, and
 the two were in circulation together. Hsiang Hsiu's edition is now
 lost, while Kuo Hsiang's remains.

 [15] A work of the fifth century A.D.

 [16] Of the Han dynasty. Mayers puts him a little later, viz., A.D.
 275.

 Comparison with quotations from Hsiang Hsiu's work, as given in
 _Chuang Tzŭ Explained_, by Lu Tê-ming, shows conclusive evidence of
 plagiarism. Nevertheless, Kuo Hsiang contributed a certain amount of
 independent revision, making it impossible for us to regard the whole
 as from the hand of Hsiang Hsiu. Consequently, it now passes under the
 name of Kuo Hsiang.

Since Kuo Hsiang's time, numberless editions with ever-varying
interpretations have been produced to delight and to confuse the
student. Of these, I have chosen six, representative as nearly as
possible of different schools of thought. Their editors are:--

 1.--KUO HSIANG of the Chin dynasty. (_a_) As given in the _Shih Tzŭ
 Ch'üan Shu_, or Complete Works of the Ten Philosophers. (_b_) As
 edited by Tan Yüan-ch'un, of the Ming dynasty, with his own valuable
 notes.

 2.--LÜ HUI-CH'ING of the Sung dynasty.

 3.--LIN HSI-YI of the Sung dynasty.

 4.--WANG YÜ of the Sung dynasty. Son of the famous Wang An-shih.

 5.--HSING TUNG, a Taoist priest of the Ming dynasty.

 6.--LIN HSI-CHUNG, of the Ming and Ch'ing dynasties.

Where there is a consensus of opinion, I have followed such
interpretation without demur. But where opinions differ, I have not
hesitated to accept that interpretation which seemed to me to be most
in harmony with the general tenor of Chuang Tzŭ's philosophy. And
where all commentators fail equally, as they sometimes do, to yield
anything at all intelligible, I have then ventured to fall back upon
what Chuang Tzŭ himself would have called the "light of nature." Always
keeping steadily in view the grand precept of Lin Hsi-chung, that we
should attempt to interpret Chuang Tzŭ neither according to Lao Tzŭ,
nor according to Confucius, nor according to Buddha, but according to
Chuang Tzŭ himself.

Of the thirty-three existing chapters, the first seven are called
"inside" chapters, the next fifteen "outside," and the remaining eleven
"miscellaneous."

The meaning of "inside" and "outside" is a matter of dispute. Some
Chinese critics have understood these terms in the obvious sense of
esoteric and exoteric. But it is simpler to believe with others that
the titles of the first seven chapters are taken from the inside or
subject-matter, while the outside chapters are so named because their
titles are derived casually from words which happen to stand at the
beginning or outside of each.

Compared with the "miscellaneous," these latter seem to have been
classed together as elucidating a single principle in terms more easy
of apprehension; while the "miscellaneous" chapters embrace several
distinct trains of thought, and are altogether more abstruse. The
arrangement is unscientific, and it was probably this which caused
Su Tung-p'o to decide that division into chapters belongs to a later
age. He regards chaps. xxix-xxxii as spurious, although Ssŭ-ma Ch'ien
alludes to two of these as Chuang Tzŭ's work. It has indeed been held
that the inside chapters alone (i-vii) are from Chuang Tzŭ's own pen.
But most of the other chapters, exclusive of xxix-xxxii, contain
unmistakable traces of a master hand. Ch. xvii, by virtue of an
exquisite imagery, has earned for its author the affectionate sobriquet
of "Chou of the Autumn Floods."

Chuang Tzŭ, it must be remembered, has been for centuries classed as
a heterodox writer. His work was an effort of reaction against the
materialism of Confucian teachings. And in the course of it he was
anything but sparing of terms. Confucius is dealt with in language
which no modern literate can approve. But the beauty and vigour of the
language are facts admitted by all. He is constantly quoted in the
great standard lexicon which passes under the name of K'ang Hsi.

But no acquaintance with the philosophy of Chuang Tzŭ would assist
the candidate for honours at the competitive examinations which are
the portals to official place and power. Consequently, Chuang Tzŭ is
studied chiefly by older men, who have retired from office, or who have
been disappointed in their career. Those too who are dominated by a
religious craving for something better than mortality, find in his
pages much agreeable solace against the troubles of this world, with an
implied promise of another and a better world to come.

It has been publicly announced that translations of Lao Tzŭ and Chuang
Tzŭ are to appear among the _Sacred Books of the East_.[17]

[17] _The China Review_, vol. xvi, p. 195.

Now to include the _Tao-Tê-Ching_ in such a series would be already a
doubtful step. Apart from spuriousness, it can only by a severe stretch
of courtesy be termed a "sacred book." It undoubtedly contains many of
Lao Tzŭ's sayings, but it also undoubtedly contains much that Lao Tzŭ
never said and never could have said. It illustrates rather that period
when the pure TAO of Lao Tzŭ began to be corrupted by alchemistic
research and gropings after the elixir of life. It was probably
written up in self-defence against the encroachments of Buddhism, in
those early days of religious struggle when China was first flooded
with the "sacred books" of the West. It is not seriously recognised
as the Canon of ancient Taoism. Among the Taoists of to-day, not one
in ten thousand has more than heard its name. For modern Taoism is
but a hybrid superstition,--a mixture of ancient nature-worship and
Buddhistic ceremonial, with TAO as the style of the firm. Its teachings
are farther removed from the TAO of Lao Tzŭ than Ritualism from the
Christianity of Christ.

As to Chuang Tzŭ, his work can in no sense be called "sacred." Unless
indeed we modify somewhat the accepted value of terms, and reckon the
works of Aristotle among the "sacred" books of the Greeks. Chuang Tzŭ
was scarcely the founder of a school. He was not a Prophet, as Lao Tzŭ
was, nor can he fairly be said ever to have been regarded by genuine
Taoists as such.

When, many centuries later, the light of Lao Tzŭ's real teachings had
long since been obscured, then a foolish Emperor conferred upon Chuang
Tzŭ's work the title of _Holy Canon of Nan-hua_.[18] But this was done
solely to secure for the follies of the age the sanction of a great
name. Not to mention that Lieh Tzŭ's alleged work, and many other
similar forgeries have also been equally honoured. So that if works
like these are to be included among the _Sacred Books of the East_,
then China alone will be able to supply matter for translation for the
next few centuries to come.

[18] In A.D. 742.

Partly of necessity, and partly to spare the general reader, I have
relegated to a supplement all textual and critical notes involving the
use of Chinese characters. This supplement will be issued as soon as
possible after my return to China. It will not form an integral part
of the present work, being intended merely to assist students of the
language in verifying the renderings I have here seen fit to adopt. As
a compromise I have supplied a kind of running commentary, introduced,
in accordance with the Chinese system, into the body of the text. It is
hoped that this will enable any one to understand the drift of Chuang
Tzŭ's allusions, and to follow arguments which are usually subtle and
oft-times obscure.

Only one previous attempt has been made to place Chuang Tzŭ in the
hands of English readers.[19] In that case, the knowledge of the
Chinese language possessed by the translator was altogether too
elementary to justify such an attempt.[20]

[19] _The Divine Classic of Nan-hua._ By Frederic Henry Balfour,
F.R.G.S., Shanghai and London, 1881.

[20] One example will suffice. In ch. xxiii (see p. 309) there occurs
a short sentence which means, "A one-legged man discards ornament, his
exterior not being open to commendation."

Mr. Balfour translated this as follows:--"Servants will tear up a
portrait, not liking to be confronted with its beauties and its
defects."

      HERBERT A. GILES.

_Note on the Philosophy of Chaps._ i-vii.

_By the_ REV. AUBREY MOORE,

Tutor of Keble and Magdalen Colleges, Oxford; Hon. Canon of Christ
Church, &c.

The translator of Chuang Tzŭ has asked me to append a note on the
philosophy of chs. i-vii. It is difficult to see how one who writes
not only in ignorance of Chinese modes of thought, but with the
preconceptions of Western philosophy, can really help much towards
the understanding of an admittedly obscure system, involving terms
and expressions on which Chinese scholars are not yet agreed. But an
attempt to point out parallelisms of thought and reasoning between
East and West may be of use in two ways. It may stimulate those who
are really competent to understand both terms in the comparison to
tell us where the parallelism is real and where it is only apparent;
and it may help to accustom ordinary readers to look for and expect
resemblances in systems in which an earlier age would have seen nothing
but contrasts.

There was a time when historians of Greek philosophy used to point out
what were considered to be the characteristics of Greek thought, and
then to put down to "Oriental influence" anything which did not at once
agree with these characteristics. How and through what channels this
"Oriental influence" was exercised, it was never easy to determine,
nor was it always thought worthy of much discussion. In recent times,
however, a greater knowledge of Eastern systems has familiarised us
with much which, on the same principle, ought to be attributed to
"Greek influence." And the result has been that we have learned to put
aside theories of derivation, and to content ourselves with tracing
the evolution of reason and of rational problems, and to expect
parallelisms even where the circumstances are widely different.

One instance may be worth quoting in illustration. We used to be told
that the Greek mind, in its speculation and its art, was characterised
by its love of order, harmony, and symmetry, in contrast with the
monstrous creations of the Oriental imagination, and the "colossal
ugliness of the Pyramids"; and it was said with reason that the
Aristotelian doctrine of "the mean" was the ripe fruit of the
practical inquiries of the Greeks, and was the ethical counterpart
of their artistic development. But in 1861 we were introduced by Dr.
Legge to a Confucianist work, attributed to Tzŭ Tzŭ, grandson of
Confucius and a contemporary of Socrates, and entitled _The Doctrine
of the Mean_,[21] which is there represented as the true moral way in
which the perfect man walks, while all else go beyond or fall short of
it. Yet even those who discovered the doctrine of the Trinity in the
Tâo-Tê-Ching have not, we believe, suggested that Aristotle had private
access to the _Li Chi_.

[21] In 1885 this treatise was republished by Dr. Legge in its place
as Bk. xxviii of the _Lî Kî_ of _Li Chi_ (Sacred Books of the East,
vols. xxvii, xxviii), with a new title _The State of Equilibrium and
Harmony_. But the parallelism with the Aristotelian doctrine is as
obvious as ever.

We may then, without bringing any charge of piracy or plagiarism
against either, point out some parallels between Chuang Tzŭ and a great
Greek thinker.

Chuang Tzŭ's first chapter is mainly critical and destructive, pointing
out the worthlessness of ordinary judgments, and the unreality of sense
knowledge. The gigantic Rukh, at the height of 90,000 _li_, is a mere
mote in the sunbeam. For size is relative. The cicada, which can just
fly from tree to tree, laughs with the dove at the Rukh's high flight.
For space also is relative. Compared with the mushroom of a day, P'êng
Tsu is as old as Methuselah; but what is his age to that of the fabled
tree, whose spring and autumn make up 16,000 years? Time, then, is
relative too. And though men wonder at him who could "ride upon the
wind and travel for many days," he is but a child to one who "roams
through the realms of For-Ever."

This doctrine of "relativity," which is a commonplace in Greek as it
is in modern philosophy, is made the basis, both in ancient and modern
times, of two opposite conclusions. Either it is argued that all sense
knowledge is relative, and sense is the only organ of knowledge,
therefore real knowledge is impossible; or else the relativity of sense
knowledge leads men to draw a sharp contrast between sense and reason
and to turn away from the outward in order to listen to the inward
voice. The one alternative is scepticism, the other idealism. In Greek
thought the earliest representatives of the former are the Sophists, of
the latter Heracleitus.

There is no doubt to which side of the antithesis Chuang Tzŭ belongs.
His exposure of false and superficial thinking looks at first like the
destruction of knowledge. Even Socrates was called a Sophist because
of his destructive criticism and his restless challenging of popular
views. But Chuang Tzŭ has nothing of the sceptic in him. He is an
idealist and a mystic, with all the idealist's hatred of a utilitarian
system, and the mystic's contempt for a life of mere external activity.
"The perfect man ignores _self_; the divine man ignores _action_;
the true sage ignores _reputation_" (p. 5). The Emperor Yao would
have abdicated in favour of a hermit, but the hermit replies that
"reputation is but the shadow of reality," and will not exchange the
real for the seeming. But greater than Yao and the hermit is the
divine being who dwells on the mysterious mountain in a state of pure,
passionless inaction.

