Liehtse's tale of the Dream and the Deer leads me naturally to
this characteristic bit from Chwangtse:*--
"Once upon a time, I, Chwangtse, dreamed I was a butterfly
fluttering hither and thither; to all intents and purposes a
veritable butterfly. I followed my butterfly fancies, and was
unconscious of my individuality as a man. Suddenly I awoke, and
there I lay, a man again. Now how am I to know whether I was
then, Chwangtse dreaming I was a butterfly, or whether I am now a
butterfly dreaming I am Chwang?"
------
* Which, like nearly all the other passages from him in this
lecture, is quoted from Dr. H. A. Giles's _Chinese Literature,_
in the Literatures of the World series; New York, Appleton.
------
For which reason he is, says Dr. Giles, known to this day as
"Butterfly Chwang"; and the name is not all inappropriate. He
flits from fun to philosophy, and from philosoply to fun, as if
they were dark rose and laughing pansy; when he has you in the
gravest depths of wisdom and metaphysic, he will not be content
till with a flirt of his wings and an aspect gravely solemn he
has you in fits of laughter again. His is really a book that
belongs to world-literature; as good reading, for us now, as for
any ancient Chinaman of them all. I think he worked more
strenuously in the field of sheer intellect--stirred the thought
stuff more--than most other Chinese thinkers,--and so is more
akin to the Western mind; he carves his cerebrations more
definitely, and leaves less to the intuition. The great lack in
him is his failure to appreciate Confucius; and to explain that,
before I go further with Butterfly Chwang, I shall take a glance
at the times he lived in.
They were out of joint when Confucius came; they were a couple
of centuries more so now. Still more was the Tiger stalking
abroad: there were two or three tigers in particular, among the
Great Powers, evidentlv crouching for a spring--that should
settle things. Time was building the funeral pyre for the
Phoenix, and building it of the debris of ruined worlds. In the
early sixth century, the best minds were retiring in disgust to
the wilds;--you remember the anchorite's rebuke to Tse-Lu. But
now they were all coming from their retirement--the most active
minds, whether the best or not--to shout their nostrums and make
confusion worse confounded. All sorts of socialisms were in the
air, raucously bellowed by would-be reformers. A "loud barbarian
from the south" (as Mencius called him--I do not know who he was)
was proclaiming that property should be abolished, and all goods
held in common. One Yang Chu was yelling universal egoism:
"Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die." Against him, one Mo
Ti had been preaching universal altruism;--but I judge, not too
sensibly, and without appeal to philosophy or mysticism. Thought
of all kinds was in a ferment, and the world filled with the
confused noise of its expression; clear voices were needed, to
restate the message of the Teachers of old.
Then Mencius arose to speak for Confucius in this China so much
further progressed along the Gadarene road. A strong and
brilliant man, he took the field strongly and brilliantly, and
filled the courts of dukes and kings with a roll of Confucian
drums. Confucius, as I have tried to show you, had all Mysticism
divinely behind and backing him, though he said little about it;
Mencius, I think, had none. Mencius remade a Confucius of his
own, with the mystical elements lacking. He saw in him only a
social reformer and teacher of ethics; and it is the easiest
thing in the world to see Confucius only through Mencian spectacles.
I would not fall into the mistake of undervaluing Mencius. He
was a very great man; and the work he did for China was
enormous, and indispensable. You may call him something between
the St. Paul and the Constantine of Confucianism. Unlike
Constantine, he was not a sovereign, to establish the system;
but he hobnobbed with sovereigns, and never allowed them to think
him their inferior; and it was he who made of Confucianism a
system that could be established. Unlike St. Paul, he did not
develop the inner side of his Master's teachings; but he so
popularized them as to ensure their triumph. He took the ideas
of Confucius, such of them as lay within his own statesmanlike
and practical scope of vision, restated and formulated them, and
made of them what became the Chinese Constitution. A brave and
honest thinker, essentially a man of action in thought, he never
consciously deteriorated or took away from Confucius' doctrine.
It is more as if some great President or Prime Minister, at some
future time, should suddenly perceive that H.P. Blavatsky had
brought that which would save his nation; and proceed to apply
that saving thing, as best he might, in the field of practical
politics and reform--or rather to restate it in such a way that
(according to his view) it might be applied.
