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THREE WAYS OF
THOUGHT
IN
ANCIENT
CHINA
TramtaliorA hv ArtftHT Wairy
THE RS: AL TR M'JT AK A THE POETRY AND CARKKR OF LI PO THK LtXE AND Tl M KS OP PM SlHll-I Oil I NI'.SR ]»OKMK
from fUfiiat 1‘rmi. Mtrt Y ’Mifauw ftmn Utf 'JVfnrif
Thf Tmplf niHl 'Ihf Hot*k of
M«IN KI>V
TllK ANAI.KOTS <i¥ OONHHilDS TJIK WAY AND ITS POWKh T H K f Al.K OP O kNJ I THE Nf) PLAYS OV JAPAN THE i*ILLOW«»OOK OP SKI SHoNAOON
THREE WAYS OF
THOUGHT
IN
ANCIENT CHINA .
by
Arthur
George Allen 6c Unwin Ltd Museum Streec, London
m
FliOT IK l<l^f>
»e«OKJ> iwruMiiioN if>4'^ YiriRiv iMraPStny 1953
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CONTENTS
MCI
PREFACE 11
CHUANG T2U
PART I. Tn£ ftIULM OP NOiniNC WKATBVW
Sicries o f Cfiu/otg Tgu and Hui Tzu 17
Storin of Lao Tsh and CoufiKiiv 29
Tilt Auctattfs 37
Tiu Brigand and tiff Sage 39
Dfotit 51
Tift Ctradii and die IVnn 34
Yoga 39
Kifjs Mu and rhe Wizard ^3
Yang-shvng 67
TTjc Taoiti and Tao 74
Dim Yottr Light 79
Buried £3
PAST u, pouncs
Cortlfinparary Ewjm 87
The Uiifarvtd Block 9^
The Golden Age P8
Couemment
Deaiing wiih ihe World 108
7
Coutciiif
|
that |
|
|
MENCIUS |
|
|
Tftf ikilcr FceliH^ |
iiS |
|
GamnmiU ly CwAwss |
liZ |
|
MEKCrUS AN^ TIIB KiNCS |
|
|
Klni>s of K‘ei |
Hi |
|
The Duhi'^Toi^ |
126 |
|
The Vire< Yftvs |
J2y |
|
Mmrius oiid fix- kin*; of Sm^ |
U7 |
|
Mc>eius the kiog if Ch'i |
ui |
|
The Yen iwrff |
ISi |
|
T/tf UeniJluis ef Saj^i |
*55 |
|
Great Men |
160 |
|
Tfis WAL senoou |
|
|
Me TzH |
163 |
|
Mciiciits and the A^'iailfiiratiiss |
185 |
|
Ch’h Cifung |
189 |
|
Mencius and the Disciples |
xps |
|
Methods ef Arsiiment |
193 |
|
THE REALISTS |
|
|
A^niiies ef the KeaUsts |
199 |
|
The kealiss Conception of Lav |
209 |
|
The People and the Liu> |
211 |
|
Smith and Wesson |
aJ5 |
|
Agriculture and War |
217 |
|
Classes to he Eliminated |
223 |
|
The Past |
lit |
|
TlieRukr |
aj2 |
|
Potoer |
237 |
|
The An ef the Courtier |
239 |
3
Cciitctils
fACB
EPILOGUE »l Aftioil 44®
aPPEkdix 1. Tilt Sources 456
APPENPix u. HsjJh Tzu en MeneitfS 460
CjuAVTj Ttu An Tao 261
APPENDIX HI. RUesfoT Defilisitft iVirr 26$
APPENDIX IV. Biog'^phics 46s
FINDING UST 4«
IND£X "59
TEXTUAL NOTES *73
9
4
PREFACE
This book consists chiefly of extracts from Chuan£ Tzu, Mcnciiis and Han Fd Tzr/.* These are books by philosophers, and many people assume chat to read a book about philosophy, unless one has studied the subject specially, is about as much a layman to pore over a treatise on
arc all kinds of philosophy, and the kind chat this book deals with is not at all tech¬ nical. Chuang Tzu's appeal is to the imagination; he can be understood by anyone who knows how to read poeny. The appeal of Mencius is to the moral feelings; die book is meaningless unless we realize that it was written at a time when morality (as opposed to Law) was at stake. Hitlicrto Mencius has not much interested Western readers because it has been studied by itself without relation to other ways of thought that challenged its ideals. Realism, as expounded by Han Fci Tzu, finds so
' The fint cwo virtc wrictcn uiainJy tbc beflorongi the (honly aAr tbe middk of the 3rd eemury h.c.
good as for parasitology. But there
Pr^oce
cbse a parallel in modem Totalitarianism that the reader, so far from being puzzled by anything remote or unfamiliar, will wonder wljcthcr these pretended extracts from a book of the third century e.c. arc not in reality aitcings from a current newspaper.
Each of these sources ha.s required a soincwliac diiferent treatment. The methods of Chuang Tzu are those of the poet, and in the case of poetry analysis is useless. Attempts have been made to analyse Chuang Tzu s ‘system’; but they result in leaving the reader with no idea cither of what Taoism is or of what the book is like. This can only be done by full quotation.
In Chuang Tzu the contrast between Taoist views and those of ocher schools is dramatized in imaginary dialogues. I have picked out die dia¬ logues between Hui Tzu, the logician, and Chuang Tzu, as also those between Lao Tzu, the Taoist, and Confucius, which in the original are widely scattered, and put them together. This makes it easier to sec what the various disputants stand for. If we do not clearly grasp, for example, that Hui Tzu stands for inccllectualicy as opposed to imagination, we shall miss the point of many of Chuang Tzu’s anecdotes.
The appeal of Mencius, on the other hand, is
12
Preface
partly incellcccual, aiid in his case I luvc combined the methods of analysis and long quotation. Finally, Realism is embodied in short essays which continually overlap one anoclier, and I liave found ic more convenient to make extracts and arrange them according to subject.
I have been reproached with failing to reproduce [he terseness of Chinese idiom. But to reproduce this terseness and at the same rime to remain intelligible and preserve a dignified and coherent rhythm is often impossible; on the other hand, there arc times when things can be said more shortly in English than in Chinese. A great di£Q- culcy lies in the fact chat fat mote words can serve both as nouns and as verbs than is the case in English. Take the following, from tlic 26ch chapter o£Chuau^ Tztt : ‘A basket-trap is for holding fish; but when one lias got the fish, one need think no more about the basket. A foot-trap is for holding hares; but when one has got the bate one need tliink no more about the trap. Words are for holding ideas; but when one has got the idea, one need think no more about the words. If only I could find someone who has stopped chinking about words {yeti) and have him with me to calk (ycj;) to.’
Here the noun words’ and the verb ‘calk’ arc
13
both expressed by yev. The whole point of the last sentence is spoilt if I translate the first yen as ‘words’ and the second yen as ‘to talk/ But if I try CO bring in ‘words’ into the translation of the second yen, I can only say ‘have a word with.* which implies soinctliing quite different, or coin a verb ‘to word’ fhavc him with me to word to’) which sounds barbarous and affected. Such are the difficulties of the translator.