For the sage, then, life means death to all that men think life, the
life of _seeming_ or reputation, of _doing_ or action, of _being_ or
individual selfhood. This leads on to the "budget of paradoxes" in
chap. II. As in the moral and active region we escape from the world
and self, and are able to reverse and look down upon the world's
judgments, so in the speculative region we get behind and beyond the
contradictions of ordinary thinking, and of speech which stereotypes
abstractions. The sage knows nothing of the distinction between
subjective and objective. It exists only _ex analogiâ hominis_.
"From the standpoint of Tao" all things are one. People "guided by
the criteria of their own mind," see only the contradiction, the
manifoldness, the difference; the sage sees the many disappearing in
the One, in which subjective and objective, positive and negative, here
and there, somewhere and nowhere, meet and blend. For him, "a beam
and a pillar are identical. So are ugliness and beauty, greatness,
wickedness, perverseness, and strangeness. Separation is the same as
construction: construction is the same as destruction" (pp. 19-20).
The sage "blends everything into one harmonious whole, rejecting the
comparison of this and that. Rank and precedence, which the vulgar
prize, the sage stolidly ignores. The universe itself may pass away,
but he will flourish still" (p. 29). "Were the ocean itself scorched
up, he would not feel hot. Were the milky way frozen hard he would not
feel cold. Were the mountains to be riven with thunder, and the great
deep to be thrown up by storm, he would not tremble" (pp. 27-28).

    Si fractus illabatur orbis,
      Impavidum ferient ruinæ.

He is "embraced in the obliterating unity of God," and passing into the
realm of the Infinite finds rest therein (p. 31).

It is impossible in reading this chapter on "The Identity of
Contraries" not to be reminded of Heracleitus. The disparagement of
sense knowledge, and the contempt for common views is indeed equally
marked in Eleaticism, and there is much in Chuang Tzŭ which recalls
Parmenides,[22] so far as the contrast between the way of truth and the
way of error, the true belief in the One and the popular belief in the
Many, is concerned. But it seems to me that the "One" of Chuang Tzŭ
is not the dead Unit of Eleaticism, which resulted from the thinking
away of differences, but the living Unity of Heracleitus, in which
contraries co-exist. Heracleitus, indeed, seems to have been a man
after Chuang Tzŭ's own heart, not only in his obscurity, which won
for him the title of ὁ σκοτεινὸς, but in his indifference to worldly
position, shown in the fact that, like the Emperor Yao, he abdicates in
his brother's favour (_Diog. Laert._ ix. 1), and in his supercilious
disregard for the learned like Hesiod and Pythagoras and Xenophanes and
Hecataeus,[23] no less than for the common people[24] of his day.

[22] See the fragments in Ritter and Preller's _Hist. Phil. Græc._ § 93
and § 94 A. B. Seventh edition.

[23] _Heracl. Eph. Rell._ Bywater, xvi.

[24] ὀχλολοίδορος Ἡράκλειτος _Timon ap. Diog. Laert._ ix. i.

"Listen," says Heracleitus, "not to me, but to reason, and confess the
true wisdom that 'All things are ONE.'"[25] "All is One, the divided
and the undivided, the begotten and the unbegotten, the mortal and the
immortal, reason and eternity, father and son, God and justice."[26]
"Cold is hot, heat is cold, that which is moist is parched, that which
is dried up is wet."[27] "Good and evil are the same."[28] "Gods
are mortal, men immortal: our life is their death, our death their
life."[29] "Upward and downward are the same."[30] "The beginning and
the end are one."[31] "Life and death, sleeping and waking, youth and
age are identical."[32]

[25] Οὐκ ἐμεῦ ἀλλὰ τοὺ λόγου ἀκουσάντας ὁμολογέειν σοφόν ἐστι ἓν πάντα
εἶναι. _Heracl. Eph. Rell._ i.

[26] _Hippolytus Ref. haer._ ix. 9.

[27] _Heracl. Eph. Rell._ xxxix.

[28] _Ibid._, lvii.

[29] _Ibid._, lxvii.

[30] _Ibid._, lxix.

[31] _Ibid._, lxx.

[32] _Ibid._, lxxviii.

This is what reason tells the philosopher. "All is ONE." The world is a
unity of opposing forces (παλίντροπος ἁρμονίη κόσμου ὅκωσπερ λύρας καὶ
τόξου).[33] "Join together whole and not whole, agreeing and different,
harmonious and discordant. Out of all comes one: out of one all."[34]
"God is day-night, winter-summer, war-peace, repletion-want."[35]
The very rhythm of nature is strife. War, which men hate and the
poets would banish, "is the father and lord of all."[36] But "men are
without understanding, they hear and hear not,"[37] or "they hear and
understand not."[38] For they trust to their senses, which are "false
witnesses."[39] They see the contradictions, but know not that "the
different is at unity with itself."[40] They cannot see the "hidden
harmony, which is greater than the harmony which is seen."[41] For
they live in the external, the commonplace, the relative, and never
rise above the life of the senses. "The sow loves the mire."[42]
"The ass prefers fodder to gold."[43] And men love their "private
conceits" instead of clinging to the universal reason which orders all
things,[44] and which even the sun obeys.[45]

[33] _Ibid._, xlv.

[34] _Ibid._, lix.

[35] _Ibid._, xxxvi.

[36] _Ibid._, xliv.

[37] _Ibid._, iii.

[38] _Ibid._, v.

[39] _Heracl. Eph. Rell._ iv.

[40] _Ibid._, xlv.

[41] _Ibid._, xlvii.

[42] _Ibid._, liv., and notes.

[43] _Ibid._, li.

[44] _Ibid._, xci, xix.

[45] _Ibid._, xxix.

Of the fragments which remain to us of Heracleitus, the greater number
belong to the region of logic and metaphysics, while Chuang Tzŭ devotes
much space to the more practical side of the question. He not only
ridicules those who trust their senses, or measure by utilitarian
standards, or judge by the outward appearance;--he teaches them how
to pass from the seeming to the true. The wonderful carver, who could
cut where the natural joints are,[46] is one who sees not with the
eye of sense but with his mind. When he is in doubt he "falls back
upon eternal principles"; for he is "devoted to TAO" (chap. iii).
There is something of humour, as well as much of truth, in the rebuke
which Confucius, speaking _pro hâc vice_ as a disciple of Lao Tzŭ,
administers to his self-confident follower who wanted to "be of use."
"Cultivate _fasting_;--not bodily fasting, but the fasting of the
heart." TAO can only abide in the life which has got rid of self.
So the Duke of Shê is reminded that there is something higher than
duty,[47] viz., _destiny_, the state, that is, in which conscious
obedience has given way to that which is instinctive and automatic. The
parable of the trees (pp. 50-53), with its result in the survival of
the good-for-nothing, is again a reversal of popular outside judgments.
For as the first part of the chapter had taught the uselessness of
trying to be useful, so the last part teaches the usefulness of being
useless. And the same thought is carried on in the next chapter, which
deals with the reversal of common opinion as to persons. Its motto
is:--Judge not by the appearance. Virtue must prevail and outward form
be forgotten. The loathsome leper Ai T'ai To is made Prime Minister by
the wise Duke Ai. The mutilated criminal is judged by Lao Tzŭ to be a
greater man than Confucius. For the criminal is mutilated in body by
man, while Confucius, though men know it not, by the judgment of God is
πεπηρωμένος πρὸς ἀρετήν.

[46] _Cf. Plat. Phaedr._ 265: κατ' ἄρθρα ᾑ πέφυκεν καὶ μὴ ἐπιχειρεῖν
καταγνύναι μέρος μηδὲν κακοῦ μαγείρου τρόπῳ χρώμενος.

[47] _Cf._ Herbert Spencer's well-known paradox,--"The sense of duty
or moral obligation is transitory, and will diminish as fast as
moralisation increases."--_Data of Ethics_, p. 127.

This protest of Chuang Tzŭ against externality, and judging only by
the outward appearance, might easily be translated into Christian
language. For Christianity also teaches _inwardness_, and, in common
with all idealism, resents the delimitation of human life and knowledge
to "the things which are seen." In its opposition to a mere practical
system like Confucianism, Taoism must have appealed to those deeper
instincts of humanity to which Buddhism appealed some centuries later.
In practice, Confucianism was limited to the finite. Action, effort,
benevolence, unselfishness,--all these have a place in it, and their
theatre is the world as we know it. Its last word is worldly wisdom;
not selfishness, but an enlarged prudentialism. To the Taoist such a
system savours of "the rudiments of the world." Its "charity and duty,"
its "ceremonies and music," are the "Touch not, taste not, handle not,"
of an ephemeral state of being, and perish in the using. And the sage
seeks for the Absolute, the Infinite, the Eternal. He seeks to attain
to TAO.

It is here that we reach (in chaps. vi, vii) what properly constitutes
the _mysticism_ of Chuang Tzŭ. Heracleitus is not a mystic, though
he is the founder of a long line, which through Plato, and Dionysius
the Areopagite and John the Scot in the ninth century, and Meister
Eckhart in the thirteenth, and Jacob Böhme in the sixteenth, reaches
down to Hegel. Heracleitus despises the world and shuns it; but he
has not yet made flight from the world a dogma. Even Plato, when in
a well-known passage in the Theaetetus,[48] he counsels flight from
the present state of things, explains that he means only "flee from
evil and become like God." Still less has Heracleitus got so far as
to aim at self-absorption in God. In Greek thought the attempt to
get rid of consciousness, and to become the unconscious vehicle of a
higher illumination, is unknown till the time of Philo. Yet this is the
teaching of Chuang Tzŭ. "The true sage takes his refuge in God, and
learns that there is no distinction between subject and object. This is
the very axis of TAO" (p. 18). Abstraction from self, then, is the road
which leads to TAO (chap. vi). The pure of old did not love life and
hate death. They were content to be passive vehicles of TAO. They had
reached the state of sublime indifference, they had become "oblivious
of their own existence." Everything in them was spontaneous; nothing
the result of effort. "They made no plans; therefore failing, they had
no cause for regret; succeeding, no cause for congratulation" (p. 69).
"They cheerfully played their allotted parts, waiting patiently for the
end." They were free, for they were in perfect harmony with creation
(p. 71). For them One and not One are One; God and Man. For they had
attained to TAO, and TAO is greater than God. "Before heaven and earth
were, TAO was. It has existed without change from all time. Spiritual
beings draw their spirituality therefrom; while the universe became
what we see it now. To TAO the zenith is not high, nor the nadir low;
no point of time is long ago, nor by lapse of ages has it grown old"
(p. 76). The great legislators obtained TAO, and laid down eternal
principles. The sun and moon, and the Great Bear are kept in their
courses by TAO.

[48] _Theaet._ 176. A. διὸ καὶ πειρᾶσθαι χρὴ ἐνθένδε ἐκεῖσε φεύγειν ὅ
τι τάχιστα. φυγὴ δὲ ὁμοίωσις Θεῷ κατὰ τὸ δυνατόν. ὁμοίωσις δὲ δίκαιον
καὶ ὅσιον μετὰ φρονήσεως γενέσθαι.

    "Thou dost preserve the stars from wrong;
    And the most ancient heavens, through thee, are fresh and strong."

He who would attain to TAO must get rid of the thought of "charity and
duty," of "music and ceremonies," of body and mind. The flowers and the
birds do not toil, they simply live. That is TAO. And for man a state
of indifference and calm, the ἀταραξία not of the sceptic but of the
mystic, a passive reflecting of the Eternal, is the ideal end. "The
perfect man employs his mind as a mirror. It grasps nothing, it refuses
nothing. It receives but does not keep. And thus he can triumph over
matter without injury to himself." (See p. 98.)

It would of course be presumption to attempt to assign a meaning to
TAO, and still more to discover an equivalent in Western thought.
But it may be lawful to say that Heracleitus often speaks of Λόγος
as Chuang Tzŭ speaks of TAO. It is Necessity (ἀνάγκη), or Fate
(εἱμαρμένη), or Mind (γνώμη), or Justice (Δική). In nature it appears
as balance and equipoise; in the State as Law; in man as the universal
Reason, which is _in_ him but not _of_ him. Sometimes it is identified
with the mysterious name of Zeus, which may not be uttered;[49]
sometimes like the Ἀνάγκη of the Greek poets, it is supreme over gods
and men. If it is hard to say what is the relation of TAO to God, it
is not less hard to define the relation of Λόγος to Zeus. To speak of
Chuang Tzŭ and Heracleitus as pantheists is only to say that, so far
as we can translate their language into ours, that name seems less
inappropriate than Theist or Deist. But it is doubtful whether the
distinction between Pantheism and Theism would have been intelligible
to either philosopher, and certain that if they could have understood
it, they would have denied to it reality. Both held the immanence of
the Eternal Principle in all that is. Both taught that the soul is an
emanation from the Divine, and both, though in very different degrees,
seem to teach that a life is perfect in proportion as it becomes one
with that from which it came, and loses what is individual in it.