He put the constituents parts of society in order of importance
as follows: the People; the Gods; the Sovereign: and this has
been a cardinal principle in Chinese polity. He saw clearly that
the Chow dynasty could never be revived; and arrived at the
conclusion that a dynasty was only sacred while it retained the
"mandate of heaven." Chow had lost that; and therefore it was
within the rights of Heaven, as you may say, to place its mandate
elsewhere;--and within the rights of the subject--as the logic of
events so clearly proved Chow had lost the mandate--to rebel.
Confucius had hoped to revivify Chow--had begun with that hope,
at any rate: Mencius hoped to raise up some efficient sovereign
who should overturn Chow. The Right of Rebellion, thus taught by
him, is another fundamental Chinese principle. It works this
way: if there was discontent, there was misrule; and it was the
fault of the ruler. If the latter was a local magistrate,
or a governor, prefect, or viceroy, you had but to make a
demonstration, normally speaking, before his yamen: this was
technically a 'rebellion' within Mencius' meaning; and the
offending authority must report it to Pekin, which then commonly
replaced him with another. (It would get to Pekin's ears anyway;
so you had better--and ususally did--report it yourself.) If the
offender was the Son of Heaven, with all his dynasty involved--
why, then one had to rebel in good earnest; and it was to be
supposed that if Heaven had really given one a mandate, one would
win. The effect was that, although nominally absolute, very few
emperors have dared or cared to fly quite in the face of
Confucius, or Mencius, of their religio-political system, of the
Board of Censors whose business it was to criticize the Throne,
and of a vast opinion.
There was the tradition an emperor ruled for the people. The
office of ruler was divine; the man that held it was kept an
impersonality as much as possible. He changed his name on coming
to the throne, and perhaps several times afterwards: thus we
speak of the great emperors Han Wuti and Tang Taitsong; who
might, however, be called more exactly, Liu Ch'e, who was emperor
during the period _Wuti_ of the Han Dynasty; Li Shihmin, who
filled the throne during the T'ang period called _Taitsong._
Again, there was the great idea, Confucio-Mencian, that the son
of Heven must be 'compliant': leading rather than driving. He
promulgated edicts, but they were never rigidly enforced; a
certain voluntaryism was allowed as to the carrying out of them:
if one of them was found unsuccessful, or not to command popular
approval, another could be--and was--issued to modify or change
it. So that the whole system was far removed from what we think
of as an 'Oriental Despotism'; on the contrary, there was always
a large measure of freedom and self-government. You began with
the family: the head of that was its ruler, and responsible
for order in his little realm. But he governed by consent
and affection, not by force. Each village-community was
self-governing; the headman in it taking the place of the father
in the family; he was responsible for order, so it was his
business to keep the people happy;--and the same principle was
extended to fit the province, the viceroyalty, the empire.
Further, there was the absence of any aristocracy or privileged
class; and the fact that all offices were open to all Chinamen
(actors excepted)--the sole key to open it being merit, as attested
by competitive examinations.
The system is Mencian; the inspiration behind it from Confucius.
It is the former's working out of the latter's superb idea of
the _li._
The Mencian system has broken down, and been abolished. It had
grown old, outworn and corrupt. But it was established a couple
of centuries before that of Augustus, and has been subject to the
same stress of time and the cycles; and only broke down the
other day. Time will wear out anything made by man. There is no
garment, but the body will out-grow or out-wear it; no body, but
the soul will outlive it and cast it away. Mencius, inspired by
his Master Confucius, projected a system that time took two
thousand years and more to wear out in China. It was one that
did much or everything to shield the people from tyranny.
Whether a better system has been devised, I do not know; but
should say not--in historical times. As to the inspiration
behind it--well, lest you should doubt the value of Confucius,
compare the history of Europe with that of China. We have
disproportioned ideas, and do not see these things straight. The
Chinese Empire was founded some two centuries before the Roman:
both composed of heterogeneous elements. Both, after about four
centuries, fell; but China, after about four centuries more,
came together and was great again. Fifteen hundred years after
Ts'in Shi Hwangti had founded China, her manvantara then having
ended, and her whole creative cycle run through, she fell to the
Mongols. Fifteen hundred years after Julius Caesar had founded
his empire, the last wretched remnant of it fell to the Turks.