I have often written ‘Chuang Tzu* (and the same applies CO Mendus and Han Fei Tzu) when it would have been more accurate to write Tzu ; that is to say. to name the book rather than the man. I have done this purely for practical convenience, in order to avoid sucli awkward phrases as ‘In tlie Chuang Tzu it is said . ... or * Chuang Tzu says. . . /
H
«
CHUANG
TZU
PAST I
THE .REALM OF NOTHING WHATEVER
Stories of Chuang Tzu and Hui Tzu Hui Tzu said to Chuang Tzu» ‘Youi teacldngs are of no practical use/ Chuaog Tzu said, "Only cKose who already know the value of the useless can be calked to about the useful. This earth we walk upon is of vase ertenc, yet in order co walk a man uses no more of ic than the soles of his two feet will cover. But suppose one cue away the ground round his cill one reached the Yellow Springs, i would his patches of ground soil be of any use co him for walking ?* Hui Tzu said, 'They would be of no use.' Chuai^ Tzu said, *So then the usefulness of the useless is evidenc/
Hui Tzu recited to Chuang Tzu the rhymej *I have got a big ttee That men call the iku.
Its crunk is knotted and gnarled.
And cannot be 6cted co plumb-line and ink;
Its branches are bent and cwisced,
And cannot be fined to compass or square.
It stands by die road-side,
And no carpenter will look at it.'
' Xh« world of (be dead.
17 B
Cltuaii^ 7‘zn
‘Your doctrines; said Hui Tzii, ‘arc grandiose, but use¬ less, and that is why no one accepts them.’ Chuang Tzu said. ‘Can it he chat you have never seen the pole-cat, how it crouches waiting foe the mouse, ready at any moment to leap tliis way or that, high or low, till one day ic lands plump on the spring of a crap and dies in die snare ? Again there is die yak, “huge as a cloud that covers the sky.” It can maintain this great bulk and yet would be quite incapable of catching a nioaNC. ... As foe you and the big tree which you are at a loss how to use, why do you not plant it in the realm of Nocliing Whatever, in the wilds of the Unpastured Desert, and aimlessly tread the padi of Inaction by its side, or vacandy lie dreaming beneath ic?
'What docs not uivitc die axe No creature will liarni.
What cannot be used No tcouhics will befoU.’
Hui Tru said to Chuang Tzu, ‘Tlic king of Wei gave me the seed of one of his huge gourds. I plauted it, and ic bore a gourd so enormous that if 1 had filled it with water or brodi it would liavc taken several men to life it, while if I had split it into halves and made ladles out of it diey would have been so flat chat no liquid would have lain in them. No one could deny that it was m^nifi- cendy la^ ; but I was unable to find any use for it, and in the end I smashed ic up and threw it away.' Chuang Tzu said, ‘I have noticed before diat you arc not very
i8
Chuang Tzu
clever at Cuming large things to account. There was once a family in Sung that possessed a secret drug which had enabled its members for generations past to steep silk fioss widiout getting chapped hands. A stranger haring of it offered to buy the recipe for a hundred pieces of gold. The head of the family pointed out to his kinsmen that if all the money diat the family had made in succes¬ sive generations through the use of the drug were added together it would not come to more than one or two pieces of gold, and chat a hundred pieces would amply repay them for parting with their secret. The stranger carried off the recipe and spoke of it to the king of Wu, whose country was being harried by the battleships of Yiieh. The stranger was put in command of the Wu fleet* and so efficacious was the remedy that despite the bitter cold (for it was a winter’s day) the fingers of die Wu sailon never once grew chapped or numbed, and the fleet of Yiieh was entirely destroyed. The land of Yuch was divided and the stranger rewarded with a fief, ’The sole property of the drug was that it prevented bands from getting chapped. Yet so much depends on the user that, if it had stayed with the man of Sung, it would never have done more chan help him to steep floss; while no sooner had it passed into the stranger’s possession than it gained him a fief. As for you and your large gourd, why did you not tie it as a buoy at your waist, and, borne up by it on the waters, float to your heart s content amid the screams and inland seas t Instead, you grumble about its gigantic dimensions and say that
19
Ckuan^ Tzu
ladles made from it would hold nothing; die reason bei!^, I fear, chat your own thoughts have noc leamc to run beyond the commonplace/
Hui Tzu said to Chuang Tzu, ‘Can a man really become passionless/ Chuang Tzu said, ‘He can/ Hu: Tzu said, 'A man without passions cannot be called a man/ Chuang Tru said, " ‘Tao gave him substance, Heaven gave him form*’; how is it possible noc to call him a man / Hui Tzu said, ‘I would rather say, Granted chat he is scill a man, how is it possible for him to be passionless / Chuang Tzu said, ‘You do not understand w^ac I mean when I say “passionless.”* When I say “passionless” I mean chat a man does not let love or hate do damage within, that he falls in with the way in which things happen of themselves, and does not exploit life/ Hui Tzu said, *lf he does noc exploit life, what is the use of his having a body / Chuang Tzu said:
‘Tao gave him substance,
Heaven gave him form;
Let him noc by love or hate Bring this gift to ham\.
‘Yet here are you,
'Ncglcccu^ your soul.
Wearying your spirit.
Propped against a pile of books you drone, leaning against your zithem you doze.
* The bw dropped eui of dir original.
ao
Chuang Tzu
Hexvcn made you sound and whole;
Ycc all your song is hard and whiU.*
When Chuang Tni’s wife died, Hui Tru came to the house CO join in the rites of mourning. To his surprise he found Chuang Tzu siciing widi an inverted bowl on his knees, dtuimning upon it and singing a song.’ ‘After aij/ said Hur Tzu, ‘she lived with you, brought up your children, grew old along with you. That you should not mourn for her is bad enough; but to let your friends find you drumming and singing—^ is going too far!' *You misjudge me,’ uid Chuang Tzu. "When she died, I was in despair, as any man well might be. But soon, pondering on what had happened, I cold mysdf that in death no strange new fate befalls us. In 6c beginning we not life only, but form. Not form only, but spirit We are blended in 6e one great featureless indistin* guisbable mass. Then a time came when the mass evolved spirit, spirit evolved form, form evolved life. And now life in its turn has evolved ded6. For not narure only but man’s being has its seasons, its sequence of spring and autumn, summer and wincet. If some one is tired and has gone to lie down, we do not pursue Kim with touting and bawling. She whom I have lost has lain down to sleep for a while in the Great Inner Room. To break in upon her rest wi6 6e noise of lamentation would but
* TliAt u to say, is eoncenwi with cbe probfenu of lope, such u the quoDon whether herdnes end wtutt&ess exist separately fioci an object that is h«d and white.
* Both his aidrude sad his occupation weie the rererse of what the ntea of mounuog demand.
21
Chuang Tzu
show that 1 knew nothing of nature s Sovereign Law, That is why I ceased to mourn.’
Chuang Tzu and Hui Tzu were scrolling one day on the bridge over the river Hao. Chuang Tzu said, ‘Look bow che minnows dart hither and thither where they will. Such is the pleasure that fish enjoy/ Hui Tzu saii ’You arc not a fish. How do you know what gives pleasure to fish / Chuang Tzu said, 'You arc not 1. How do you know chat I do not loiow what gives pleasure to fish/ Hui Tzu said, 'If because I am not you, I cannot know whether you know, then equally because you arc not a fish, you cannot know what gives pleasure to fish. My argument soil holds.’ Chuang Tzu said, ‘Let us go back to where we started. You asked me how 1 knew what gives pleasure to fish. But you already knew how 1 knew it when you asked me. You knew chat I knew it by standing here on the bridge at Hao.’