[49] _Heracl. Eph. Rell._ lxv.

In Chuang Tzŭ, as in all mystics, there is an element of antinomianism.
That "good and evil are the same," may contain a deep truth for the
sage, but "take no heed of time, nor of right and wrong" (p. 31) is,
to say the least, dangerous teaching for the masses. The mystic's
utterances will not bear translation into the language of the world,
and to take them _au pied de la lettre_ can hardly fail to produce
disastrous results. This is why antinomianism always dogs the heels of
mysticism. And this may perhaps help to explain the debased Taoism of
to-day. But of this I know nothing.

It would be interesting to know whether in the undisputed utterances
of Lao Tzŭ (_i. e._ putting on one side the _Tâo-Tê-Ching_), Quietism
and the glorification of Inaction are as prominent as they are in
_Chuang Tzŭ_. One would be prepared _à priori_ to find that they
are not. Lao Tzŭ was born at the end of the seventh century B.C.,
and was, therefore, some fifty years older than Confucius, with
whom in 517 B.C., he is said to have had an interview.[50] By the
time of Chuang Tzŭ, who was possibly contemporary with Mencius, and
therefore some two or three centuries after Lao Tzŭ, Confucianism
had become to some extent the established religion of China, and
Taoism, like Republicanism in the days of the Roman Empire, became a
mere _opposition de salon_. Under such circumstances any elements of
mysticism latent in Lao Tzŭ's system would develop rapidly. And the
antagonism between the representatives of Lao Tzŭ and Confucius would
proportionately increase. But philosophy does not become mystical and
take refuge in flight until it abandons all hope of converting the
world. When effort is useless, the mind idealises Inaction, and seeks a
metaphysical basis for it. For mysticism and scepticism flourish in the
same atmosphere though in different soils, both, though in different
ways, implying the abandonment of the rational problem. The Sceptic,
the Agnostic or Positivist of to-day, declares it insoluble, and
settles down content to take things as they are; the mystic retires
into himself, and dreams of a state of being which is the obverse of
the world of fact.

[50] _Chuang Tzŭ_, chap. xiv, p. 182-189.

The triumph of Confucianism in the centuries which intervened between
Lao Tzŭ and Chuang Tzŭ would account for the antagonism between Taoism
and Confucianism as we find it. But it fails to account for the way in
which Confucius is sometimes represented as playing into the hands of
Taoism. On p. 85 f. n. the translator explains it as a literary _coup
de main_. Dr. Chalmers, quoted by Dr. Legge,[51] says that both Chuang
Tzŭ and Lieh Tzŭ introduced Confucius into their writings "as the lords
of the Philistines did the captive Samson on their festive occasions,
'to make sport for them.'" But there is not a hint of this given
in the text, though throughout one long chapter (chap. iv) we find
Confucius giving a Taoist refutation of Confucianist doctrines when
defended by his own pupil Yen Hui. It might seem like an attempt to
draw a distinction between Confucius and Confucianism, though elsewhere
Confucius is ridiculed as wanting in sense.

[51] _Encycl. Met._, Art. "Lao Tzŭ."

May not the explanation be as follows?--

(i.) Lao Tzŭ and Confucius were probably much nearer to one another
philosophically than the Taoism of Chuang Tzŭ and the Confucianism of
Mencius. The passages in which Confucius talks Taoism would, on this
hypothesis, represent a traditional survival of their real relations to
one another. The episode of Confucius' visit to Lao Tzŭ "to ask about
the TAO," would, whether it records a fact or not, tend in the same
direction.

(ii.) From the first we may assume that the one took an ideal, the
other a practical and utilitarian view of TAO "the Way"; Confucius
finding it in social duties and the work of practical life, Lao Tzŭ in
the hidden and the _inward_, the "interior life," as Christian mystics
would call it. Thus the historian Ssŭ-ma Ch'ien[52] says, "Lao Tzŭ
cultivated the TAO and virtue, his chief aim in his studies being how
to keep himself concealed and unknown. Seeing the decay of the dynasty
he withdrew himself out of sight, and no one knows where he died."

[52] Quoted by Dr. Legge, _loc. cit._

(iii.) The divergence between the two views, the ideal and the actual,
the mystical and the practical, would increase with time, each
intensifying the other by opposition and reaction, until the practical
won its way to security, and the mystical got left out in the cold,
perhaps persecuted, certainly suspected, and treated as heterodox,
and naturally retaliating by scornful criticism of the dominant view.
When this stage is reached, Mencius regards Lao Tzŭ as a heresiarch,
while Chuang Tzŭ often treats Confucius with contempt and ridicule.
For "the Way that is walked upon is not the Way," and "the TAO which
shines forth is not TAO" (p. 25). But Confucianism being "established,"
the Taoists are now "dissenters," and not being strong enough to
disestablish Confucianism become more and more mystical, and content
themselves with a policy of protest.

If there is little direct evidence for this theory as to the relations
of Taoism and Confucianism, there is a curious parallel in Western
thought. When Plato was known only in a neo-Platonic disguise, and
Aristotle judged by the _Organon_, it was possible for partisans to
represent the two philosophers as typical opposites, and to assume
that "every one is born a Platonist or an Aristotelian," forgetting
that Aristotle was Plato's pupil, and both were followers of Socrates.
Later on, when Aristotelianism became "established" as the Christian
philosophy, Platonism, which survived in the more mystical schoolmen,
fell under suspicion, and not unfrequently justified the suspicion
by developing in the direction of Pantheism. It was not till the
thirteenth century that the world appealed from Platonists and
Aristotelians to Plato and Aristotle, and discovered that the divergent
streams flowed from neighbouring springs. Such an appeal, it is to
be feared, is hardly possible in the case of Lao Tzŭ and Confucius,
especially as the authenticity of the _Tao-Tê-Ching_ is still in
controversy among Sinologues.

My object, however, in this note, which has grown out of all
proportion, was not to suggest a theory as to the possible relations of
Lao Tzŭ and Confucius, but to point out what seemed to be a remarkable
parallel between the teaching of Chuang Tzŭ and Heracleitus. In doing
this I have accepted Mr. Giles's translation as an ultimate fact, for
the simple reason that I do not know a single Chinese character. So
far, therefore, as the translation prejudices or prejudges questions of
Chinese scholarship, I must leave the defence to the translator. It is
also possible, and more than possible, that my Western preconceptions
may have biassed my judgment of Chuang Tzŭ's philosophical teaching.
Recent attempts[53] to draw a parallel between the life of Gautama and
the life of Christ have shown how easy it is unconsciously to read
between the lines, and find parallelisms where they do not exist. If I
have been guilty in the same way, then, with Socrates in the Republic,
I say, "I can but suffer the penalty of ignorance; and that penalty is,
to be taught by those who know."

[53] _E.g._ Mr. Edwin Arnold's _Light of Asia_, and still more
Professor Seydel's _Das Evangelium von Jesu in seinen Verhältnissen zu
Buddha-Sage and Buddha-Lehre_. On the other side of the question, _cf._
Dr. Kellogg's _The Light of Asia and The Light of the World_. London,
1885. And an article in the _Nineteenth Century_ for July, 1888, on
Buddhism, by the Bishop of Colombo.

      A. L. M.

_Chuang Tzŭ._

CHAPTER I.

TRANSCENDENTAL BLISS.

 _Argument_:--Space infinite--Time infinite--Relativity of magnitudes,
 physical and moral--The magnitude absolute--Usefulness as a test of
 value--The usefulness of the useless.

In the northern ocean there is a fish, called the Leviathan, many
thousand _li_ in size. This leviathan changes into a bird, called the
Rukh, whose back is many thousand _li_ in breadth. With a mighty effort
it rises, and its wings obscure the sky like clouds.

At the equinox, this bird prepares to start for the southern ocean,
the Celestial Lake. And in the _Record of Marvels_ we read that when
the rukh flies southwards, the water is smitten for a space of three
thousand _li_ around, while the bird itself mounts upon a typhoon to a
height of ninety thousand _li_, for a flight of six months' duration.

Just so are the motes in a sunbeam blown aloft by God. For whether the
blue of the sky is its real colour, or only the result of distance
without end, the effect to the bird looking down would be just the
same as to the motes.

 Distance being relative. The rukh at an altitude of 90,000 _li_ (three
 _li_ to a mile) is no more than a mote in a sunbeam a few feet from
 the ground.

If there is not sufficient depth, water will not float large ships.
Upset a cupful into a small hole, and a mustard-seed will be your boat.
Try to float the cup, and it will stick, from the disproportion between
water and vessel.

So with air. If there is not a sufficient depth, it cannot support
large birds. And for this bird a depth of ninety thousand _li_ is
necessary; and then, with nothing save the clear sky above, and no
obstacle in the way, it starts upon its journey to the south.

A cicada laughed, and said to a young dove, "Now, when I fly with
all my might, 'tis as much as I can do to get from tree to tree. And
sometimes I do not reach, but fall to the ground midway. What then can
be the use of going up ninety thousand _li_ in order to start for the
south?"

He who goes to Mang-ts'ang,

 A short distance into the country.

taking three meals with him, comes back with his stomach as full as
when he started. But he who travels a hundred _li_ must grind flour
enough for a night's halt. And he who travels a thousand _li_ must
supply himself with provisions for three months. Those two little
creatures,--what should they know? Small knowledge has not the compass
of great knowledge any more than a short year has the length of a long
year.

How can we tell that this is so? The mushroom of a morning knows
not the alternation of day and night. The chrysalis knows not the
alternation of spring and autumn. Theirs are short years.

But in the State of Ch'u there is a tortoise whose spring and autumn
are each of five hundred years' duration. And in former days there
was a large tree which had a spring and autumn each of eight thousand
years' duration. Yet, P'êng Tsu

 The Methusaleh of China. His age has not been agreed upon by Chinese
 writers, but the lowest computation gives him a life of eight hundred
 years.

is still, alas! an object of envy to all.

It was on this very subject that the Emperor T'ang

 B.C. 1766.

spoke to Chi, as follows:--"At the barren north there is a great sea,
the Celestial Lake. In it there is a fish, several thousand _li_ in
breadth, and I know not how many in length. It is called the Leviathan.
There is also a bird, called the Rukh, with a back like Mount T'ai,

 China's most famous mountain, situated in the province of Shantung.

and wings like clouds across the sky. Upon a typhoon it soars up to a
height of ninety thousand _li_, beyond the clouds and atmosphere, with
only the clear sky above it. And then it directs its flight towards the
south pole.

"A quail laughed, and said: Pray, what may that creature be going to
do? I rise but a few yards in the air, and settle again after flying
around among the reeds. That is the most I can manage. Now, where ever
can this creature be going to?"

 The repetition of this story, coupled with its quotation from the
 _Record of Marvels_, is considered to give an air of authenticity to
 Chuang Tzŭ's illustration, which the reader might otherwise suppose to
 be of his own invention.

Such, indeed, is the difference between small and great. Take, for
instance, a man who creditably fills some small office, or who is a
pattern of virtue in his neighbourhood, or who influences his prince to
right government of the State,--his opinion of himself will be much the
same as that quail's. The philosopher Yung laughs at such a one. He, if
the whole world flattered him, would not be affected thereby, nor if
the whole world blamed him would he lose his faith in himself. For Yung
can distinguish between the intrinsic and the extrinsic, between honour
and shame,--and such men are rare in their generation. But even he has
not established himself.

 Beyond the limits of an external world. His achievements are after all
 only of the earth, earthy.

There was Lieh Tzŭ again.

 A personage of whom nothing is really known. He is considered by the
 best authorities to have been of Chuang Tzŭ's own creation. This,
 however, did not prevent some enterprising scholar, probably of the
 Han dynasty, from discovering a treatise which still passes under Lieh
 Tzŭ's name.

He could ride upon the wind, and travel whithersoever he wished,
staying away as long as fifteen days. Among mortals who attain
happiness, such a man is rare. Yet although Lieh Tzŭ was able to
dispense with walking, he was still dependent upon something.

 _Sc._ the wind.

But had he been charioted upon the eternal fitness of Heaven and Earth,
driving before him the elements as his team while roaming through the
realms of For-Ever,--upon what, then, would he have had to depend?

 That is, nourished upon the doctrines of inaction, the continuity of
 life and death, etc., which will be dealt with in later chapters.

Thus it has been said, "The perfect man ignores _self_; the divine man
ignores _action_; the true Sage ignores _reputation_."

