EXERCISE OF FACULTIES.
_Argument_:--TAO unattainable by mundane arts--To be reached through
repose--The world's infancy--The reign of peace--Government sets
in--TAO declines--The true Sages of old--Their purity of aim.
Those who exercise their faculties in mere worldly studies, hoping
thereby to revert to their original condition; and those who sink
their aspirations in mundane thoughts, hoping thereby to reach
enlightenment;--these are the dullards of the earth.
The ancients, in cultivating TAO, begat knowledge out of repose. When
born, this knowledge was not applied to any purpose; and so it may be
said that out of knowledge they begat repose. Knowledge and repose thus
mutually producing each other, harmony and order were developed. Virtue
is harmony; TAO is order.
Virtue all-embracing,--hence charity. TAO all-influencing,--hence
duty to one's neighbour. From the establishment of these two springs
loyalty. Then comes music, an expression of inward purity and truth;
followed by ceremonial, or sincerity expressed in ornamental guise. If
music and ceremonial are ill regulated, the empire is plunged into
confusion. And to attempt to correct others while one's own virtue is
clouded, is to set one's own virtue a task for which it is inadequate,
the result being that the natural constitution of the object will
suffer.
Primeval man enjoyed perfect tranquillity throughout life. In his day,
the Positive and Negative principles were peacefully united; spiritual
beings gave no trouble; the four seasons followed in due order; nothing
suffered any injury; death was unknown; men had knowledge, but no
occasion to use it. This may be called perfection of unity.
All things, all conditions, were ONE.
At that period, nothing was ever made so; but everything was so.
By and by, virtue declined. Sui Jen
The Prometheus of China.
and Fu Hsi
See ch. vi.
ruled the empire. There was still natural adaptation,
Of man to his surroundings.
but the unity was gone.
The tide of coercion had set in.
A further decline in virtue. Shên Nung
The inventor of agriculture.
and Huang Ti
The Yellow Emperor. See ch. vi.
ruled the empire. There was peace, but the natural adaptation was gone.
Again virtue declined. Yao and Shun ruled the empire. Systems of
government and moral reform were introduced. Man's original integrity
was scattered. Goodness led him astray from TAO;
But for goodness, evil could not exist.
his actions imperilled his virtue.
As opposed to inaction.
Then he discarded natural instinct and took up with the intellectual.
Mind was pitted against mind, but it was impossible thus to settle
the empire. So art and learning were added. But art obliterated
the original constitution, and learning overwhelmed mind; upon
which confusion set in, and man was unable to revert to his natural
instincts, to the condition in which he at first existed.
Thus it may be said that the world destroys TAO, and that TAO destroys
the world. And the world and TAO thus mutually destroying each other,
how can the men of TAO elevate the world, and how can the world elevate
TAO? TAO cannot elevate the world; neither can the world elevate TAO.
Though the Sages were not to dwell on mountain and in forest, their
virtue would still be hidden;--hidden, but not by themselves.
Those of old who were called retired scholars, were not men who hid
their bodies, or kept back their words, or concealed their wisdom.
It was that the age was not suitable for their mission. If the age
was suitable and their mission a success over the empire, they simply
effaced themselves in the unity which prevailed. If the age was
unsuitable and their mission at failure, they fell back upon their own
resources and waited. Such is the way to preserve oneself.
Those of old who preserved themselves, did not ornament their knowledge
with rhetoric. They did not exhaust the empire with their knowledge.
They did not exhaust virtue. They kept quietly to their own spheres,
and reverted to their natural instincts. What then was left for them to
_do_?
TAO does not deal with detail. Virtue does not take cognizance of
trifles. Trifles injure virtue; detail injures TAO. Wherefore it has
been said, "Self-reformation is enough." He whose happiness is complete
has attained his desire.
Of old, attainment of desire did not mean _office_. It meant that
nothing could be added to the sum of happiness. But now it does mean
office, though office is external and is not a part of oneself. That
which is adventitious, comes. Coming, you cannot prevent it; going, you
cannot arrest it. Therefore, not to look on office as the attainment of
desire, and not because of poverty to become a toady, but to be equally
happy under all conditions,--this is to be without sorrow.
But now-a-days, both having and not having
Office.
are causes of unhappiness. From which we may infer that even happiness
is not exempt from sorrow.
A _reductio ad absurdum_.
Wherefore it has been said, "Those who over-estimate the external and
lose their natural instincts in worldliness,--these are the people of
topsy-turvydom."
We are left in the dark as to the authorship of the numerous
quotations in this and the preceding chapter. It is, however, a point
of minor importance, neither chapter having the slightest claim to be
regarded as the genuine work of Chuang Tzŭ.