When Hui was minister in Liang, Chuang Tzu decided to pay him a visit Someone said to Hui Tzu, 'Chuang Tzu is coming and hopes to be made Minister in your place.' Ihis alarmed Hui Tzu and he searched everywhere in Liang for fiuee days and three nights to discover where Chuang Tza was. Chuang Tzu, however, arrived of his own accord and said, 'In the Souda there is a bird. It is called yuar^h'uJ Have you heard of it? This yiian~tk"u starts fiom che southern ocean and flies to the northern ocean. During its whole journey It
I Ideaeifieti nowadays wick Argus ^ used by Chiung
Tau in x mytbologial seme.
22
Ckua^ Tzu
pcrchcj on no att save die sacred wu-t'wig,^ eats no fruit save chat of the Uen.^ drinks only at die Magic Well. It happened that an owl dxac had got hold of tlu rotting carcass of a rat looked up as chis bird dew by, and terrifred lest the yii<nh<k'u should stop and snatch at the succulent morscL it screamed, "Shoo! ShooT And now I am told that you are crying to "Shoo" me off from this precious Ministry of youn,’
Once when Chuang Tzu was walking in a funeral procession, he came upon Hui Tzu*s comb, and turning to those who were with him he said, 'There was once a wafl'plasterer who when any plaster frU upon his nose, even a speck no thicker frian a Hy's wing, to get the mason who worked with him to slice it olf The mason brandished his adze with such force that there was a sound of rushing wind; but he sliced the plaster clean ofr] leaving the plasterer's nose completely intaa; the plas¬ terer, on hss side, standing stock sciU, without the least change of expression,
‘Yuan, prince of Sung, heard of this and sent for the mason, saying to him, "1 should very much like to see you attempt this performance," The mason said, "It is (rue that 1 used to do it. But 1 need the right mifr to work upon, and the partner who supplied such material died long ago.”
‘Since Hui Tm died £, too, have had no proper stuff
' 7be koUniue tret.
« jdemified oawaiays wnb tbe Penun lilac.
^5
Chuang Tzu
to work upon, have had no one with whom 1 can really calk.*
It was not always by dialogue that Chuang Tzu warred with the logicians. Another of his weapons was parody. A favourite method of the argumcni- rative school of philosophy was to take an imaginary case: ‘cake the case of a man who . . ./ they constantly say to illustrate their argument.
'Take the case of some words,' Chuang Tzu says, parodying the logicians, 'I do not know which of them are in any way connected with reality or which are not at all connected with reality. If some that arc so connected and some that ace not so connected arc con¬ nected with one another, then as regards truth or &Ue- hood* the former cease to be in any way different from the brier. However, just as an experiment, I will now say them: If there was a beginning, there must have been a time before the b^inning began, and if there was a dme before the beginning began, there must have been a time 'before the dme before the beginrung began. If there is being, there must also be not-bdng. If there was a dme before there began to be any not-being. there must also have been a dme before the time before there began to be any not-being, But here am I, talking about beii^ and not-being and still do not know whether it is being that exists and not-being that does not exist, or See tcxrul nom.
24
Chuan^ Tzu
bemg that: does uot exist and not-bdng that really exists I I have spoken, and do not know whether 1 have said something chat means anythu^ or said nothing that has any meaning at alL
'Nodiing under Heaven is larger chan a strand of gossamer, nothing smaller than Me. T’ai. No one lives longer chan die child diat dies in its swaddling-clothes, no one dies sooner chan P'^g Tsq,> Heaven and eanh were horn when I was bom^ die ten thousand things and I among them are hue one thing/ All this the sophists have proved. But if there were indeed only one thing, there would be no language with which to say so. And in order that anyone should state dus, there muse he more language in which it can be stated. Thus their one thing together with their talk about die one thing makes two things. And their one thing together with ^ir calk and my statement about it makes diree things. And so it goes on, to a point where the cleverest madiemandan could no longer keep count, much less an ordinary mui. Starting with not-being and gou^ on to beii^, one soon geo to three. What then would happen if one started with being and went on to being t
And again.
Suppose 1 am arguing with you, and you get the better of me. Does the diat 1 am not a match for you mean that you are really right and I am really wrong i Or if I get the better of you, does the &ct diat ' Tb« Chinese Mnbsaleh.
25
Cftuang Tzu
you are not » match for me mean that I am really nght and you really wrong! Must one of us necessarily be right anS the odier wrong, or may we not bofo be right or bofo be wrong i But even if I and you cannot come to an understanding, someone else will surely be a candle' to our darkness ! Whom then shall we call m as arbittatot in our dispute! If it is someone who agrees widi you, the foct diat he agrees with you makes him useless as an arbittatot- If it is someone wbo agrees with me, the faa that he agrees with me makes him useless as an arbittatot. tf it is someone who agrees with neither of us, the 6ct that he agrees with neither of us makes him useless as an aibitratot. If it is someone who agrees wifo both of us, the feet that he agrees with us both makes him useless as an arbitrator. So then I and you and he can nevet reach an undemanding. Ate we then to go on piling arbitrator upon arbicratot in the hope that someone will eventually settle the matter! This would lead to the dilemma of the Reformation and the Sage.*
If we are not thus to wait in vain, what can we do but smooth out our di&rcnces with the Heavenly Pounder, entrust them to foe cate of etemiry, and thus Uve out our days in peace i What is meant by smoothing out our differenms with foe Heavenly Pounder ! It foe smoofoing away of ‘is’ and ‘is not.' of so and ‘not so.‘ If what ‘is’ really ‘is.’ if what ‘is nof reaUy
1 can oalr be refcnned by •
bui » u cbe worU a diwnitfed, BO S»ge See ttmw
notes-
26
Ckuang Tzu
*is not,' then what ‘is’ would be (hflercnt from what ‘is not,* and there would be no room for argument If what 'is so* really ‘is so,' it would be different from what ‘is not so,’ and there would be no room for argument. Fo^c . . . forget. ... * Both were spUt off from the infinite, and may be fitted back again on to the infinite.
To be worked up about the difference between things that ate really the same is called Three in die morning.
What is meant by Three in the morning? In Suag» there was a keeper of monkeys. Bad times came and he was obliged to tell them that he must reduce their radon of nuts. ‘It will be three b the morning and four in the evening,’ he said. The monkeys were furious. ‘Very well then,’ he said, ‘you shall have four in the morning and three in the evenii^.’ The monkeys accepted with delight.
The last chapter of Chuang Tzu consists of an account of the various philosophers and their schools. The final secaon is devoted to Hui Tru. The text is very corrupt, particularly in the passages which refer to the paradoxes defended by Hui Tzu and his followers, s I will translate the more intelligible parts:
• S«e testul notes. . .
> 1 have fldiH a &w fiom cbe beoet venioD of the scaty m Llth TaUf n. ^
3 Foe an awopt to wcote these puaces and s me^g
out of diem, we Pung Yo-Un, ifWsry cSwew Hilosephj (teansJMed by D. Bodde), p. a9?