 His--for the three are one--is a bliss "beyond all that the minstrel
 has told." Material existences melt into thin air; worldly joys and
 sorrows cease for him who passes thus into the everlasting enjoyment
 of a transcendental peace.

The Emperor Yao

 B.C. 2356. His reign, coupled with that of Shun who succeeded him,
 may be regarded as the Golden Age of China's history. See p. 8.

wished to abdicate in favour of Hsü Yu,

 A worthy hermit.

saying, "If, when the sun and moon are shining, you persist in lighting
a torch, is not that a misapplication of fire? If, when the rainy
season is at its height, you still continue to water the ground, is
not this a waste of labour? Now, sir, do you assume the reins of
government, and the empire will be at peace. I am but a dead body,
conscious of my own deficiency. I beg you will ascend the throne."

"Ever since you, sire, have directed the administration," replied Hsü
Yu, "the empire has enjoyed tranquillity. Supposing, therefore, that
I were to take your place now, should I gain any reputation thereby?
Besides, reputation is but the shadow of reality; and should I trouble
myself about the shadow? The tit, building its nest in the mighty
forest, occupies but a single twig. The tapir slakes its thirst from
the river, but drinks enough only to fill its belly. To you, sire,
belongs the reputation: the empire has no need for me. If a cook is
unable to dress his funeral sacrifices, the boy who impersonates the
corpse may not step over the wines and meats and do it for him."

 This illustrates rejection of reputation by the true Sage. See ch. vii.

Chien Wu said to Lien Shu,

 Both fictitious personages.

"I heard Chieh Yü utter something unjustifiably extravagant and without
either rhyme or reason.

 This was an individual, named Lu T'ung, who feigned madness in order
 to escape an official career. For his interview with Confucius, see
 ch. iv, _ad fin._

I was greatly startled at what he said, for it seemed to me boundless
as the Milky Way, though very improbable and removed from the
experiences of mortals."

"What was it?" asked Lien Shu.

"He declared," replied Chien Wu, "that on the Miao-ku-shê mountain

 Which is as fabulous as the story.

there lives a divine man whose flesh is like ice or snow, whose
demeanour is that of a virgin, who eats no fruit of the earth, but
lives on air and dew, and who, riding on clouds with flying dragons
for his team, roams beyond the limits of mortality. This being is
absolutely inert. Yet he wards off corruption from all things, and
causes the crops to thrive. Now I call that nonsense, and do not
believe it."

"Well," answered Lien Shu, "you don't ask a blind man's opinion of a
picture, nor do you invite a deaf man to a concert. And blindness and
deafness are not physical only. There is blindness and deafness of
the mind, diseases from which I fear you yourself are suffering. The
good influence of that man fills all creation. Yet because a paltry
generation cries for reform, you would have him condescend to the
details of an empire!

 Not seeing that the greater contains the less.

"Objective existences cannot harm him. In a flood which reached to the
sky, he would not be drowned. In a drought, though metals ran liquid
and mountains were scorched up, he would not be hot. Out of his very
dust and siftings you might fashion two such men as Yao and Shun. And
you would have him occupy himself with objectives!"

 Illustrating the inaction of the divine man.

A man of the Sung State carried some sacrificial caps into the Yüeh
State, for sale. But the men of Yüeh used to cut off their hair and
paint their bodies, so that they had no use for such things. And so,
when the Emperor Yao, the ruler of all under heaven and pacificator
of all within the shores of ocean, paid a visit to the four sages of
the Miao-ku-shê mountain, on returning to his capital at Fên-yang, the
empire existed for him no more.

 This illustrates the rejection of self by the perfect man. Yao had
 his eyes opened to the hollowness and uselessness of all mortal
 possessions. He ceased, therefore, to think any more of himself, and
 _per consequens_ of the empire.

Hui Tzŭ

 A celebrated schoolman, contemporary with and antagonistic to Chuang
 Tzŭ. For an account of his theories, see ch. xxxiii.

said to Chuang Tzŭ, "The Prince of Wei gave me a seed of a large-sized
kind of gourd. I planted it, and it bore a fruit as big as a
five-bushel measure. Now had I used this for holding liquids, it would
have been too heavy to lift; and had I cut it in half for ladles, the
ladles would have been ill adapted for such purpose. It was uselessly
large, so I broke it up."

"Sir," replied Chuang Tzŭ, "it was rather you who did not know how to
use large things. There was a man of Sung who had a recipe for salve
for chapped hands, his family having been silk-washers for generations.
Well, a stranger who had heard of it, came and offered him 100 _oz._ of
silver for this recipe; whereupon he called together his clansmen and
said, 'We have never made much money by silk-washing. Now, we can make
100 _oz._ in a single day. Let the stranger have the recipe.'

"So the stranger got it, and went and informed the Prince of Wu who
was just then at war with the Yüeh State. Accordingly, the Prince used
it in a naval battle fought at the beginning of winter with the Yüeh
State, the result being that the latter was totally defeated.

 They suffered from chapped hands, while their rivals of the Wu State
 were protected by their patent salve.

The stranger was rewarded with territory and a title. Thus, while the
efficacy of the salve to cure chapped hands was in both cases the
same, its application was different. Here, it secured a title; there, a
capacity for washing silk.

"Now as to your five-bushel gourd, why did you not make a boat of it,
and float about over river and lake? You could not then have complained
of its not holding anything! But I fear you are rather woolly inside."

 Like it. This, of course, is a sneer. Hui Tzŭ could not see that the
 greatness of a thing depends upon the greatness of its application.

Hui Tzŭ said to Chuang Tzŭ, "Sir, I have a large tree, of a worthless
kind. Its trunk is so irregular and knotty that it cannot be measured
out for planks; while its branches are so twisted as to admit of no
geometrical subdivision whatever. It stands by the roadside, but
no carpenter will look at it. And your words, sir, are like that
tree;--big and useless, not wanted by anybody."

"Sir," rejoined Chuang Tzŭ, "have you never seen a wild cat, crouching
down in wait for its prey? Right and left it springs from bough to
bough, high and low alike,--until perchance it gets caught in a trap
or dies in a snare. On the other hand, there is the yak with its great
huge body. It is big enough in all conscience, but it cannot catch mice.

 The adaptability of a thing is oft-times its bane. The inability of
 the yak to catch mice saves it from the snare which is fatal to the
 wild cat.

"Now if you have a big tree and are at a loss what to do with it, why
not plant it in the domain of non-existence,

 Beyond the limits of our external world. Referring to the conditions
 of mental abstraction in which alone true happiness is to be found.

whither you might betake yourself to inaction by its side, to blissful
repose beneath its shade?

 "Why does the horizon hold me fast, with my joy and grief in this
 centre?"--_Emerson._

There it would be safe from the axe and from all other injury; for
being of no use to others, itself would be free from harm."

 Illustrating the advantage of being useless. That which is small and
 useful is thus shown to be inferior to that which is large and useless.

CHAPTER II.

THE IDENTITY OF CONTRARIES.

 _Argument_:--Contraries spring from our subjective
 individuality--Identity of subjective and objective--The centre where
 all distinctions are merged in ONE--How to reach this point--Speech an
 obstacle--The negative state--Light out of darkness--Illustrations.

Tzŭ Ch'i of Nan-kuo sat leaning on a table. Looking up to heaven, he
sighed and became absent, as though soul and body had parted.

Yen Ch'êng Tzŭ Yu, who was standing by him, exclaimed, "What are you
thinking about that your body should become thus like dry wood, your
mind like dead ashes? Surely the man now leaning on the table is not he
who was here just now."

"My friend," replied Tzŭ Ch'i, "your question is apposite. _To-day I
have buried myself_.... Do you understand?... Ah! perhaps you only know
the music of Man, and not that of Earth. Or even if you have heard the
music of Earth, you have not heard the music of Heaven."

"Pray explain," said Tzŭ Yu.

"The breath of the universe," continued Tzŭ Ch'i, "is called wind. At
times, it is inactive. But when active, every aperture resounds to the
blast. Have you never listened to its growing roar?

"Caves and dells of hill and forest, hollows in huge trees of many a
span in girth;--these are like nostrils, like mouths, like ears, like
beam-sockets, like goblets, like mortars, like ditches, like bogs.
And the wind goes rushing through them, sniffing, snoring, singing,
soughing, puffing, purling, whistling, whirring, now shrilly treble,
now deeply bass, now soft, now loud; until, with a lull, silence reigns
supreme. Have you never witnessed among the trees such a disturbance as
this?"

"Well, then," enquired Tzŭ Yu, "since the music of earth consists of
nothing more than holes, and the music of man of pipes and flutes,--of
what consists the music of Heaven?"

"The effect of the wind upon these various apertures," replied
Tzŭ Ch'i, "is not uniform. But what is it that gives to each the
individuality, to all the potentiality, of sound?

"Great knowledge embraces the whole:

 Sees both "the upper and under side of the medal of Jove" at once.

small knowledge, a part only. Great speech is universal:

 Speech, according to Chuang Tzŭ's ideal, always covers the whole
 ground in question, leaving no room for positive and negative to
 appear in antagonism.

small speech is particular.

"For whether when the mind is locked in sleep or whether when in
waking hours the body is released, we are subject to daily mental
perturbations,--indecision, want of penetration, concealment, fretting
fear, and trembling terror. Now like a javelin the mind flies forth,
the arbiter of right and wrong.

 Thus recognising contraries.

Now like a solemn covenanter it remains firm, the guardian of rights
secured.

 Adhering to an opinion formed.

Then, as under autumn and winter's blight, comes gradual decay, a
passing away, like the flow of water, never to return. Finally, the
block when all is choked up like an old drain,--the failing mind which
shall not see light again.

"Joy and anger, sorrow and happiness, caution and remorse, come upon
us by turns, with ever-changing mood. They come like music from
hollowness, like mushrooms from damp. Daily and nightly they alternate
within us, but we cannot tell whence they spring. Can we then hope in a
moment to lay our finger upon their very Cause?

"But for these emotions _I_ should not be. But for _me_, they would
have no scope. So far we can go; but we do not know what it is that
brings them into play. 'Twould seem to be a _soul_; but the clue to its
existence is wanting. That such a Power operates, is credible enough,
though we cannot see its form. It has functions without form.

 As will be gathered later on, Chuang Tzŭ conceives of the soul as an
 emanation from God, passing to and from this earth through the portals
 of Life and Death.

"Take the human body with all its manifold divisions. Which part of
it does a man love best? Does he not cherish all equally, or has he a
preference? Do not all equally serve him? And do these servitors then
govern themselves, or are they subdivided into rulers and subjects?
Surely there is some soul which sways them all.

"But whether or not we ascertain what are the functions of this soul,
it matters but little to the soul itself. For coming into existence
with this mortal coil of mine, with the exhaustion of this mortal coil
its mandate will also be exhausted. To be harassed by the wear and
tear of life, and to pass rapidly through it without possibility of
arresting one's course,--is not this pitiful indeed? To labour without
ceasing, and then, without living to enjoy the fruit, worn out, to
depart, suddenly, one knows not whither,--is not that a just cause for
grief?

"What advantage is there in what men call not dying? The body
decomposes, and the mind goes with it. This is our real cause for
sorrow. Can the world be so dull as not to see this? Or is it I alone
who am dull, and others not so?

"If we are to be guided by the criteria of our own minds, who shall be
without a guide?

 The mind should be a _tabula rasa_, free from all judgments or
 opinions of its own as to the external world, and ready only to accept
 things as they are, not as they appear to be.

What need to know of the alternations of passion,

 As above described.

when the mind thus affords scope to itself?--verily even the minds of
fools! Whereas, for a mind without criteria

 As it should be.

to admit the idea of contraries, is like saying, _I went to Yüeh
to-day, and got there yesterday_.

 One of Hui Tzŭ's paradoxes. See ch. xxxiii.

Or, like placing nowhere somewhere,--topography which even the Great Yü

 The famous engineer of antiquity (B.C. 2205), who drained the empire
 of a vast body of water and arranged its subdivision into nine
 provinces.

would fail to understand; how much more I?

"Speech is not mere breath. It is differentiated by meaning. Take away
that, and you cannot say whether it is speech or not. Can you even
distinguish it from the chirping of young birds?

"But how can TAO be so obscured that we speak of it as true and
false? And how can speech be so obscured that it admits the idea of
contraries? How can TAO go away and yet not remain?

 Being omnipresent.

How can speech exist and yet be impossible?

 See p. 13.

"TAO is obscured by our want of grasp. Speech is obscured by the gloss
of this world.