But China first compelled her conquerors to behave like Chinamen,
and then, after a century, turned them out. The Turks never
became Greek or Roman, and so far have not quite been turned out.
The roman empire disappeared, and never reunited;--that is what
has been the matter with Europe ever since. Europe, in her
manvantara, has wasted three parts of her creative force in wars
and disunion. But China, even in her pralaya, became a strong,
united power again under the Mings (1368-1644)--the first of
them--a native dynasty. Conquered again, now by the Manchus, she
mader her conquerors behave like Chinamen,--imposed on them her
culture;--and went forth under their banners to conquer. The
European pralaya (630-1240) was a time barren of creation in art
and literature, and in life uttterly squalid and lightless The
Chinese pralaya, after the Mongol Conquest, took a very long time
to sink into squalidity. The arts, which had died in Europe long
before Rome fell, lived on in China, though with ever-waning
energy, through the Mongol and well into the Ming time: the
national stability, the force of custom, was there to carry them
on. What light, what life, what vigor was there in Rome or
Constantinople a century and a half after Alaric or Heraclius?
But Ming Yunglo, a century and a half after the fall of Sung,
reigned in great splendor; sent his armies conquering to the
Caspian, and his navies to the conquest of Ceylon, the discovery
of Africa, the gathering in of the tribute of the Archipelago and
the shores of the Indian Ocean. Until the end of the eighteenth
century the minor arts and crafts--pottery and bronzes--of which
there was nothing to speak of in Europe in the corresponding
European age--were flourishing wonderfully; and in the
seventeenth and eighteeenth centuries, under Kanghi and Kienlung,
China was once more a great military power. She chased and
whipped the Goorkhas down through the Himalays and into India,
only twenty years before England fought difficult and doubtful
campaigns with those fierce little mountaineers. You may even
say she has been better off in her pralaya, in many ways, and
until recently, than most of Europe has been in most of _her_
manvantara. In Kienlung's reign, for example (1735-1795) there
were higher standards of life, more security, law, and order,
than in the Europe of Catherine of Russia, Frederick the Great,
Louis XV and the Revolution, and the English Georges. There was
far less ferment of the Spirit, true; less possibility of
progress;--but that is merely to say that China was in pralaya,
Europe in high manvantara. The explanation is that a stability
had been imparted to that Far Eastern civilization, which Europe
has lacked altogether; whose history, for all its splendid high-
lights, has had thousands of hideous shadows; has not been so
noble a thing as we tacitly and complacently assume; but a long
record of wars, confusions, disorder, and cruelities, with only
dawning now the possibility of that union which is the first
condition of true progress, as distinguished from the riot of
material inventions and political experiments that has gone by
that name.--But now, back to Mencius again.
In all things he tried to follow Confucius; beginning early by
being born in the latter's own district of Tsow in Shantung, and
having a woman in ten thousand for his mother;--she has been the
model held up to all Chinese mothers since. He grew up strong in
body and mind, thoughtful and fearless; a tireless student of
history, poetry, national institutions, and the lives of great
men. Like Confucius, he opened a school, and gathered disciples
about him: but there was never the bond of love here, that there
had been between Confucius and Tse Lu, Yen Huy, and the others.