27
Chuan^ Tzu
Hoi Tzu masccitd many disdplin«s- When he travelled his books filled five wagons. His doctrines were con¬ tradictory and deWous and his explanations of them were not successful ... He gave to the infinitely large ^s4iich can have nothing beyond it the name Great Unity, and to die infinitely small which can have nothix^ inside it the name SmaU Unify. . . . He undertook to prove that the sky is lower chan the earth, chat mountains are no higher than marsh lands, chat the sun at noon is on the horizon, that what lives is at the same time dead . . . that one can start for Yuch today and arrive there yttterday. ... He maintaiixcd that all aeatutes ought to be hHd in equal affection and that Heaven and Earth were of one substance.
Owing to his defence of these views he became a gtfflcral objeCT of curiosity and caused a great stir among die rhetoricians, who vied with one another in their d^ght at his performances. . . .
Day after day he pitted his cleverness against the ready wit of his opponents and performed prodigies of dispute with all the most accomplished debaters under Heaven. . . . Weak in Power, concentrated upon exterior things— his way was a narrow one indeed 1 Contrasted with the great Tao of Heaven and Earth, Hui Tzu's capacities seem of no greater consequence than the Strivings of a single fiy or gnat. . . .
He could find no contentment in what was in him, but dissipated his strer^th first on one outside thing, then on another; to be blown in the end only as a clever
28
Chuan^ Tzu
debater. Alas, he wasted his great natural gifts in a provision of effort, and got nothing in return. He pursued thing after thing, and found no end to his quest. He was like one dying to stop die edio by shouting at it. or like substance trying to outrun shadow. Sad indeed!
Stcrifs of Lao Tzu and Confucius
Just as the conflict between myscidsm and logic is dramatized in the dialogues between Chuang T2u and Hui Tzn, so too is the conflict between the mysdes and the humanitarian moralists drama** cized in a long series of dialogues. This dme it is Lao Tru, the legendary founder of Taoism, who speaks on one side; and no less a person chan Confucius on the other.
When Confucius was in die West, he wanted to present copies of his works to the Royal House of Chou. A disdple advised him, saying, ‘I have heard that there is a former Royal Librarian called Lao Tru. who now lives in redtemenc at his home. If you, Sir, want to get your books accepted at die Library, you had better sec if you can secure his recommendadoa.* *A good idea,* said Confucius, and wenc to see Lao Tzu, who received die project very coldly. Whereupon Confudos unroDed a dozen treatises and began to expound them. Lao Tzu incrrupced him, saying, This is going to take too long. Tell me the gisc of the macter.’ The gist of the matter.’ said Confiidtis, *is goodness and duty.’ 'Would you pray
29
Ckuang Tzu
tell me/ said Lao Tzu, ‘arc these qualides natural to man ?* ‘Indeed these are,’ said Confodus. 'We have a saying chat gentlemen
‘Without goodness cannot thrive,
Without duty cannot live.
Goodness and duty are indeed natural to man. What else should they be/ ‘And wbc pray, do you mean by goodness and duty/
‘To have a heart without guile, »
To love all men without pairiality,
that/ said Confucius, ‘is die true state of goodness and duty/
‘Hum/ said Uo Tw, ‘the second saying sounds to me dangerous. To speak of ‘‘loving all men” is a foolish exaggeradoQ, and to make up one's mind to be impartial is in itself a kind of partiality. If you indeed want the men of the world not to lose the quahties diat are natural to them, you had best study how it is that Heaven and Earth maintain dieir eternal couz^, diat the sun and moon maintain their light, the stajrs their serried ranks, the birds and beasts their docb, the trees and shrubs their station. Thus you too shall learn to guide your steps by Inward Power, to follow the course that the Way of Narure sec; and soon you will reach a goal where you will no longer need Co go round laboriously advertising
• See texnnl notes.
30
Cfwan^ Tzu
goodness and duty, like the cown-crier with his drum» seeking for news of a lost child. No, Sir! What you are dou^ is CO di^oint mens natures!'
Confucius visited Lao Tzu and began ulkiog about goodness and duty. ‘Chaff from the winnower^ &n,* said Lao Tzu, ‘can so bleax our eyes diat we do not know if we are looldng north, south, cast, or west; at heaven or at the earth. One gnat or mosquito can be more fKan enough to keep us awake a whole night All this talk of goodness and duty, these perpetual pin-pricks, unnerve and irriate the hearer; nothii^, indeed, could be mote desffuedve of his inner tranquillity. . , . The swan does not need a daily bath in order to remain white; die crow does not need a daily inking in order to remain . . . When the pool dries up, fish makes room for fish upon the dry land, they moisten one another wick damp breath, spray one another with foam from their jaws. But how much better ace diey o^ when they can forget one another, ui the freedom of river or lake!'
Confiadus said to Lao Tzu, ‘1 have edited the Soogs, the Book of History, the Rites, the Canon of Music, the Book of Chaj^cs, the Chronicle of Spiii^s and Autumns ^ix scriptures in all-^and I think I may say that I have thoroughly mastered their import Armed with diis knowledge t have faced seveucy-two rulers, expounding the Way of former kii^, the achievements of Chou and Sbao;< but there was not one ruler who made the slightest
' The dukes of Chou sod Shao, sons of the founder of the Chou dyuasty » gadmoosl dare, lath ceoniry a.c.
32
Chuang Tzu
^ of my teaching. It Kcmi th« rithet my hc^s must hsve been singubcly hstd to con^. or the Way of the former kmgs is exceedingly daScult to
‘It is a lucky thing/ said Lao Tzu, that you did not meet with a prince anxious to reform the wwld. ^ose six scriptures arc the dim footprints of anomt kings. They m nothing of the force th»t gihded steps. All your lectures are concerned with things that 4« no betttt than footprints in the dust. Footprints arc made by jhoes; but they are far &om being shoes.
There is another story in Chuang Tzu which illustrates his atticude towards book-learning:
Duke Hum of Ch’i was reading a book at the upper end of the hall; the wheelwright was making a wh^ at the lower end. Puctii^ aside his mallet and ch^. he called lo the Duke and asked him what book U was
reading. ‘One that records the words of answered the Duke. ‘Arc those Sages alive* asked the wheelwrighL ‘Oh. no/ said the Duke, they are d^- ‘In chat case.^ said the wheelwright, ‘what you arc reading can he nothing but the lc« and scum of by^w ‘How dare you, a wheelwi^t, find fault widi the book I am reading* If you can explain your seatemoic, I wiU let it pass. If not. you shall die.' ‘Speaking as a wheel- wridtt/ he repUed, 1 look at ^ matter m this way; when I am makii^ a wheel, if my stroke is too slow.