 _I.e._ by the one-sided meanings attached to words and phrases.

Hence the affirmatives and negatives of the Confucian and Mihist
schools,

 Mih Tzŭ was a philosopher of the fourth century B.C., who propounded
 various theories which were vigorously attacked by the Confucianists
 under Mencius. We shall hear more of him by-and-by.

each denying what the other affirmed and affirming what the other
denied. But he who would reconcile affirmative with negative and
negative with affirmative,

 The "union of impossibilities," which Emerson credits to Plato alone.

must do so by the light of nature.

 _I.e._ Have no established mental criteria, and thus see all things as
 ONE.

"There is nothing which is not objective: there is nothing which is
not subjective. But it is impossible to start from the objective. Only
from subjective knowledge is it possible to proceed to objective
knowledge. Hence it has been said,

 By Hui Tzŭ.

'The objective emanates from the subjective; the subjective is
consequent upon the objective. This is the _Alternation Theory_.'
Nevertheless, when one is born, the other dies. When one is possible,
the other is impossible. When one is affirmative the other is negative.
Which being the case, the true sage rejects all distinctions of this
and that. He takes his refuge in GOD, and places himself in subjective
relation with all things.

 It was to this end that Tzŭ Ch'i "buried himself."

"And inasmuch as the subjective is also objective, and the objective
also subjective, and as the contraries under each are indistinguishably
blended, does it not become impossible for us to say whether subjective
and objective really exist at all?

 What is positive under the one will be negative under the other.
 Yet as subjective and objective are really one and the same, their
 positives and negatives must also be one and the same.

 It is as though we were to view them through a kind of mental
 Pseudoscope, by which means each would appear to be the other.

"When subjective and objective are both without their correlates, that
is the very axis of TAO. And when that axis passes through the centre
at which all Infinities converge, positive and negative alike blend
into an infinite ONE. Hence it has been said that there is nothing
like the light of nature.

 Probably an allusion to Lao Tzŭ's "Use the light that is within you
 to revert to your natural clearness of sight." We should then be able
 to view things in their true light. See _Tao-Tê-Ching_, ch. lii., and
 _The Remains of Lao Tzŭ_, p. 34.

"To take a finger in illustration of a finger not being a finger is not
so good as to take something which is not a finger. To take a horse in
illustration of a horse not being a horse is not so good as to take
something which is not a horse.

"So with the universe and all that in it is. These things are but
fingers and horses in this sense. The possible is possible: the
impossible is impossible. TAO operates, and given results follow.
Things receive names and are what they are. They achieve this by their
natural affinity for what they are and their natural antagonism to what
they are not. For all things have their own particular constitutions
and potentialities. Nothing can exist without these.

 These last few sentences are repeated in ch. xxvii. _ad init._

 "We can never know anything but phenomena. Things are what they are,
 and their consequences will be what they will be."--_J. S. Mill._

"Therefore it is that, viewed from the standpoint of TAO, a beam and a
pillar are identical.

 The horizontal with the vertical.

So are ugliness and beauty, greatness, wickedness, perverseness, and
strangeness. Separation is the same as construction: construction is
the same as destruction. Nothing is subject either to construction or
to destruction, for these conditions are brought together into ONE.

"Only the truly intelligent understand this principle of the identity
of all things. They do not view things as apprehended by themselves,
subjectively; but transfer themselves into the position of the things
viewed.

 Avoiding the fallacious channels of the senses.

And viewing them thus they are able to comprehend them, nay, to master
them;--and he who can master them is near. So it is that to place
oneself in subjective relation with externals, without consciousness of
their objectivity,--this is TAO. But to wear out one's intellect in an
obstinate adherence to the individuality of things, not recognising the
fact that all things are ONE,--this is called _Three in the Morning_."

"What is _Three in the Morning_?" asked Tzŭ Yu.

"A keeper of monkeys," replied Tzŭ Ch'i, "said with regard to their
rations of chestnuts that each monkey was to have three in the morning
and four at night. But at this the monkeys were very angry, so the
keeper said they might have four in the morning and three at night,
with which arrangement they were all well pleased. The actual number
of the chestnuts remained the same, but there was an adaptation to
the likes and dislikes of those concerned. Such is the principle of
putting oneself into subjective relation with externals.

"Wherefore the true Sage, while regarding contraries as identical,
adapts himself to the laws of Heaven. This is called following two
courses at once.

 He is thus prevented from trying to walk through walls, etc., as later
 Taoists have professed themselves able to do, of course with a view
 to gull the public and enrich themselves. "GOD," says Locke, "when he
 makes the prophet, does not unmake the man."

 So Carlyle in his essay on Novalis:--"To a Transcendentalist, matter
 has an existence but only as a Phenomenon.... It is a mere relation,
 or rather the result of a relation between our living souls and the
 great First Cause."

"The knowledge of the men of old had a limit. It extended back to a
period when matter did not exist. That was the extreme point to which
their knowledge reached.

"The second period was that of matter, but of matter unconditioned.

 By time or space. "Being, in itself," says Herbert Spencer, "out of
 relation, is itself unthinkable." _Principles of Psychology_, iii. p.
 258.

"The third epoch saw matter conditioned, but contraries were still
unknown. When these appeared, TAO began to decline. And with the
decline of TAO, individual bias arose.

"Have then these states of falling and rising real existences? Surely
they are but as the falling and rising of Chao Wên's music,--the
consequences of his playing.

Chao Wên played the guitar. Shih K'uang wielded the _bâton_.

 To keep time.

Hui Tzŭ argued. Herein these three men excelled, and in the practice of
such arts they passed their lives.

"Hui Tzŭ's particular views being very different from those of the
world in general, he was correspondingly anxious to enlighten people.
But he did not enlighten them as he should have done,

 By the cultivation and passive manifestation of his own inward light.

and consequently ended in the obscurity of the 'hard and white.'

 Hui Tzŭ regarded such abstractions as hardness and whiteness as
 separate existences, of which the mind could only be conscious
 separately, one at a time.

Subsequently, his son searched his works for some clue, but never
succeeded in establishing the principle. And indeed if such were
possible to be established, then even I am established; but if not,
then neither I nor anything in the universe is established!

"Therefore what the true Sage aims at is the light which comes out
of darkness. He does not view things as apprehended by himself,
subjectively, but transfers himself into the position of the things
viewed. This is called using the light.

"There remains, however, Speech. Is that to be enrolled under either
category of contraries, or not? Whether it is so enrolled or not, it
will in any case belong to one or the other, and thus be as though it
had an objective existence. At any rate, I should like to hear some
speech which belongs to neither category.

 Contraries being disposed of, there remains the vehicle _Speech_,
 _i.e._ the actual terms in which it is stated that contraries have
 ceased to be.

"If there was a beginning, then there was a time before that beginning.
And a time before the time which was before the time of that beginning.

"If there is existence, there must have been non-existence. And if
there was a time when nothing existed, then there must have been a time
before that--when even nothing did not exist. Suddenly, when nothing
came into existence, could one really say whether it belonged to the
category of existence or of non-existence? Even the very words I have
just now uttered,--I cannot say whether they have really been uttered
or not.

 _I.e._ The words in the text, denying the existence of contraries.

"There is nothing under the canopy of heaven greater than the tip of an
autumn spikelet. A vast mountain is a small thing. Neither is there any
age greater than that of a child cut off in infancy. P'êng Tsu himself
died young. The universe and I came into being together; and I, and
everything therein, are ONE.

"If then all things are ONE, what room is there for Speech? On the
other hand, since I can utter these words, how can Speech not exist?

"If it does exist, we have ONE and Speech = two; and two and one =
three. From which point onwards even the best mathematicians will fail
to reach:

 TAO.

how much more then will ordinary people fail?

"Hence, if from nothing you can proceed to something, and subsequently
reach three, it follows that it would be still more easy if you were to
start from something. To avoid such progression, you must put yourself
into subjective relation with the external.

"Before conditions existed, TAO was. Before definitions existed, Speech
was. Subjectively, we are conscious of certain delimitations which
are,--

  Right         and   Left
  Relationship  and   Obligation
  Division      and   Discrimination
  Emulation     and   Contention

These are called the _Eight Predicables_.

 Not, of course, in the strict logical sense.

For the true Sage, beyond the limits of an external world, they exist,
but are not recognised. By the true Sage, within the limits of an
external world, they are recognised, but are not assigned. And so,
with regard to the wisdom of the ancients, as embodied in the canon of
_Spring and Autumn_,

 Confucius' history of his native State. Now one of the canonical books
 of China.

the true Sage assigns, but does not justify by argument. And thus,
classifying he does not classify; arguing, he does not argue."

"How can that be?" asked Tzŭ Yu.

"The true Sage," answered Tzŭ Ch'i, "keeps his knowledge within him,
while men in general set forth theirs in argument, in order to convince
each other. And therefore it is said that in argument he does not
manifest himself.

 Others try to establish their own subjective view. The true Sage
 remains passive, aiming only at the annihilation of contraries.

"Perfect TAO does not declare itself. Nor does perfect argument express
itself in words. Nor does perfect charity show itself in act. Nor
is perfect honesty absolutely incorruptible. Nor is perfect courage
absolutely unyielding.

"For the TAO which shines forth is not TAO. Speech which argues falls
short of its aim. Charity which has fixed points loses its scope.
Honesty which is absolute is wanting in credit. Courage which is
absolute misses its object. These five are, as it were, round, with a
strong bias towards squareness. Therefore that knowledge which stops at
what it does not know, is the highest knowledge.

"Who knows the argument which can be argued without words?--the TAO
which does not declare itself as TAO? He who knows this may be said
to be of GOD. To be able to pour in without making full, and pour out
without making empty, in ignorance of the power by which such results
are accomplished,--this is accounted _Light_."

Of old, the Emperor Yao said to Shun, "I would smite the Tsungs, and
the Kueis, and the Hsü-aos. Ever since I have been on the throne I have
had this desire. What do you think?"

"These three States," replied Shun, "are paltry out-of-the-way places.
Why can you not shake off this desire? Once upon a time, ten suns came
out together, and all things were illuminated thereby. How much more
then should virtue excel suns?"

 Illustrating the use of "light." Instead of active force, substitute
 the passive but irresistible influence of virtue complete. The sun
 caused the traveller to lay aside his cloak when the north wind
 succeeded only in making him draw it tighter around him.

Yeh Ch'üeh asked Wang I,

 A disciple and tutor of remote antiquity. Said to have been two of the
 four Sages on the Miao-ku-shê mountain mentioned in ch. i.

saying, "Do you know for certain that all things are subjectively the
same?"

"How can I know?" answered Wang I. "Do you know what you do not know?"

"How can I know?" replied Yeh Ch'üeh. "But can then nothing be known?"

"How can I know?" said Wang I. "Nevertheless, I will try to tell you.
How can it be known that what I call knowing is not really not knowing,
and that what I call not knowing is not really knowing? Now I would
ask you this. If a man sleeps in a damp place, he gets lumbago and
dies. But how about an eel? And living up in a tree is precarious and
trying to the nerves;--but how about monkeys? Of the man, the eel, and
the monkey, whose habitat is the right one, absolutely? Human beings
feed on flesh, deer on grass, centipedes on snakes, owls and crows on
mice. Of these four, whose is the right taste, absolutely? Monkey mates
with monkey, the buck with the doe; eels consort with fishes, while men
admire Mao Ch'iang and Li Chi,

 Beauties of the fifth and seventh centuries B.C., respectively. The
 commentators do not seem to have noted the very obvious anachronism
 here involved.

at the sight of whom fishes plunge deep down in the water, birds soar
high in the air, and deer hurry away.

 For shame at their own inferiority.

Yet who shall say which is the correct standard of beauty? In my
opinion, the standard of human virtue, and of positive and negative, is
so obscured that it is impossible to actually know it as such."

"If you then," asked Yeh Ch'üeh, "do not know what is bad for you, is
the Perfect Man equally without this knowledge?"

"The Perfect Man," answered Wang I, "is a spiritual being. Were the
ocean itself scorched up, he would not feel hot. Were the Milky Way
frozen hard, he would not feel cold. Were the mountains to be riven
with thunder, and the great deep to be thrown up by storm, he would not
tremble. In such case, he would mount upon the clouds of heaven, and
driving the sun and the moon before him, would pass beyond the limits
of this external world, where death and life have no more victory over
man;--how much less what is bad for him?"

