CHAPTER XII. · 3

Thereupon the border-warden went off, and Yao followed him; saying, "May I ask——," to which the warden only replied "Begone!"

The style of the above episode varies enough from Chuang Tzŭ's standard to make its authorship doubtful.

When Yao was Emperor, Poh Ch'êng Tzŭ Kao

Lao Tzŭ under a previous incarnation. See the Kuang Ch'êng Tzŭ of p. 125.

was one of his vassals. But when Yao handed over the empire to Shun, and Shun to the Great Yü, Poh Ch'êng Tzŭ Kao resigned his fief and betook himself to agriculture.

The Great Yü going to visit him, found him working in the fields; whereupon he approached humbly, saying, "When Yao was emperor, you, Sir, were a vassal; but when Yao handed over the empire to Shun, and Shun to me, you resigned your fief and betook yourself to agriculture. May I enquire the reason of this?"

"When Yao ruled the empire," said Tzŭ Kao,[143] "the people exerted themselves without reward and behaved themselves without punishment. But now you reward and punish them, and yet they are not good. From this point virtue will decline, the reign of force will begin, and the troubles of after ages will date their rise. Away with you! Do not interrupt my work." And he quietly went on ploughing as before.

The above episode is unmistakably spurious.

At the beginning of the beginning, even Nothing did not exist. Then came the period of the Nameless.

"The Nameless," says the Tao-Tê-Ching, ch. i, "was the beginning of heaven and earth." See also ch. ii, ante.

When One came into existence, there was One, but it was formless. When things got that by which they came into existence, it was called their virtue.

Sc. that, by virtue of which they are what they are. See p. 45.

That which was formless, but divided,

I.e. allotted.

though without interstice,

Unbroken in continuity.

was called destiny.

Then came the movement which gave life, and[144] things produced in accordance with the principles of life had what is called form. When form encloses the spiritual part, each with its own characteristics, that is its nature. By cultivating this nature, we are carried back to virtue; and if this is perfected, we become as all things were in the beginning. We become unconditioned, and the unconditioned is great. As birds join their beaks in chirping,

Unconsciously.

and beaks to chirp must be joined,—to be thus joined with the universe without being more conscious of it than an idiot, this is divine virtue, this is accordance with the eternal fitness of things.

Confucius asked Lao Tzŭ, saying, "There are persons who cultivate Tao according to fixed rules of possible and impossible, fit and unfit, just as the schoolmen speak of separating hardness from whiteness as though these could be hung up on different pegs.

See p. 22.

Could such persons be termed sages?"

"That," replied Lao Tzŭ, "is but the skill of the handicraftsman, wearing out body and soul alike. The powers of the hunting-dog involve it in trouble;

It is kept by man instead of being free.

[145]

the cleverness of the monkey brings it down from the mountain.

Into the hands of man.

Ch'iu, what I mean you cannot understand, neither can you put it into words.

Ch'iu was the personal name of Confucius. It is never uttered by the Confucianist, the term "a certain one" being usually substituted. Neither is it ever written down, except with the omission of some stroke, by which its form is changed.