3a
Chuat^ Tzu
it bices deep^ but is not steady; if my stroke is coo fast, then ic is steady, but does not go deep. The right pace, ndther slow nor fast, cannot get into the hand unless ic comes fiioiti the heart. It is a thing chat cannot be put into words; diere is an art in it chat I cazuiot explain to my son. That is why it is impossible for me CO let him cake over my work, and here 1 am at the age of seventy, soil malting wheels. In my opinion it must have been the same with the men o( old. All chat was worth handing on, died with them; the rest, they put into their books. That is why I said chat what you were reading was the iecs and scum of b^one men.*
One day when Confucius went to see I.ao Tru, it was evident chat Lao Tzu had been washing his hair, which was spread out to dry. Lao Tzu himself sat so utterly motionless that one could not believe a human being was diere at all. Confucius withdrew, and waited. Afnr a while he presented himself again, and said, 'Did it really happen or was it an enchantment i A little while this body, these limbs of yours seemed stark and lifeless as a withered tree. It was as chough you had severed yourself 6om men and things, and cxissd in utter isolation.’ *Yes,* said Lao Tzu, '[ had voyaged to the World’s B^inning.’ Tell me what that means,’ said Confudus. The mind is darkened by what it learns there and cannot understand; the lips are folded, and cannot speak. But I will cry to embody for you some semblance of what I saw. 1 saw
‘ S«e texuu] noc<<. to this whole I have aho used the te)ct as pvea io Ttu. XIL
33
AmUhiCM’**
c
Ckuaiig Tzu
Yin, the Female Energy, in its modoiiless giaixdcucj I »w Yang, the Male Energy. lampMit in its fiery vigour. The motionless grandeur came up out of the earth;* the fiery vigour burst out from heaven. The rwo penetrated one another, were inextricably blended and from their umon die things of the world wore bom.’
Wliethcr or not the passages in Uo Tzu where frugality is extolled arc to be taken litcraUy or figuratively, it is certain that die Lao Tzu of popular legend figures as cconoiuK^l m the most literal and concrete sense, and it is in this connw- rion that we are introduced to the only recorded member of his fiunily, that somewhat niystcnous figure. Lao Tzu’s sister.
Shih-<h’6tg Ch’i vinted Lao Tzu and said to him, •Hearing chat you were a holy man I was so anxious to visit you that I was not deterred by the long road diat lay before me. Night and day I pressed onward ^oi^h the hundred st^s of the journey till my heels w:fc blistered; yet 1 never dared to rest. But now chat I have come I find that you are not a holy man. I saw you lake souie remains of a salad that had been thrown on to the rubbish-heap and pvc them to your sister to eat* Tim was inhumane. I saw you put aside for another tune iood uncooked and cooked that had not been oaten up at your meal today. This was ill-bred.’
• Sec textual noKc
» S«e textual nows.
34
Chuang Tzu
Lao Tzu remained completely unmoved and did not reply. Next day Shih-ch’eng Ch’i visited Lao Tzu again, and said to him. Yesterday I found fault with you. Today I sec that 1 should not have done so. How was it that you remained completely indiSerenc and did not even reply ?’ Hje mies of clever, wise, divine, holy,’ said Lao Tzu, ‘are things that I have long ago cast aside, as a snake sheds its skin. Yesterday if you had called me an ox, 1 should have accepted the name of ox; if you had called Die a horse, I should have accepted the name of hone. Wherever there is a substance and men give it a name, it would do well CO accept that name; for it will in any case be sul^ect to the prgudicc that attaches to the name. If I submitted, it was not because 1 submitted to you, but because my every act is to submit.’
In the following story a certain Yang Tzu-chii plays the part of the self-important Sage, elsewhere assigned to Confucius.
Ya:^ Tru-chii was going southwards, to P’d; Lao Tru was travelling to the west, towards Ch’in. Arriving at the frontier of Ch’ic, at a place called Liang, he met Lao Tzu.* Lao Tzu, in the middle of the road, raised his eyes to heaven and s^hed saying, ‘There was a time when, from what I heard, it seemed as though something might be made of you. But I see now chat diere is no hope.* Yang Tzu-chu did not reply; but when d«y reached the
{ It would be » muuke to fiy to the map, Tb« writer of this passage certa^y had iwna in &om of hisD.
35
Chuai^ Tzu
inn, he brought water to rinse Ae hands and moutl:, pftioced towel and comb, left his shoes outside the door and creeping on his knees appeared before Lao Tzu saying,* This afternoon you raised your cy« to heaven and sighed saying, “There was a dmc when it seemed as though something might be made of you. But I see now that there is no hope." I longed to ask you to explain what you meant, But as you were in a burry, I did not venture to do so. Now that you arc at leisure, I should like to ask what you consider to be wrong with me.’ Lao Tau said :
‘With such self-iiuponancc, sudi consequential airs Who could live under the same roofr What is blankest white looks blurred,
The "power" that is most sufficing looks inadequate.’
A troubled look came over Yang Tzu-chu’s countenance. 'I will take this to heart,' he said.
When he first arrived at the inn, everyone in the place turned out to meet him. The keeper of the inn brougk him a mat, the innkeeper’s wife brought him towel and comb. His fcDow-gucsts made way for him; die kitchen- men retreated from the stove. But when die tune came for him to depart, so changed was he by Lao Tzu’s lesson that people were already pushing him off his own mat.
• The pASge is defective iJ» Chueiii Tzu. and 1 have used Ufh
Chuaiig Tzu
The Ancients
When CoD^jdus vm about to travel westward to the Uod of Wei, his disciple Yen Hoi asked the music-niaster Chin, What do you think about the Master’s journey?* ‘I am sorry to say,’ replied Cliin, ‘that your Master will certainly fail.* ‘Why do you think so?’ said Yen Hui ‘Before the straw dogs arc presented at the alcai,* said the music-masrer Chin, ‘they arc kept in boxes . . .* under an awning of brocade; so sacred arc they that the Dead One* and Reciter must first purify themselves by- fasting and abstinence before they can Jiandle them. But once they have been presented, a temple Krvant destroys them, crushing head and spine with his foot, die scaven¬ gers remove them and bum them; they arc done with for ever. For it is known chat if after the dedicanon they were put back again in their boxes . . . under the awning of brocade, anyone who lodged and slept in their presence so far ftom getting the dream he wanted, would be continually beset by mghtmarcs.
The "former kings" that your Master applauds, what are they but straw dogs that have had their day? Yet he takes his disciples to lodge and sleep in their presence. Small wonder chat the tree under wduch he taught in Sung was cut down, that his fbo^mnts were erased in Wei, 6at he failed alike in Chou and Shang.3 What were all these aftlicdons hut the bad dreams chat haunt those who meddle with the dead and done? , . . If, because
< See cextiu^ nom.
* Tlie bey wbe isipenonsin (be anetaror. s Le. Sung.
37
ChuMtg TiU
a boat Sus taken well to the water, one tries to travel in it by land, one niay push dll the end of one’s LUe and get no further than a couple of yards- Our Bme and that of the Former Kings arc as different as land from water; the Empire of Chou over which they ruled and this land of Lu are as diflerent as boat from chariot. Your Master tries to treat the Lu of today as chough it were the Chou of long ago. This is like pushing a boat over dry land. Not only is he labouring in vain; he is bound to bring himself to disaster. . . . Take a monkey and dress it up in the robes of out ancestor duke Tan. U would certainly not be happy dll it had bitten and clawed every scrap of clothing froxu io back; and surely the days of old are no less different from today than a monkey is different from duke Tan ?
‘Once when Hsi Shih, the most bcaudful of women, was frowning and beadng< her breast, an ugly woman saw her and thought, ‘*Now I have found out how to become beautiful!” So she went home to her village u\d did nodiing but frown and beat her breast. When the rich men of the village saw her, they bolted themselves into their houses and dared not come out; when the poor people of the village saw her dicy cook wife and child by the hand and can at top speed. This woman had seen diar someone frowning was beaudiul and thought that she had only to frown in order to become bcaudfuL
‘No, I am sorry to say I do not think your Master will be a success.'