Chü Ch'iao addressed Chang Wu Tzŭ

 A disciple and tutor of antiquity.

as follows:--"I heard Confucius say, 'The true sage pays no heed to
mundane affairs. He neither seeks gain nor avoids injury. He asks
nothing at the hands of man. He adheres, without questioning, to TAO.
Without speaking, he can speak; and he can speak and yet say nothing.
And so he roams beyond the limits of this dusty world. These,' added
Confucius, 'are wild words.'

 Han Fei Tzŭ tells us that Lao Tzŭ, whose doctrines Confucius seems to
 be here deriding, said exactly the opposite of this; viz: "The true
 Sage is beforehand in his attention to mundane affairs," _i.e._ "takes
 time by the forelock." Neither utterance, however, appears in the
 _Tao-Tê-Ching_. See _The Remains of Lao Tzŭ_, p. 44.

Now to me they are the skilful embodiment of TAO. What, Sir, is your
opinion?"

"Points upon which the Yellow Emperor doubted," replied Chang Wu Tzŭ,
"how should Confucius know?

 Lao Tzŭ and the Yellow Emperor have always been mixed up in the heads
 of Taoist writers, albeit separated by a chasm of some two thousand
 years. Confucius is here evidently dealing with the actual doctrines
 of Lao Tzŭ.

You are going too fast. You see your egg, and expect to hear it crow.
You look at your cross-bow, and expect to have broiled duck before you.
I will say a few words to you at random, and do you listen at random.

"How does the Sage seat himself by the sun and moon, and hold the
universe in his grasp? He blends everything into one harmonious whole,
rejecting the confusion of this and that. Rank and precedence, which
the vulgar prize, the Sage stolidly ignores. The revolutions of ten
thousand years leave his Unity unscathed. The universe itself may pass
away, but he will flourish still.

"How do I know that love of life is not a delusion after all? How do I
know but that he who dreads to die is not as a child who has lost the
way and cannot find his home?

"The lady Li Chi was the daughter of Ai Fêng.

 A border chieftain.

When the Duke of Chin first got her, she wept until the bosom of
her dress was drenched with tears. But when she came to the royal
residence, and lived with the Duke, and ate rich food, she repented
of having wept. How then do I know but that the dead repent of having
previously clung to life?

"Those who dream of the banquet, wake to lamentation and sorrow. Those
who dream of lamentation and sorrow wake to join the hunt. While they
dream, they do not know that they dream. Some will even interpret the
very dream they are dreaming; and only when they awake do they know
it was a dream. By and by comes the Great Awakening, and then we find
out that this life is really a great dream. Fools think they are awake
now, and flatter themselves they know if they are really princes or
peasants. Confucius and you are both dreams; and I who say you are
dreams,--I am but a dream myself. This is a paradox. Tomorrow a sage
may arise to explain it; but that tomorrow will not be until ten
thousand generations have gone by.

"Granting that you and I argue. If you beat me, and not I you, are you
necessarily right and I wrong? Or if I beat you and not you me, am I
necessarily right and you wrong? Or are we both partly right and partly
wrong? Or are we both wholly right and wholly wrong? You and I cannot
know this, and consequently the world will be in ignorance of the truth.

"Who shall I employ as arbiter between us? If I employ some one who
takes your view, he will side with you. How can such a one arbitrate
between us? If I employ some one who takes my view, he will side with
me. How can such a one arbitrate between us? And if I employ some one
who either differs from, or agrees with, both of us, he will be equally
unable to decide between us. Since then you, and I, and man, cannot
decide, must we not depend upon Another?

 Upon God, in whose infinity all contraries blend indistinguishably
 into ONE.

Such dependence is as though it were not dependence. We are embraced in
the obliterating unity of God. There is perfect adaptation to whatever
may eventuate; and so we complete our allotted span.

"But what is it to be embraced in the obliterating unity of God? It
is this. With reference to positive and negative, to that which is
so and that which is not so,--if the positive is really positive, it
must necessarily be different from its negative: there is no room for
argument. And if that which is so really is so, it must necessarily be
different from that which is not so: there is no room for argument.

"Take no heed of time, nor of right and wrong. But passing into the
realm of the Infinite, take your final rest therein."

 Our refuge is in God alone, the Infinite Absolute. Contraries cannot
 but exist, but they should exist independently of each other without
 antagonism. Such a condition is found only in the all-embracing unity
 of God, wherein all distinctions of positive and negative, of right
 and wrong, of this and of that, are obliterated and merged in ONE.

 Herbert Spencer says, "The antithesis of subject and object, never
 to be transcended while consciousness lasts, renders impossible all
 knowledge of the Ultimate Reality in which subject and object are
 united." _Principles of Psychology_, i. p. 272.

The Penumbra said to the Umbra, "At one moment you move: at another
you are at rest. At one moment you sit down: at another you get up.
Why this instability of purpose?" "I depend," replied the Umbra, "upon
something which causes me to do as I do; and that something depends
in turn upon something else which causes it to do as it does. My
dependence is like that of a snake's scales or of a cicada's wings.

 Which do not move of their own accord.

How can I tell why I do one thing, or why I do not do another?"

 Showing how two or more may be the phenomena of one.

Once upon a time, I, Chuang Tzŭ, dreamt I was a butterfly, fluttering
hither and thither, to all intents and purposes a butterfly. I was
conscious only of following my fancies as a butterfly, and was
unconscious of my individuality as a man. Suddenly, I awaked, and
there I lay, myself again. Now I do not know whether I was then a man
dreaming I was a butterfly, or whether I am now a butterfly dreaming I
am a man. Between a man and a butterfly there is necessarily a barrier.
The transition is called _Metempsychosis_.

 Showing how one may appear to be either of two.

CHAPTER III.

NOURISHMENT OF THE SOUL.

 _Argument_:--Life too short--Wisdom unattainable--Accommodation to
 circumstances--Liberty paramount--Death a release--The soul immortal.

My life has a limit, but my knowledge is without limit. To drive the
limited in search of the limitless, is fatal; and the knowledge of
those who do this is fatally lost.

In striving for others, avoid fame. In striving for self, avoid
disgrace. Pursue a middle course. Thus you will keep a sound body, and
a sound mind, fulfil your duties, and work out your allotted span.

Prince Hui's cook was cutting up a bullock. Every blow of his hand,
every heave of his shoulders, every tread of his foot, every thrust of
his knee, every _whshh_ of rent flesh, every _chhk_ of the chopper, was
in perfect harmony,--rhythmical like the dance of the Mulberry Grove,
simultaneous like the chords of the Ching Shou.

 Commentators are divided in their identifications of these ancient
 _morceaux_.

"Well done!" cried the Prince. "Yours is skill indeed."

"Sire," replied the cook; "I have always devoted myself to TAO. It is
better than skill. When I first began to cut up bullocks, I saw before
me simply _whole_ bullocks. After three years' practice, I saw no more
whole animals.

 Meaning that he saw them, so to speak, in sections.

And now I work with my mind and not with my eye. When my senses bid me
stop, but my mind urges me on, I fall back upon eternal principles.
I follow such openings or cavities as there may be, according to the
natural constitution of the animal. I do not attempt to cut through
joints: still less through large bones.

 For a curious parallelism, see Plato's _Phædrus_, 265.

"A good cook changes his chopper once a year,--because he cuts. An
ordinary cook, once a month,--because he hacks. But I have had this
chopper nineteen years, and although I have cut up many thousand
bullocks, its edge is as if fresh from the whetstone. For at the joints
there are always interstices, and the edge of a chopper being without
thickness, it remains only to insert that which is without thickness
into such an interstice.

 These words help to elucidate a much-vexed passage in ch. xliii of the
 _Tao-Tê-Ching_. See _The Remains of Lao Tzŭ_, p. 30.

By these means the interstice will be enlarged, and the blade will find
plenty of room. It is thus that I have kept my chopper for nineteen
years as though fresh from the whetstone.

"Nevertheless, when I come upon a hard part where the blade meets with
a difficulty, I am all caution. I fix my eye on it. I stay my hand, and
gently apply my blade, until with a _hwah_ the part yields like earth
crumbling to the ground. Then I take out my chopper, and stand up, and
look around, and pause, until with an air of triumph I wipe my chopper
and put it carefully away."

"Bravo!" cried the Prince. "From the words of this cook I have learnt
how to take care of my life."

 Meaning that which informs life, _sc._ the soul.

When Hsien, of the Kung-wên family, beheld a certain official, he was
horrified, and said, "Who is that man? How came he to lose a foot? Is
this the work of God, or of man?

"Why, of course," continued Hsien, "it is the work of God, and not of
man. When God brought this man into the world, he wanted him to be
unlike other men. Men always have two feet. From this it is clear that
God and not man made him as he is.

 It was by God's will that he took office with a view to personal
 aggrandisement. That he got into trouble and suffered the common
 punishment of loss of feet, cannot therefore be charged to man.

"Now, wild fowl get a peck once in ten steps, a drink once in a
hundred. Yet they do not want to be fed in a cage. For although they
would thus be able to command food, they would not be free."

 And had our friend above kept out of the official cage he would still
 have been independent as the fowls of the air.

When Lao Tzŭ died, Ch'in Shih went to mourn. He uttered three yells and
departed.

A disciple asked him saying, "Were you not our Master's friend?"

"I was," replied Ch'in Shih.

"And if so, do you consider that a sufficient expression of grief at
his loss?" added the disciple.

"I do," said Ch'in Shih. "I had believed him to be the man of all men,
but now I know that he was not. When I went in to mourn, I found old
persons weeping as if for their children, young ones wailing as if
for their mothers. And for him to have gained the attachment of those
people in this way, he too must have uttered words which should not
have been spoken, and dropped tears which should not have been shed,
thus violating eternal principles, increasing the sum of human emotion,
and forgetting the source from which his own life was received. The
ancients called such emotions the trammels of mortality. The Master
came, because it was his time to be born; he went, because it was his
time to die. For those who accept the phenomenon of birth and death in
this sense, lamentation and sorrow have no place. The ancients spoke
of death as of God cutting down a man suspended in the air. The fuel
is consumed, but the fire may be transmitted, and we know not that it
comes to an end."

 The soul, according to Chuang Tzŭ, if duly nourished and not allowed
 to wear itself out with the body in the pursuits of mortality, may
 become immortal and return beatified to the Great Unknown whence it
 came.

CHAPTER IV.

MAN AMONG MEN.

 _Argument_:--Man must fall in with his mortal environment--His virtue
 should be passive, not active--He should be rather than do--Talents a
 hindrance--But of petty uselessness great usefulness is achieved.

Yen Hui went to take leave of Confucius.

 A disciple of the Sage. Also known as Tzŭ Yüan.

"Whither are you bound?" asked the Master.

"I am going to the State of Wei," was the reply.

"And what do you propose to do there?" continued Confucius.

"I hear," answered Yen Hui, "that the Prince of Wei is of mature age,
but of an unmanageable disposition. He behaves as if the State were of
no account, and will not see his own faults. Consequently, the people
perish; and their corpses lie about like so much undergrowth in a
marsh. They are at extremities. And I have heard you, Sir, say that if
a State is well governed it may be neglected; but that if it is badly
governed, then we should visit it.

 In the _Lun Yü_, Confucius says exactly the opposite of this.

The science of medicine embraces many various diseases. I would test
my knowledge in this sense, that perchance I may do some good to that
State."

"Alas!" cried Confucius, "you will only succeed in bringing evil upon
yourself. For TAO must not be distributed. If it is, it will lose its
unity. If it loses its unity, it will be uncertain; and so cause mental
disturbance,--from which there is no escape.

"The sages of old first got TAO for themselves, and then got it for
others. Before you possess this yourself, what leisure have you to
attend to the doings of wicked men? Besides, do you know what Virtue
results in and where Wisdom ends? Virtue results in a desire for
fame; Wisdom ends in contentions. In the struggle for fame men crush
each other, while their wisdom but provokes rivalry. Both are baleful
instruments, and may not be incautiously used.

"Besides, those who, before influencing by their own solid virtue and
unimpeachable sincerity, and before reaching the heart by the example
of their own disregard for name and fame, go and preach charity and
duty to one's neighbour to wicked men,--only make these men hate them
for their very goodness' sake. Such persons are called _evil speakers_.
And those who speak evil of others are apt to be evil spoken of
themselves. That, alas! will be your end.

"On the other hand, if the Prince loves the good and hates the bad,
what object will you have in inviting him to change his ways? Before
you have opened your mouth to preach, the Prince himself will have
seized the opportunity to wrest the victory from you. Your eye will
fall, your expression fade, your words will stick, your face will
change, and your heart will die within you. It will be as though you
took fire to quell fire, water to quell water, which is popularly known
as 'pouring oil on the flames.' And if you begin with concessions,
there will be no end to them. Neglect this sound advice, and you will
be the victim of that violent man.

