CHAPTER XXII. · 3

Cf. "Know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost," etc. I. Corinthians vi. 19.

Confucius said to Lao Tzŭ, "To-day you are at leisure. Pray tell me about perfect Tao."

"Purge your heart by fasting and discipline," answered Lao Tzŭ. "Wash your soul as white as snow. Discard your knowledge. Tao is abstruse and difficult of discussion. I will try, however, to speak to you of its outline.

[283]

"Light is born of darkness. Classification is born of formlessness. The soul is born of Tao. The body is born of the vital essence.

Existence springs from non-existence.

"Thus all things produce after their kind. Creatures with nine channels of communication are born from the womb. Creatures with eight are born from the egg.

Nature is always self-similar.

Of their coming there is no trace. In their departure there is no goal. No entrance gate, no dwelling house, they pass this way and that, as though at the meeting of cross-roads.

"Those who enter herein become strong of limb, subtle of thought, and clear of sight and hearing. They suffer no mental fatigue, nor meet with physical resistance.

"Heaven cannot but be high. Earth cannot but be broad. The sun and moon cannot but revolve. All creation cannot but flourish. To do so is their Tao.

"But it is not from extensive study that this may be known, nor by dialectic skill that this may be made clear. The true Sage will have none of these. It is in addition without gain, in diminution without loss, that the true Sage finds salvation.

"Unfathomable as the sea, wondrously ending only to begin again, informing all creation without being exhausted, the Tao of the perfect man is spontaneous in its operation. That all creation[284] can be informed by it without exhaustion, is its Tao.

The Tao of Tao.

"In the Middle Kingdom there are men who recognise neither positive nor negative. They abide between heaven and earth. They act their part as mortals, and then return to the Cause.

"From that standpoint,

Of the Cause, sc. God, which is commensurate with infinity.

life is but a concentration of the vital fluid, whose longest and shortest terms of existence vary by an inappreciable space,—-hardly enough for the classification of Yao and Chieh.

As good and bad. See ch. iv.

"Tree-fruits and plant-fruits exhibit order in their varieties; and the relationships of man, though more difficult to be dealt with, may still be reduced to order.

These have been classified as follows:—

1. Sovereign and Subject. 2. Husband " Wife. 3. Father " Son. 4. Elder Brother " Younger Brother. 5. Friend " Friend.

The true Sage who meets with these, does not violate them. Neither does he continue to hold fast by them.

He adapts himself to the exigencies of his environment.

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Adaptation by arrangement is Tê. Spontaneous adaptation is Tao, by which sovereigns flourish and princes succeed.

"Man passes through this sublunary life as a white horse passes a crack. Here one moment, gone the next. Neither are there any not equally subject to the ingress and egress of mortality. One modification brings life; then another, and it is death. Living creatures cry out; human beings sorrow. The bow-sheath is slipped off; the clothes-bag is dropped; and in the confusion the soul wings its flight, and the body follows, on the great journey home!

"The reality of the formless, the unreality of that which has form,—this is known to all. Those who are on the road to attainment care not for these things, but the people at large discuss them. Attainment implies non-discussion: discussion implies non-attainment. Manifested, Tao has no objective value; hence silence is better than argument. It cannot be translated into speech; better then say nothing at all. This is called the great attainment."

Tung Kuo Tzŭ asked Chuang Tzŭ, saying, "What you call Tao,—where is it?"

"There is nowhere," replied Chuang Tzŭ, "where it is not."