> See textujl notes. 38
Chuang Tzu
The Brigand and the Sage
Ccnfudus was on iiieiidly cerms with the sage Liu- h$u Ho!. Liu>hsia Hui had a younger brother who was known as the Brigand Ouh. This brigand and die nine thousand followers who formed his band swept through the country, pillaging and despoiling evety kingdom under Heaven, burrowing their way into houses, wrench¬ ing doors, driving off men*s cattle and horses, semng dieir wives and daughters. In his greed for gain the brigand forgot all ties of kinship, paid no heed to ^tber, mother, or brothers young and old, and made no offerings to his ancestors. Whenever he approached a town, if it was a big place the people manned the city-walls and if it was a small place they ensconced themselves behind their barrows. The whole countryside groaned under the adlicdon.
Confucius said to Liu^uia Hui, fadier who is vw>rthy of the name ought to be able to correct bis son; an elder brother who is worthy of the name ought to be capable of instructing his younger brother. If it is not the duty of fathers to call tlicir sons to order and of elder brothers to instruct their younger brothers, the whole importance that wc attach to those relationships at once disappears. But here are you, admittedly one of the most gifted men of your generation; yet your yotu^r brother is known as *'the brigand Chih,” has become a curse to the whole land, and you have failed to teach him better ways. Forgive me for saying so, but I blush on your
39
Chum^ Tzu
behaJf. I hope you will not lake it amiss if I go in your stead and have a talk widi him/ ‘You say/ replied Liu- hsia Huj, 'diat a ftthcr ought to he able to correct his son, chat an elder brother ought to be capable of in¬ structing his younger brother. But suppose the son does not listen to his father, suppose the younger brother does not accept the elder bfot^c’s advice* In die present case even such eloquence as yours cannot posnbly have the slightest effect My brother Cbih is a remarkable man. His passions, once aroused, leap like a fountain; his calculations arc swift as a wWrlwind. Not only is he strong enough to defy every foe ; he is also ckver enough to justify every crime. Humour him, and he is friendly; thwart him and he flies into a rage. On such occasions the language he uses is far from flattering; I certainly advise you not to go near him/
Confudus did not listen to this warning, but caklug his disdplc Yea Hui to drive the carriage and putting Tzu-kung on his right, he set off to visit the brigand Chih. The brigand and his men happened at the time to be resting on the southern slopes of die T’ai-shan, and were enjoying a supper of minced human liver. Con¬ fudus got down foom his carriage and went towards the camp. Being conflonted by a sentinel he said to him: ‘Pcay inform the General that K'lmg Ch’iu^ of the land of Lu, having heard of his Excellency as a champion of morality, has come to pay his respects/ And so saying he prostrated himself twice before the sentinel wifo • l^. Con&eius.
40
Chuan£ Tzu
solemnicy. When the message was brought, the brigand Chih fell into a jnighty rage. His eyes blazed like fiery comets, his hair stood on end so that his hat was lifted off his head. ‘Why this is that crafty ftaod from Lu, K’ung Ch’iu, isn't it? Tell him ftoii^ me chat it is mere talk for die sake of calking— all this random chatter about his heroes king and king Wu. Dresses up in a forked hat that looks as though a tree had taken root on his head, puts the whole flank of a dead ox round his belly and dien chatters unceasingly, heaping nonsense upon nonsense; eats what others have grown, wears what others have woven, wags bis lips and drums his tongue, deluding all the rulers under heaven with his own private notions of right and wicmg and preventing the scholars who come to him from every comer of die land fiom using die powers that are m chemf Pretends to be interested only in filial piety and brotherly ohedleoce. but spends his time currying &voar with landed lords, with the ridi and great! Tell die fellow that he is a scoundrel for whom no punishment would be too great, and that ifhe does not clear out of here at once, we shall add his liver to our morning stew.’
The message was delivered; but Confudus again asked ibr an interview. ‘Being fortunate enough to Imow your brother Liu*hsia Hui/ he said, T de»re to look at your feet beneath the curtain.’^
The sentinel brought in the message, and dm time the bngand Chih said, ‘Bring him in I* Confiicius advanced
' l.e. to be allowed even the inos cunory conucx with yoic
41
Chucm^ Tzu
it 2 brisle croe,i careRiUy avoided treading upon che brigand's rnat, lao backwards a few $teps» and prostrated himself twice.
The brigand was cvidendy in a great His free were planted wide apart, he was ringering the blade of his sword, his eyes glared, and finally with a voice like that of a suckling ogress he roared out, ‘Come here, Ch'iu! And remeanber, if what you say is acceptable to me, you Hve; if it is not acceptable, you did’
‘I have heard,’ said Confudns, ‘riiac there ace among the men of the world three kinds of personal power (^^). To grow to a suture so commanding, to possess beauty and grace so incomparable as to delight che eyes of ail men, high or humble, young or old — this is the highest sort of power. To have a knowledge chat embraces heaven above and earth below, to have abilities that can cope with every possible situation — this is the second and lower sort of power. To be bold, ruthless, undeterred by any hazard, a gatherer of muincudes and a causer of wars-'-this is the third and lowest kind of personal power. To possess any one of these three is sufitdeut to set a man with his free turned to the south and to give liitn the titk of Lonely One.* You, niy General, possess all three. Your scacuce is $ feet 2 inches, s your countenance is dazzliug, your lips arc as chough smeared with dnnabar,
> A sign of rcapcel.
• When die rukt faces his subjeetj, be elonc faces tc the south; hb subjccD &ICC north. He h the Lonely One (Orphan) beesuw his positiOR U unii^ue ai>d pcriiaps also beesuse the fethec wbom he has succeeded is ncticsniily dead. 1 About s leci 8 inches in our ineasuranent.
Chuofig Txu
your tMch arc Jike a row of shells, your voice booms like the tone-note of Ac scale. And yet for all this, men call you the Brigand Chih! I confess I am ashamed on your behalf and cannot recoiKilc myself to Ab. But if you wiU listen to me, I will go as your ambassador to Ae courts of Wu and Yiidi in Ac souA, of Ch’i and Lu in ^ north, of Sung and Wei in Ac east, of Chin and Ch’u in Ac west,* and arrange Aac a gieac walled city shall be buA for you. several hundred leagues in circtim- ference, wicli quaroscs for majiy hundred Aousand inhabi¬ tants. You shall be raised to Ac d^nicy of a feudal prince, and under your sway Ac whole world shall begin anew. You will lay down your arms, dbband yoor followers, gaAcr about you brothers old and young, and sec to it that Aey lack noAing; and make due offering to your ancestors. You will Aw be behaving like a Sage and Hero and at Ac same time giving to the world Aat for whiA it ardently longs.’
‘Listen here,' cried Ae brigand Chih, m a great rage. 'It h cnly Ac ignorant low rabble who allow themselves to be beguiled by promises of gain or scolded into altering Adi ways. My tall stamre and my good loob which dAght Ac eyes of all who sec me— Aese arc advantages chat I inherited ffosi my parents. I am Ae person most likely to be aware of them and stand m no need of your approbation. Moreover, it is commonly said Aat Aose who are prone to praise men to Aeir foces, arc quick to speak ill of them behind their backs.