"Of old, Chieh murdered Kuan Lung Fêng, and Chou slew Prince Pi Kan.
Their victims were both men who cultivated virtue themselves in
order to secure the welfare of the people. But in doing this they
offended their superiors; and therefore, because of that very moral
culture, their superiors got rid of them, in order to guard their own
reputations.

 Chieh and Chou are the two typical tyrants of Chinese history.

"Of old, Yao attacked the Ts'ung-chih and Hsü-ao countries, and Yü
attacked the Yu-hu country. Homes were desolated and families destroyed
by the slaughter of the inhabitants. Yet they fought without ceasing,
and strove for victory to the last. These are instances known to all.
Now if the Sages of old failed in their efforts against this love of
fame, this desire for victory,--are you likely to succeed? But of
course you have a scheme. Tell it to me."

"Gravity of demeanour," replied Yen Hui, "and dispassionateness; energy
and singleness of purpose,--will this do?"

"Alas!" said Confucius, "that will not do. If you make a show of being
perfect and obtrude yourself, the Prince's mood will be doubtful.
Ordinarily, he is not opposed, and so he has come to take actual
pleasure in trampling upon the feelings of others. And if he has thus
failed in the practice of routine virtues, do you expect that he will
take readily to higher ones? You may insist, but without result.
Outwardly you will be right, but inwardly wrong. How then will you make
him mend his ways?"

"Just so," replied Yen Hui. "I am inwardly straight, and outwardly
crooked, completed after the models of antiquity.

"He who is inwardly straight is a servant of God. And he who is a
servant of God knows that the Son of Heaven

 The Emperor.

and himself are equally the children of God. Shall then such a one
trouble whether man visits him with evil or with good? Man indeed
regards him as a child; and this is to be a servant of God.

 (1) Children are everywhere exempt.--This is the first limb of a
 threefold argument.

"He who is outwardly crooked is a servant of man. He bows, he kneels,
he folds his hands;--such is the ceremonial of a minister. What all men
do, shall I dare not to do? What all men do, none will blame me for
doing. This is to be a servant of man.

 (2) The individual is not punished for the faults of the community.

"He who is completed after the models of antiquity is a servant of the
Sages of old. Although I utter the words of warning and take him to
task, it is the Sages of old who speak, and not I. Thus my uprightness
will not bring me into trouble, the servant of the Sages of old.--Will
this do?"

 (3) The responsibility rests, not with the mouthpiece, but with the
 authors of the doctrines enunciated.

"Alas!" replied Confucius, "No. Your plans are too many, and are
lacking in prudence. However, your firmness will secure you from harm;
but that is all. You will not influence him to such an extent that he
shall seem to follow the dictates of his own heart."

"Then," said Yen Hui, "I am without resource, and venture to ask for a
method."

Confucius said, "_FAST_.... Let me explain. You have a method, but it
is difficult to practise. Those which are easy are not from God."

"Well," replied Yen Hui, "my family is poor, and for many months we
have tasted neither wine nor flesh. Is not that fasting?"

"The fasting of religious observance it is," answered Confucius, "but
not the fasting of the heart."

"And may I ask," said Yen Hui, "in what consists the fasting of the
heart?"

"Cultivate unity," replied Confucius.

 Make of the mind as it were an undivided indivisible ONE.

"You hear not with the ears, but with the mind; not with the mind, but
with your soul.

 The vital fluid which informs your whole being; in fact, "with your
 whole self."

But let hearing stop with the ears. Let the working of the mind stop
with itself. Then the soul will be a negative existence, passively
responsive to externals. In such a negative existence, only TAO can
abide. And that negative state is the fasting of the heart."

"Then," said Yen Hui, "the reason I could not get the use of this
method is my own individuality. If I could get the use of it, my
individuality would have gone. Is this what you mean by the negative
state?"

"Exactly so," replied the Master. "Let me tell you. If you can enter
this man's domain without offending his _amour propre_, cheerful if he
hears you, passive if he does not; without science, without drugs,
simply living there in a state of complete indifference,--you will
be near success. It is easy to stop walking: the trouble is to walk
without touching the ground. As an agent of man, it is easy to deceive;
but not as an agent of God. You have heard of winged creatures flying.
You have never heard of flying without wings. You have heard of men
being wise with wisdom. You have never heard of men wise without wisdom.

 Wise of God, without the wisdom of man.

"Look at that window. Through it an empty room becomes bright with
scenery; but the landscape stops outside. Were this not so, we should
have an exemplification of sitting still and running away at one and
the same time.

 An empty room would contain something,--a paradox like that in the
 text.

"In this sense, you may use your ears and eyes to communicate within,
but shut out all wisdom from the mind.

 Let the channels of your senses be to your mind what a window is to an
 empty room.

And there where the supernatural

 Something which is and yet is not, like the landscape seen in, and yet
 not in, a room.

can find shelter, shall not man find shelter too? This is the method
for regenerating all creation.

 By passive, not by active, virtue.

It was the instrument which Yü and Shun employed. It was the secret
of the success of Fu Hsi and Chi Chü. Shall it not then be adopted by
mankind in general?"

 Who stand much more in need of regeneration than such worthies as were
 these ancient Emperors.

Tzŭ Kao, Duke of Shê,

 A district of the Ch'u State.

being about to go on a mission to the Ch'i State, asked Confucius,
saying, "The mission my sovereign is sending me on is a most important
one. Of course, I shall be received with all due respect, but they
will not take the same interest in the matter that I shall. And as an
ordinary person cannot be pushed, still less a Prince, I am in a state
of great alarm.

"Now you, Sir, have told me that in all undertakings great and small,
TAO alone leads to a happy issue. Otherwise that, failing success,
there is to be feared punishment from without, and with success,
punishment from within; while exemption in case either of success or
non-success falls only to the share of those who possess the virtue
required.

 _I.e._ those to whom the issue, as regards their own reward or
 punishment, is a matter of the completest indifference.

 The term _virtue_, here as elsewhere unless specially notified, should
 be understood in the sense of exemplification of TAO.

"Well, I am not dainty with my food; neither am I always wanting to
cool myself when hot. However, this morning I received my orders, and
this evening I have been drinking iced water. I am so hot inside.
Before I have put my hand to the business I am suffering punishment
from within; and if I do not succeed I am sure to suffer punishment
from without. Thus I get both punishments, which is really more than I
can bear. Kindly tell me what there is to be done."

"There exist two sources of safety," Confucius replied. "One is
_Destiny_: the other is _Duty_. A child's love for its parents
is destiny. It is inseparable from the child's life. A subject's
allegiance to his sovereign is duty. Beneath the canopy of heaven there
is no place to which he can escape from it. These two sources of safety
may be explained as follows. To serve one's parents without reference
to _place_ but only to the service, is the acme of filial piety. To
serve one's prince without reference to the _act_ but only to the
service, is the perfection of a subject's loyalty. To serve one's own
heart so as to permit neither joy nor sorrow within, but to cultivate
resignation to the inevitable,--this is the climax of Virtue.

"Now a minister often finds himself in circumstances over which he
has no control. But if he simply confines himself to his work, and
is utterly oblivious of self, what leisure has he for loving life or
hating death? And so you may safely go.

"But I have yet more to tell you. All intercourse, if personal, should
be characterised by sincerity. If from a distance, it should be carried
on in loyal terms. These terms will have to be transmitted by some one.
Now the transmission of messages of good- or ill-will is the hardest
thing possible. Messages of good-will are sure to be overdone with fine
phrases; messages of ill-will with harsh ones. In each case the result
is exaggeration, and a consequent failure to carry conviction, for
which the envoy suffers. Therefore it was said in the _Fa-yen_,

 Name of an ancient book.

'Confine yourself to simple statements of fact, shorn of all
superfluous expression of feeling, and your risk will be small.'

"In trials of skill, at first all is friendliness; but at last it is
all antagonism. Skill is pushed too far. So on festive occasions, the
drinking which is in the beginning orderly enough, degenerates into
riot and disorder. Festivity is pushed too far. It is in fact the same
with all things: they begin with good faith and end with contempt. From
small beginnings come great endings.

"Speech is like wind to wave. Action is liable to divergence from its
true goal. By wind, waves are easily excited. Divergence from the
true goal is fraught with danger. Thus angry feelings rise up without
a cause. Specious words and dishonest arguments follow, as the wild
random cries of an animal at the point of death. Both sides give
way to passion. For where one party drives the other too much into a
corner, resistance will always be provoked without apparent cause. And
if the cause is not apparent, how much less will the ultimate effect be
so?

"Therefore it is said in the _Fa-yen_, 'Neither deviate from nor travel
beyond your instructions.

 "Travel beyond your instructions," is literally, "urge a settlement."

To pass the limit is to go to excess.'

"To deviate from, or to travel beyond instructions, may imperil the
negotiation. A settlement to be successful must be lasting. It is too
late to change an evil settlement once made.

"Therefore let yourself be carried along without fear, taking refuge in
_no alternative_ to preserve you from harm on either side. This is the
utmost you can do. What need for considering your obligations? Better
leave all to Destiny, difficult as this may be."

 It is passing strange that this exposition of the _laissez-aller_
 inaction doctrine of TAO should be placed in the mouth of Confucius,
 who is thus made in some measure to discredit his own teachings. The
 commentators, however, see nothing anomalous in the position here
 assigned to the Sage.

Yen Ho

 A philosopher from the Lu State.

was about to become tutor to the eldest son of Prince Ling of the Wei
State. Accordingly he observed to Chü Poh Yü,

 Prime Minister of the Wei State.

"Here is a man whose disposition is naturally of a low order. To let
him take his own unprincipled way is to endanger the State. To try
to restrain him is to endanger one's personal safety. He has just
wit enough to see faults in others, but not to see his own. I am
consequently at a loss what to do."

"A good question indeed," replied Chü Poh Yü, "You must be careful,
and begin by self-reformation. Outwardly you may adapt yourself, but
inwardly you must keep up to your own standard. In this there are two
points to be guarded against. You must not let the outward adaptation
penetrate within, nor the inward standard manifest itself without.
In the former case, you will fall, you will be obliterated, you will
collapse, you will lie prostrate. In the latter case, you will be a
sound, a name, a bogie, an uncanny thing. If he would play the child,
do you play the child too. If he cast aside all sense of decorum, do
you do so too. As far as he goes, do you go also. Thus you will reach
him without offending him.

"Don't you know the story of the praying mantis? In its rage it
stretched out its arms to prevent a chariot from passing, unaware
that this was beyond its strength, so admirable was its energy! Be
cautious. If you are always offending others by your superiority, you
will probably come to grief.

"Do you not know that those who keep tigers do not venture to give them
live animals as food, for fear of exciting their fury when killing the
prey? Also, that whole animals are not given, for fear of exciting the
tigers' fury when rending them? The periods of hunger and repletion are
carefully watched in order to prevent such outbursts. The tiger is
of a different species from man; but the latter too is manageable if
properly managed, unmanageable if excited to fury.

"Those who are fond of horses surround them with various conveniences.
Sometimes mosquitoes or flies trouble them; and then, unexpectedly to
the animal, a groom will brush them off, the result being that the
horse breaks his bridle, and hurts his head and chest. The intention is
good, but there is a want of real care for the horse. Against this you
must be on your guard."

A certain artisan was travelling to the Ch'i State. On reaching
Ch'ü-yüan, he saw a sacred _li_ tree,

 A worthless species of oak.

large enough to hide an ox behind it, a hundred spans in girth,
towering up ten cubits over the hill top, and carrying behind it
branches, many tens of the smallest of which were of a size for boats.
Crowds stood gazing at it, but our artisan took no notice, and went on
his way without even casting a look behind. His apprentice however
gazed his fill, and when he caught up his master, said, "Ever since I
have handled an adze in your service, I have never seen such a splendid
piece of timber as that. How was it that you, sir, did not care to stop
and look at it?"

"It's not worth talking about," replied his master. "It's good for
nothing. Make a boat of it,--'twould sink. A coffin,--'twould rot.
Furniture,--'twould soon break down. A door,--'twould sweat. A
pillar,--'twould be worm-eaten. It is wood of no quality, and of no
use. That is why it has attained its present age."

