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CHUANG TZŬ
[Illustration]
_Mystic, Moralist, and Social Reformer_
TRANSLATED FROM THE CHINESE
BY
HERBERT A. GILES
_H. B. M.'s Consul at Tamsui_
[Illustration]
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.
[Illustration]
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.
[Illustration]
_Chuang Tzŭ._
[Illustration]
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.