' The geography of chu proaiue h •omewhsi confiued.
43
I
Climig Tzu
'Afld ftow as CO your talk of a great dry and a luulticadc of inliabitants— this is merely an attempt to dazzle me by promises of gdn, and is creating me as chough I were acommon. witless peasant And even if such success were attainable, how long would it be secured? The biggest dey cannot be larger than the world. The Emperon Yao and Shun* possessed the whole world, yet their sons and grandsons had not so much as a pin-point ofland. T’ang of the Yin dynasty, Wu of the Chou dynasty cose to be Sons of Heaven; but their posterity is extinct. Was not this just because what they sought and won was far too large a prize? . . . Neither Yao nor Shun could set a son upon the throne;' both made way for subjects. Tang of Yin banished his sovereign; Kii^ Wu of Chou slew Chieh* of Yin. And from that day onward the strong have crushed the weak, the many have malacatcd the few; nor since the dme of Tang and Wu has there been a single ruler who was not as great a ruffian as they. Yet here come you, earnestly applying yourself to ffie Way of king Wen and king Wu and using every sophistry under heaven in order to inculcate it upon gen¬ erations CO come. You dress up in a wide cloak and belt of clipped bull's hide, and by yourcantand humbug delude the princes of the world into giving you the wealth and honours that are your only real ambition. 'There can be no greater brigand than you, and instead of calking so much about the brigand Chih, I wonder people do not qU you the brigand Confucius I . . .
• legendary ‘good Uogs.’ ‘ Semi-legendary cyranr.
44
Chuan^ Tzu
'Tlicre is no need for you to say a word more. If you could cell me about the affairs of ghosts or hobgoblins, it would be another macier. About them I admit I know nothing at all. But concerning human affairs nothing you say can possibly carry me any further, 1 shall have heard it all before. I, on the other hand, intend to tell you something about man and his natural desires. He has an eye char longs for beauty, an ear that longs for music, a mouth that longs for sweet flavours, ambitions and energies that crave fulfilment. Some fow may live to eighty years, some fewer to a hundred; but one who lives rill sixty has still not died young. And during these sixty years, if wc take away the cune that is spent in sickness, nK>uming and trouble, in all this rime there will not be more foan four or five days in each month when his lips are opened and bughter comes.
*Heaven and earth are iilLmitabie; to man a term is see. Furnished only with the scrap of rime that is his span, he is committed to a place amid the iilimiiables. A flash, and all is over, like a racehone seen through a crack. He who by the enjoyment of hb senses can use this brief moment to the full alone can claim to have found the Way. All that you acclaim, I utterly discard. Be off with you as fast as you can, and never dare prate to me again I This Way of yours is nothing but noise and babble, humbug and empty fraud, such as could never help any man to perfect die unalloyed that Is within him; is in 6ct not worth a moment’s discussion.*
Confiidus prostrated himself twice, and retired at foil
Chuof^ Tzu
speed. When he had reached the gate of the amp and rained his carriage, his hands were trembling to such an extent that three rimes the reins fell out of them, there was a cloud before his eyes and his ftce was ashen gxty. He leant over the fore-rail with sunken head, gasping for breath. Ac last he reached Lu, and outside the eastern gate happened to meet Uu-h$ia Hui. 'What has become of you lately?’ asked Liu-hsia Hui. 1 liave not seen you for several days. Judgmg by the appearance of your horses and carriage, 1 should think you have been on a journey. Is it possible chat, despite my warning, you have been to sec my brother Chih ?’ Confucius gazed upwards at the sky and sighed. ‘I have indeed,' he said. ‘And Chih,’ said Liu-hsia Hui, ‘did not take to your ideas any more kindly than I predicted?; ‘That is true,' said Con- focius. 'I must confess that, as the saying goes, I poulticed myself with moxa when there was nothing wrong with me. I rushed off to dress a tiger’s head and plait its hwl Small wojjdcr if I nearly landed in the tiger’s maw!’
There is a somewhat similar story in pother collectiou of Taoist writings, Lkh Tzu. This time a sage is grieved by the conduct not of one but of two brothers wliosc philosophy, though they m plain voluptuaries, not brigands, is identical with chat of the robber Chih:
When Tzo-ch’an was Prime Minister of Cheng and the government of the country had been cnriccly in his
46
Chuon^ Tzu
control for three years, the good dozens gladly accepted all his reforms and the bad dozens dared not tran^ss his prohibitions. Order prevailed everywhere in the State, and the neighbouring princes treated Ch&)g with proper respect
Bat Tzu-ch’an had an elder brother named Kung-sun Chao and a younger brother named Kung-sun Mu. Chao loved wine and Mu loved beauty. In Chao’s house were stored countless gallons of wine, and hilJocb of yeast* lay heaped diccc, so that the nose of anyone coming to see him was assailed by a smell of lees and liquor at a hundred paces from liis door. So reckless did he become midcr the influence of wine that he no longer knew whether the world was at peace or at war, whether the prindplcs of humajuty were safe oc at stake, whether his household was intact or lost, which of his kin were near and which distant; nor, as between presctvarion and extinction, which was a matter for grief and which for rejoicing. Though flood, fire, or sword-blade threatcjxed hun with instant destruedon, he paid no heed.
Meanwhile in the back courtyards of his brother Mu were lined up aparcmcncs by iht score, all fllicd with young girls of exquisite beauty, chosen with the utmost care. And so utterly did he inunersc himself in the pleasulc of love that he had no rime to receive even his nearest relations, gave up all friendly meetings and excur¬ sions. and would remain ensconced in his back premises continuing the business of night for into the day,
• For nukiug mgre wine, Le. nc«>beer.
47
some-
Ckuan^ Tzu
times for three months on end without ever once coming out. But even so, he rcinained unsatisfied, and if it was reported chat in any district there was an unmarried gii! of particulax beauty, he sene gifts and sunutioned her, or used a go-between to procure her; nor did success in one such enterprise prevent him from immediately embarking upon another.
The conduct of hU brodiers was a matter of constant concern to Tau-ch’an. At last he went privately to the philosopher Teng Bsi and asked for his advice. 'I have heard,’ he said, ‘chat he who would govern a family must first Icam governance of self, and chat he who would govern a land must icam to govern a family. By this it is evidently meant that the process should proceed from near to £u. Now although I have established good govemmcnc in this land, my family is in disorder. It would seem, therefore, that I have begun at the wroi^ end. Can you suggest any means of saving my two relatives fiom their evil wayii I wish you would cell me.’ This situation,’ replied Ting Hsi, 'has long astonished me i but I did not like to broach the matter. You should certainly put things saaight while there is still time. Surely you can point out to them the supreme value of a coQsatudon unimpaired, the deep importance of mm- ners and morals i* Aedngon Tli^ Hsi’s advice, Txu-ch an found a suitable opportunity to visit his brothers, and said to them: 'What makes man superior to birds and beasts is possession of reason and foresight. Reason and foresight lead to manners and morals. When manners
48
Chuan^ Tzu
and morals are culrivaced, fcpuudoji and rank are sure to follow. Whereas if a man allows himself to act merely according to the feelings of moment, abandoning him¬ self to every lust and denre, his constitution, moral and physical, is bound to sufier. I can promise you chat if you take sny advice, the effect will be immediate. You have but to repent at dawn and by n^tM you will be enjoying opulent salaries/ 'You tell us nothing,’ replied Chao and Mu, ‘of which we have not long b«n aware. Sue our choice in the matar was also made long ago. It is strange to suppose chat we were waiting for you Co enlighten us. Life is of all things the hardest to meet with, and death the easiest to encounter. To degrade life, so hard to come by, to a level below death, $o easy to encounter, is a course that, to say the least of it, could not be embarked upon without reflection. You recom¬ mend that by deference to morals and manners we should pander to the world, by doing violence to our natural desires should court reputation. But in our view death itself would be far preferable to such a life as you propose.