When the artisan reached home, he dreamt that the tree appeared to
him in a dream and spoke as follows:--"What is it that you compare me
with? Is it with the more elegant trees?--The cherry-apple, the pear,
the orange, the pumelo, and other fruit-bearers, as soon as their
fruit ripens are stripped and treated with indignity. The great boughs
are snapped off, the small ones scattered abroad. Thus do these trees
by their own value injure their own lives. They cannot fulfil their
allotted span of years, but perish prematurely in mid-career from
their entanglement with the world around them. Thus it is with all
things. For a long period my aim was to be useless. Many times I was in
danger, but at length I succeeded, and so became useful as I am to-day.
But had I then been of use, I should not now be of the great use I
am. Moreover, you and I belong both to the same category of things.
Have done then with this criticism of others. Is a good-for-nothing
fellow whose dangers are not yet passed a fit person to talk of a
good-for-nothing tree?"

When our artisan awaked and told his dream, his apprentice said, "If
the tree aimed at uselessness, how was it that it became a sacred tree?"

 Which of course may be said to be of use.

"What you don't understand," replied his master, "don't talk about.
That was merely to escape from the attacks of its enemies. Had it not
become sacred, how many would have wanted to cut it down! The means of
safety adopted were different from ordinary means,

 In order to reach the somewhat extraordinary goal of uselessness.

and to test these by ordinary canons leaves one far wide of the mark."

Tzŭ Ch'i of Nan-poh

 Said to be identical with the individual mentioned at the beginning of
 ch. ii.

was travelling on the Shang mountain when he saw a large tree which
astonished him very much. A thousand chariot teams could have found
shelter under its shade.

"What tree is this?" cried Tzŭ Ch'i. "Surely it must have unusually
fine timber." Then looking up, he saw that its branches were too
crooked for rafters; while as to the trunk he saw that its irregular
grain made it valueless for coffins. He tasted a leaf, but it took the
skin off his lips; and its odour was so strong that it would make a man
as it were drunk for three days together.

"Ah!" said Tzŭ Ch'i. "This tree is good for nothing, and that is how it
has attained this size. A wise man might well follow its example."

 And so escape danger from his surroundings.

In the State of Sung there is a place called Ching-shih, where thrive
the beech, the cedar, and the mulberry. Such as are of a one-handed
span or so in girth are cut down for monkey-cages. Those of two or
three two-handed spans are cut down for the beams of fine houses. Those
of seven or eight such spans are cut down for the solid sides of rich
men's coffins.

 To this day, the very best kinds of wood are still reserved for the
 "planks of old age."

Thus they do not fulfil their allotted span of years, but perish in
mid-career beneath the axe. Such is the misfortune which overtakes
worth.

For the sacrifices to the River God, neither bulls with white cheeks,
nor pigs with large snouts, nor men suffering from piles, were allowed
to be used. This had been revealed to the soothsayers, and these
characteristics were consequently regarded as inauspicious. The wise,
however, would regard them as extremely auspicious.

 Readers of _Don Juan_ will recollect how the master's mate had reason
 to share his view.

There was a hunchback named Su. His jaws touched his navel. His
shoulders were higher than his head. His hair knot looked up to the
sky. His viscera were upside down. His buttocks were where his ribs
should have been. By tailoring, or washing, he was easily able to earn
his living. By sifting rice he could make enough to support a family of
ten.

 In all of which occupations a man would necessarily stoop.

When orders came down for a conscription, the hunchback stood
unconcerned among the crowd. And similarly, in matters of public works,
his deformity shielded him from being employed.

On the other hand, when it came to donations of grain, the hunchback
received as much as three _chung_,

 An ancient measure of uncertain capacity.

and of firewood, ten faggots. And if physical deformity was thus enough
to preserve his body until its allotted end, how much more would not
moral and mental deformity avail!

 A moral and mental deviation would be still more likely to condemn a
 man to that neglect from his fellows which is so conducive to our real
 welfare.

When Confucius was in the Ch'u State, the eccentric Chieh Yü passed his
door, saying, "O phœnix, O phœnix, how has thy virtue fallen!--

 By thus issuing forth out of due season.

unable to wait for the coming years or to go back into the past.

 When you might be, or might have been, of use. The idea conveyed is
 that Confucianism was unsuited to its age. See _Lun-yü_, ch. xviii.

If TAO prevails on earth, prophets will fulfil their mission. If TAO
does not prevail, they will but preserve themselves. At the present day
they will but just escape.

"The honours of this world are light as feathers, yet none estimate
them at their true value. The misfortunes of this life are weighty as
the earth itself, yet none can keep out of their reach. No more, no
more, seek to influence by virtue. Beware, beware, move cautiously on!
O ferns, O ferns, wound not my steps! Through my tortuous journey wound
not my feet! Hills suffer from the trees they produce. Fat burns by its
own combustibility. Cinnamon trees furnish food: therefore they are
cut down. The lacquer tree is felled for use. All men know the use of
useful things; but they do not know the use of useless things."

CHAPTER V.

THE EVIDENCE OF VIRTUE COMPLETE.

 _Argument_:--Correspondence between inward virtue and outward
 influence--The virtuous man disregards externals--The possession
 of virtue causes oblivion of outward form--Neglect of the
 human--Cultivation of the divine.

In the State of Lu there was a man, named Wang T'ai, who had had his
toes cut off. His disciples were as numerous as those of Confucius.

Ch'ang Chi

 One of the latter.

asked Confucius, saying, "This Wang T'ai has been mutilated, yet
he divides with you, Sir, the teaching of the Lu State. He neither
preaches nor discusses; yet those who go to him empty, depart full. He
must teach _the doctrine which does not find expression in words_;

 The doctrine of TAO. These words occur in chs. ii and xliii of the
 _Tao-Tê-Ching_. See _The Remains of Lao Tzŭ_, p. 7.

and although his shape is imperfect, his mind is perhaps complete. What
manner of man is this?"

"He is a prophet," replied Confucius, "whose instruction I have been
late in seeking. I will go and learn from him. And if I,--why not those
who are not equal to me? And I will take with me, not the State of Lu
only, but the whole world."

"The fellow has been mutilated," said Ch'ang Chi, "and yet people call
him _Master_. He must be very different from the ordinary run. But how
does he use his mind in this sense?"

"Life and Death are all powerful," answered Confucius, "but they cannot
affect _it_.

 The mind, or soul, which is immortal. See ch. iii.

Heaven and earth may collapse, but _that_ will remain. If _this_ is
found to be without flaw, it will not share the fate of all things. It
can cause other things to change, while preserving its own constitution
intact."

"How so?" asked Ch'ang Chi.

"From the point of view of difference," replied Confucius, "we
distinguish between the liver and the gall, between the Ch'u State and
the Yüeh State. From the point of view of sameness, all things are
ONE. Such is the position of Wang T'ai. He does not trouble about what
reaches him through the senses of hearing and sight, but directs his
whole mind towards the very climax of virtue. He beholds all things
as though ONE, without observing their discrepancies. And thus the
discrepancy of his toes is to him as would be the loss of so much mud."

"He devotes himself in fact to himself," said Ch'ang Chi, "and uses his
wisdom to perfect his mind, until it becomes perfect. But how then is
it that people make so much of him?"

 His virtue being wholly, as it were, of a selfish order.

"A man," replied Confucius, "does not seek to see himself in running
water, but in still water. For only what is itself still can instil
stillness into others.

"The grace of earth has reached only to pines and cedars;--winter and
summer alike they are green. The grace of God has reached to Yao and to
Shun alone;--the first and foremost of all creation. Happily they were
able to regulate their own lives and thus regulate the lives of all
mankind.

"By nourishment of physical courage, the sense of fear may be so
eliminated that a man will, single-handed, brave a whole army. And if
such a result can be achieved in search of fame, how much more by one
who extends his sway over heaven and earth and influences all things;
and who, lodging within the confines of a body with its channels of
sight and sound, brings his knowledge to know that all things are ONE,
and that his soul endures for ever! Besides, he awaits his appointed
hour, and men flock to him of their own accord. He makes no effort to
attract them."

 That men thus gather around him is the outward sign or evidence of his
 inward virtue complete.

Shên T'u Chia had had his toes cut off. Subsequently, he studied under
Poh Hun Wu Jen at the same time as Tzŭ Ch'an of the Chêng State. The
latter said to him, "When I leave first, do you remain awhile. When you
leave first, I will remain behind."

 Tzŭ Ch'an was a model minister of the sixth century B.C. Under his
 guidance the people of the Chêng State became so virtuous that doors
 were not locked at night, nor would any one pick up lost articles left
 lying in the road. He was hardly likely to be ashamed of walking out
 with a mutilated criminal.

Next day, when they were again together in the lecture-room, Tzŭ Ch'an
said, "When I leave first, do you remain awhile. When you leave first,
I will remain. I am now about to go. Will you remain or not? I notice
you show no respect to a Minister of State. Perhaps you think yourself
my equal?"

"Dear me!" replied Shên T'u Chia, "I didn't know we had a Minister of
State in the class. Perhaps you think that because you are one you
should take precedence over the rest. Now I have heard that if a mirror
is perfectly bright, dust and dirt will not collect on it. That if they
do, it is because the mirror was not bright. He who associates for
long with the wise will be without fault. Now you have been improving
yourself at the feet of our Master, yet you can utter words like these.
Is not the fault in you?"

"You are a fine fellow, certainly," retorted Tzŭ Ch'an, "you will be
emulating the virtue of Yao next. To look at you, I should say you had
enough to do to attend to your own shortcomings!"

 A sneer at his want of toes.

"Those who disguise their faults," said Shên T'u Chia, "so as not to
lose their toes, are many in number. Those who do not disguise their
faults, and so fail to keep them, are few. To recognise the inevitable
and to quietly acquiesce in Destiny, is the achievement of the virtuous
man alone. He who should put himself in front of the bull's-eye when
Hou I

 A Chinese Tell.

was shooting, would be hit. If he was not hit, it would be destiny.
Those with toes who laugh at me for having no toes are many. This
used to make me angry. But since I have studied under our Master, I
have ceased to trouble about it. It may be that our Master has so far
succeeded in purifying me. At any rate I have been with him nineteen
years without being aware of the loss of my toes. Now you and I are
engaged in studying the internal. Do you not then commit a fault by
thus dragging me back to the external?"

At this Tzŭ Ch'an began to fidget, and changing countenance, begged
Shên T'u Chia to say no more.

There was a man of the Lu State who had been mutilated,--Shu Shan
_No-toes_. He came walking on his heels to see Confucius; but Confucius
said, "You did not take care, and so brought this misfortune upon
yourself. What is the use of coming to me now?"

"In my ignorance," replied No-toes, "I made free with my body and lost
my toes. But I come with something more precious than toes which I
now seek to keep. There is no man, but Heaven covers him: there is no
man, but Earth supports him;--and I thought that you, sir, would be as
Heaven and Earth. I little expected to hear these words from you."

"I must apologise," said Confucius. "Pray walk in and let us discuss."
But No-toes walked out.

"There!" said Confucius to his disciples. "There is a criminal without
toes who seeks to learn in order to make atonement for his previous
misdeeds. And if he, how much more those who have no misdeeds for which
to atone?"

No-toes went off to Lao Tzŭ and said, "Is Confucius a sage, or is he
not? How is it he has so many disciples? He aims at being a subtle
dialectician, not knowing that such a reputation is regarded by real
sages as the fetters of a criminal."

"Why do you not meet him with the continuity of life and death, the
identity of _can_ and _can not_," answered Lao Tzŭ, "and so release him
from these fetters?"

"He has been thus punished by God," replied No-toes. "It would be
impossible to release him."

 A sneer at Confucius. No-toes himself had only been punished by man.

Duke Ai of the Lu State said to Confucius, "In the Wei State there is a
leper, named Ai T'ai T'o. The men who live with him like him and make
no effort to get rid of him. Of the women who have seen him, many have
said to their parents, Rather than be another man's wife, I would be
his concubine.

"He never preaches at people, but puts himself into sympathy with
them. He wields no power by which he may protect men's bodies. He has
at his disposal no appointments by which to gratify their hearts. He
is loathsome to a degree. He sympathises, but does not instruct. His
knowledge is limited to his own State. Yet males and females alike all
congregate around him.

"So thinking that he must be different from ordinary men, I sent for
him, and saw that he was indeed loathsome to a degree. Yet we had not
been many months together ere my attention was fixed upon his conduct.
A year had not elapsed ere I trusted him thoroughly; and as my State
wanted a Prime Minister, I offered the post to him. He accepted it
sullenly, as if he would much rather have declined. Perhaps he didn't
think me good enough for him! At any rate, he took it; but in a very
short time he left me and went away. I grieved for him as for a lost
friend, and as though there were none left with whom I could rejoice.
What manner of man is this?

"When I was on a mission to the Ch'u State," replied Confucius, "I saw