These may have heard from their Master the pure deep things of
Theosophy; one would venture the statement that none of Mencius'
following heard the like from him. He saw in Confucius that
which he himself was fitted to be, and set out to become. He
went from court to court, and everywhere, as a great scholar, was
received with honor. (You will note as one more proof of an
immemorial culture, that then, as now the scholar, as such, was
at the very top of the social scale. There was but one word for
_scholar_ and _official._)--He proposed, like Confucius, that
some king should make him his minister; and like Confucius, he
was always disappointed. But in him we come on none of the soft
lights and tones that endear Confucius to us; he fell far short
of being Such a One. A clear, bold mind, without _atmosphere,_
with all its lines sharply defined.... he made free to lecture
the great ones of the earth, and was very round with them,
even ridiculing them at his pleasure. He held the field for
Confucius--not the Taoist, but the Mencian Confucius--against all
comers; smote Yang Chu the Egotist hip and thigh; smote gentle
Mo Ti, the Altruist; preached fine and practical ethics; and
had no patience with those dreamers of the House of Laotse.--A
man sent from the Gods, I should say, to do a great work;
even though--
And then there was that dreamer of dreams, of Butterfly dreams,--
subtle mystical humorous Chwangtse: how could it be otherwise
than that clear-minded clarion-throated Philosopher Mang should
afford him excellent play? Philosopher Mang (Philosopher of the
Second Class, so officially entitled), in the name of his Master
K'ung Ch'iu, fell foul of Dreamer Chwang; how could it be
otherwise than that Dreamer Chwang should aim his shafts, not a
Mang merely, but (alas!) at the one whose name was always on
Mang's lips?--"Confucius says, Confucius says, Confucius says"--
cries Philosopher Mang.--"Oh hang your Confucius!" thinks Chwang
the Mystic; "let us have a little of the silence and splendor of
the Within!" (Well, Confucius would have said the same thing, I
think.) "Let me tell you a tale," says Chwang; and straight
goes forward with it.
"It was the time of the autumn floods. Every stream poured into
the river, which swelled in its turbid course. The banks were so
far apart that from one to the other you could not tell a cow
from a horse.
"Then the Spirit of the River laughed for joy that all the beauty
of the earth was gathered to himself. Down with the current he
journeyed east, until he reached the Ocean. There looking
eastward, and seeing no limit to its expanse of waves, his
countenance changed. As he gazed out, he sighed, and said to the
Spirit of the Ocean: 'A vulgar proverb says that he who has
heard but a part of the truth thinks no one equal to himself.
Such a one am I.
"'When formerly I heard people detracting from the learning of
Confucius, or underrating the heroism of Po I. I did not
believe. But now that I have looked on your inexhaustibility--
alas for me had I not reached your abode! I should have been
forever a laughing-stock to those of comprehensive enlightenment.'
"To which the Spirit of the Ocean answered: 'You cannot speak of
ocean to a well-frog,--the creature of a narrower sphere. You
cannot speak of ice to a summer insect,--the creature of a
season. You cannot speak of Tao to a pedant; his scope
is too restricted. But now that you have emerged from your
narrow sphere, and have seen the great sea, you know your own
insignificance, and I can speak of great principles.
"Have you never heard of the Frog of the Old Well? The Frog
said to the Turtle of the Eastern Sea, 'Happy indeed am I! I
hop on the rail around the well. I rest in the hollow of some
broken brick. Swimming, I gather the water under my arms and
shut my mouth tight. I plunge into the mud, burying my feet and
toes. Not one of the cockles, crabs, or tadpoles I see around me
is my match. Why do you not come, Sir, and pay me a visit?'"
"Now the Turtle of the Eastern Sea had not got its left leg down
ere its right leg had stuck fast, so it shrank back and begged to
be excused. It then described the sea, saying, 'A thousand
leagues would not measure its breadth, nor a thousand fathoms its
depth. In the days of Yu the Great there were nine years of
flood out of ten; but this did not add to its contents. In the
days of T'ang there were seven years of drought out of eight, but
this did not narrow its span. Not to be affected by volume of
water, not to be affected by duration of time--this is the
happiness of the Eastern Sea.' At this the Frog of the Old Well
was considerably astonished, and knew not what to say next. And
for one whose knowledge does not reach to the positive-negative
domain the attempt to understand me is like a mosquito trying to
carry a mountain, or an ant to swim the Yellow River,--they
cannot succeed."
