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.
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.
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.
TRANSCENDENTAL BLISS.
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 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.
CHAPTER II.
THE IDENTITY OF CONTRARIES.
_Argument_:--Contraries spring from our subjective individuality--Identity of subjective and objective--The centre where all distinctions are merged in ONE--How to reach this point--Speech an obstacle--The negative state--Light out of darkness--Illustrations.
Tzŭ Ch'i of Nan-kuo sat leaning on a table. Looking up to heaven, he sighed and became absent, as though soul and body had parted.
Yen Ch'êng Tzŭ Yu, who was standing by him, exclaimed, "What are you thinking about that your body should become thus like dry wood, your mind like dead ashes? Surely the man now leaning on the table is not he who was here just now."
"My friend," replied Tzŭ Ch'i, "your question is apposite. _To-day I have buried myself_...Do you understand?...Ah! perhaps you only know the music of Man, and not that of Earth. Or even if you have heard the music of Earth, you have not heard the music of Heaven."
"Pray explain," said Tzŭ Yu.
"The breath of the universe," continued Tzŭ Ch'i, "is called wind. At times, it is inactive. But when active, every aperture resounds to the blast. Have you never listened to its growing roar?
"Caves and dells of hill and forest, hollows in huge trees of many a span in girth;--these are like nostrils, like mouths, like ears, like beam-sockets, like goblets, like mortars, like ditches, like bogs.
And the wind goes rushing through them, sniffing, snoring, singing, soughing, puffing, purling, whistling, whirring, now shrilly treble, now deeply bass, now soft, now loud; until, with a lull, silence reigns supreme. Have you never witnessed among the trees such a disturbance as this?"
"Well, then," enquired Tzŭ Yu, "since the music of earth consists of nothing more than holes, and the music of man of pipes and flutes,--of what consists the music of Heaven?"
"The effect of the wind upon these various apertures," replied Tzŭ Ch'i, "is not uniform. But what is it that gives to each the individuality, to all the potentiality, of sound?
"Great knowledge embraces the whole: Sees both "the upper and under side of the medal of Jove" at once.
small knowledge, a part only. Great speech is universal: Speech, according to Chuang Tzŭ's ideal, always covers the whole ground in question, leaving no room for positive and negative to appear in antagonism.
small speech is particular.
"For whether when the mind is locked in sleep or whether when in waking hours the body is released, we are subject to daily mental perturbations,--indecision, want of penetration, concealment, fretting fear, and trembling terror. Now like a javelin the mind flies forth, the arbiter of right and wrong.
Thus recognising contraries.
Now like a solemn covenanter it remains firm, the guardian of rights secured.
Adhering to an opinion formed.
Then, as under autumn and winter's blight, comes gradual decay, a passing away, like the flow of water, never to return. Finally, the block when all is choked up like an old drain,--the failing mind which shall not see light again.
"Joy and anger, sorrow and happiness, caution and remorse, come upon us by turns, with ever-changing mood. They come like music from hollowness, like mushrooms from damp. Daily and nightly they alternate within us, but we cannot tell whence they spring. Can we then hope in a moment to lay our finger upon their very Cause?
"But for these emotions _I_ should not be. But for _me_, they would have no scope. So far we can go; but we do not know what it is that brings them into play. 'Twould seem to be a _soul_; but the clue to its existence is wanting. That such a Power operates, is credible enough, though we cannot see its form. It has functions without form.
As will be gathered later on, Chuang Tzŭ conceives of the soul as an emanation from God, passing to and from this earth through the portals of Life and Death.
"Take the human body with all its manifold divisions. Which part of it does a man love best? Does he not cherish all equally, or has he a preference? Do not all equally serve him? And do these servitors then govern themselves, or are they subdivided into rulers and subjects?
Surely there is some soul which sways them all.
"But whether or not we ascertain what are the functions of this soul, it matters but little to the soul itself. For coming into existence with this mortal coil of mine, with the exhaustion of this mortal coil its mandate will also be exhausted. To be harassed by the wear and tear of life, and to pass rapidly through it without possibility of arresting one's course,--is not this pitiful indeed? To labour without ceasing, and then, without living to enjoy the fruit, worn out, to depart, suddenly, one knows not whither,--is not that a just cause for grief?
"What advantage is there in what men call not dying? The body decomposes, and the mind goes with it. This is our real cause for sorrow. Can the world be so dull as not to see this? Or is it I alone who am dull, and others not so?
"If we are to be guided by the criteria of our own minds, who shall be without a guide?
The mind should be a _tabula rasa_, free from all judgments or opinions of its own as to the external world, and ready only to accept things as they are, not as they appear to be.
What need to know of the alternations of passion, As above described.
when the mind thus affords scope to itself?--verily even the minds of fools! Whereas, for a mind without criteria As it should be.
to admit the idea of contraries, is like saying, _I went to Yüeh to-day, and got there yesterday_.
One of Hui Tzŭ's paradoxes. See ch. xxxiii.
Or, like placing nowhere somewhere,--topography which even the Great Yü The famous engineer of antiquity (B.C. 2205), who drained the empire of a vast body of water and arranged its subdivision into nine provinces.
would fail to understand; how much more I?
"Speech is not mere breath. It is differentiated by meaning. Take away that, and you cannot say whether it is speech or not. Can you even distinguish it from the chirping of young birds?
"But how can TAO be so obscured that we speak of it as true and false? And how can speech be so obscured that it admits the idea of contraries? How can TAO go away and yet not remain?
Being omnipresent.
How can speech exist and yet be impossible?
See p. 13.
"TAO is obscured by our want of grasp. Speech is obscured by the gloss of this world.
_I.e._ by the one-sided meanings attached to words and phrases.
Hence the affirmatives and negatives of the Confucian and Mihist schools, Mih Tzŭ was a philosopher of the fourth century B.C., who propounded various theories which were vigorously attacked by the Confucianists under Mencius. We shall hear more of him by-and-by.
each denying what the other affirmed and affirming what the other denied. But he who would reconcile affirmative with negative and negative with affirmative, The "union of impossibilities," which Emerson credits to Plato alone.
must do so by the light of nature.
_I.e._ Have no established mental criteria, and thus see all things as ONE.
"There is nothing which is not objective: there is nothing which is not subjective. But it is impossible to start from the objective. Only from subjective knowledge is it possible to proceed to objective knowledge. Hence it has been said, By Hui Tzŭ.
'The objective emanates from the subjective; the subjective is consequent upon the objective. This is the _Alternation Theory_.'
Nevertheless, when one is born, the other dies. When one is possible, the other is impossible. When one is affirmative the other is negative.
Which being the case, the true sage rejects all distinctions of this and that. He takes his refuge in GOD, and places himself in subjective relation with all things.
It was to this end that Tzŭ Ch'i "buried himself."
"And inasmuch as the subjective is also objective, and the objective also subjective, and as the contraries under each are indistinguishably blended, does it not become impossible for us to say whether subjective and objective really exist at all?
What is positive under the one will be negative under the other.
Yet as subjective and objective are really one and the same, their positives and negatives must also be one and the same.
It is as though we were to view them through a kind of mental Pseudoscope, by which means each would appear to be the other.
"When subjective and objective are both without their correlates, that