If Chwangtse had lived before Mencius, or Mencius after Chwangtse,
Chwangtse could have afforded to see Confucius in his true
light, as Liehtse did; but the power and influence of the
mind of Mencius were such that in his time there was no looking
at the Master except through his glasses. We do not know what
happened when Laotse and Confucius met; but I suspect it was
very like what happened when Mr. Judge met Madame Blavatsky. But
Butterfly Chwang, the rascal, undertook to let us know; and
wrote it out in full. He knew well enough what would happen if
he met Mencius; and took that as his model. He wanted Mencius
to know it too. He itched to say to him, "Put away, sir, your
flashy airs," and the rest; and so made Laotse say it to
Confucius. It shows how large Philosopher Mang had come to loom,
that anyone could attribute "flashy airs" to that great-hearted
simple Gentleman K'ung Ch'iu. One thing only I believe in about
that interview: Confucius' reputed speech on coming forth from
it to his disciples:--"There is the Dragon; I do not know how he
mounts upon the wind and rises about the clouds. Today I have
seen Laotse, and can only compare him to the Dragon." He _would
have said_ that; it has definite meaning; the Dragon was the
symbol of the spirit, and so universally recognised.--Confucius
appears to have taken none of his disciples into the Library;
and Confucianist writers have had nothing to say about the
incident, except that it occurred, I believe. Chwangtse, and all
Taoist writers after him, show Confucius taking his rating very
quietly;--as indeed, he would have done, had Laotse been in a
mood for quizzing. For Confucius never argued or pressed his
opinions; where his words were not asked for and listened to, he
retired. But it is not possible the recognition should have been
other than mutual: the great Laotse would have known a Man
when he saw him. I like the young imperturbable K'ung Jung,
precocious ten-year-old of some seven centuries later. His
father took him up to the capital when the Dragon Statesman Li
Ying was the height of his power; and the boy determined on
gaining an interview with Li. He got admission to the latter's
house by claiming blood-relationship. Asked by the great man
wherein it lay, says he very sweetly: "Your ancestor Laotse and
my ancestor Confucius were friends engaged in the search for
truth; may we not then be said to be of the same family?"--
"Cleverness in youth," sneered a bystander, "does not mean
brilliancy in later life."--"You, Sir," says Ten-years-old,
turning to him, "must have been a very remarkable boy." *
-------
* Giles: _Chinese Literature._
-------
The truth is, both Mencius and Chwangtse stood a step lower and
nearer this world than had the two they followed: whose station
had been on the level platform at the top of the altar. But
Mencius descending had gone eastward; Chwangtse towards
the west.
He was all for getting at the Mean, the Absolute Life, beyond the
pairs of opposites;--which is, indeed, the central Chinese
thought, Confucian or Taoist, the _raison d'etre_ of Chinese
longevity, and the saving health of China. But unfortunately he
--Chwangtse--did not see that his own opposite, Philosopher Mang,
was driving him an inch or two away from the Middle Line. So,
with a more brilliant mind (a cant phrase that!) he stands well
below Laotse; just as Mencius stands below K'ung Ch'iu. The
spiritual down-breathing had reached a lower plane: soon the
manvantara was to begin, and the Crest-Wave to be among the
black-haired People. For all these Teachers and Half-Teachers
were but early swallows and forerunners. Laotse and Confucius
had caught the wind at its rising, on the peaks where they stood
very near the Spirit; Chwangtse and Mangtse caught it in the
region of the intellect: the former in his wild valley, the
latter on his level prosaic plain. They are both called more
daring thinkers than their predecessors; which is merely to say
that in them the Spirit figured more on the intellectual, less on
its own plane. They were lesser men, of course. Mencius had
lost Confucius' spirituality; Chwangtse, I think, something of
the sweet sanifying influence of Laotse's universal compassion.
Well, now: three little tales from Chwangtse, to illustrate his
wit and daring; and after then, to the grand idea he bequeathed
to China.
"Chwangtse one day saw an empty skull, bleached, but still
preserving its shape. Striking it with his riding-whip, he said:
'Was thou once some ambitious citizen whose inordinate yearnings
brought him to this pass?--some statesman who plunged his country
in ruin, and perished in the fray?--some wretch who left behind
him a legacy of shame?--some beggar who died in the pangs of
hunger and cold? Or didst thou reach this state by the natural
course of old age?'
"He took the skull home, and slept that night with it under his
head for a pillow, and dreamed. The skull appeared to him in his
dream, and said: 'You speak well, Sir; but all you say has
reference to the life of mortals, and to mortal troubles. In
death there are none of these things. Would you like to hear
about death?'
"Cwangtse, however, was not convinced, and said: 'Were I to
prevail upon God to let your body be born again, and your bones
and flesh be renewed, so that you could return to your parents,
to your wife and to the friends of your youth--would you
be willing?'
"At this the skull opened its eyes wide and knitted its brows
and said: 'How should I cast aside happiness greater than
that of a king, and mingle once again in the toils and troubles
of mortality?'"