‘All we desire is to get as much happiness as a single existence can give, co extract feom each year as it passes the utmost pleasure that it can afford. Our only trouble is that belly can hold no more while fee mouth is still greedy, feat the powers of the body give out while lust is still strong. We have no time to worry about such questions as whether our conduct is Injurious to our worldly reputations or dangerous to our constitudons.
49
D
Chian£ Tzu
Ttinking that the ability co govern a country implies the power to bend all crcaruxe$ to your will, you come to us convinced riiat your fine speeches will upset all our ideas, your promises of rank and salary will fill us with delight. Are not such tricks mean and truly pitiable i We for our part should like once more co define our position to you. He who is bent upon putting the world around him in order cannot be certain due the world will accept his rule, but may be sure that his own life will he disagreeable, He who is bent only upon enjoying life cannoe be certain the world will therefore be dis¬ ordered, but he may be sure that he himself will be a great deal more comfortable. Your method, with its insistence on what lies without, may be made to work for a short rime and in a single Sttte. But it is at variance with the inclinations of mankind. Whereas our prin¬ ciple, that of attending to what is within, if it could be extended to every land under Heaven, would do away in the end witli any need for goveenment Wc have always thought that you needed instruction in this doo trisie, and it is strange that you should now come and force upon os that contrary doctrine of yours!’
Tzu-^’an felt completely at a loss, and could make no repty. Next day he cold Tag Hsl what had happened. *You have had True Sages in your family,’ said T6^ Ha, ‘without ever being aware of it. How, I wonder, did you come by your reputation as a wise man i The faa (hat there is good order inCh^ must be a mere acddenc; it certainly can be no doing of yours.*
Ckuan£ Tzu
Death
I have ^cady rransUtcd a passage concerning the death of Chuang Tzu's wife. His acticude cowards death, exemplified again and again in the book, *is fane part of a general attitude cowards the universal kws of nature, which is one not merely of resignation not even of acquiescence, but a lyrical, almost ecstatic acceptance, which has inspired some of the most moving passages in Taoist literature.'* I have here collected one or two further passages abouc death-
When Chuang Tau was going to Cb'u he saw by the roadside a skull, clean and bare, but with every bone in its place. Touching it gently with his chariot-whip he bene over it and asked it sa)Tng, ‘Sir, was it some in¬ satiable arubldon chat drove you to cramgress the law and brought you to this? Was it the fell of a kingdom, the blow of an executioaer’s axe chat brought you to this? Or had you done some shameful deed and could not face the reproaches of fether and mother, of wife and duld, and so were brought to this? Was it hunger and cold chat brought you to this, or was it that the springs and autumns of your span had in their due course carried you to this?*
Having thus addressed the skull, he put it under his head as a pillow and went to sleep. Ac midnight the skull
' TiK Wny aai lit P«wf, p. J4,
51
•i
858
Chuan£ Tzu
appeared to him in a dream and said to him, *All chat you 5«d to me— your glib, commonpbce chatter — is just what I should cxpeci fiom a Uvc man, ’showing as it docs in every phrase a tnlcd hampered by ffammels from which we dead arc entirely fiec. Would you Like CO hear a word or two about die dead i’
*1 certainly should,’ said Choang Tau.
‘Among ic dead,’ said the skull, ‘none is king, none is subjea, there is no division of the seasons; for us the whole world is spring, the whole world is autumn, No monarch on his throne has joy greater than oun/
Chwang Tzu did not believe dus. ’Suppose,’ he said, *1 could get die Clerk of Destinies to make your frame anew, to cloche your bcoes once more with flesh and skin, send you back to fether and mother, wife and child, friends and home, I do not think you would reflise.'
A deep frown furrowed die skeleton’s brow, ‘How can you imagine,’ ic asked, ‘that I would cast away joy greater than chat of a king upon his throne, only to go back again to the toils of the living world i'
Tzu-lai fell ill. He was slready at the last gasp; his wife and children stood weeping and wailing round his bed. ’Pst,’ said Tm-li, who had come to call, ‘stand back! A great Change is at woik; let us not disturb it.’ Then, leaning against the door, he said to Tzu-lai, ‘Mighty are the works of the Changer! What is he about to make of you, to what use will Ik put you i Perhaps a rat’s Uver,
5a
Ghuang Tzu
perhaps a beetle’s clawf 'A child/ said Tai-lai, at its paieocs* bidding must go north and souch> east or west; how much the more when those parents of all Mature, the great powers Ym and Yang command him, must he needs go where they will They have asked me to die, and if ! do not obey them, shall I not rank as an un¬ manageable child i I can make no complaint against them. These great forces housed me in my bodily hame, spent me in youth's toil, gave me repose when I was old, will give me rest at my death. Why should ^ powers that have done so much for me in life, do less for me in deaths
‘If the bronze in the founder s cnicibic*were suddenly to jump up and say, ‘1 don’t want to be a tripod, a plough-share or a bell. I must be the sword Without fUw” die caster would think it was indeed unmannerly metal that had got into his stock.
‘In this life I have had the luck to be fashioned In human form. But were I now to say to die Great Trans¬ former, "I refuse to let anything be made out of me but a man,” he would think dut it was indeed an unmannerly being who had come into his hands/
How do 1 know that wanting to be alive is not a great mistake i How do I know that hating to die is not like < thinking one has lost one’s way, when all tbe rime one is on the padi that leads to home i li Chi was the daughter of the frontier guardsman at Ai When first ( $ee tegual iwca.
53
Chiung Tzu
she was captured and curicd away to Chin, she wept till her dreas was soaked with tears. But when she came to die king's palace, sat with him on his couch and shared with him the daindes of the royal board, she began to wonder why she had wept. How do I know that the dead do not wonder why they should ever have prayed for long life? It is said that those who dream of drinking wine will weep when day comes; and that those who dream of weeping will next day go hunting. But while a man is dreaming, he docs not know that he u dreaming; nor can he interpret a dream dll die dream is done. It is only when he wakes, that he knows it was a dream. Not till the Great 'Wakening can he know that all this was one Great Dream, . . .
Once Chuang Choui dreamt that he was a butterfly. He did not know chat he had ever been anything but a buicrfly and was concent to hover from flower to flower. Suddenly he woke and found to his astonishment chat he was Chuang Chou, But it was hard to be sure whether he really was Chou and had only dreamt chat he was a butterfly, or was really a butterfly, and was only dreaming that he was Chou,
Tht Qkada and the IVrtn
There is a theme in Chuang Tzu which he him¬ self calls the Cicada and the Wren. You will understand immediately the nature of this theme • te Chuajt^ Tuu
54
Chuar^ Tzu
if I translate for you the fable from which ic takes its name. There are birds that fly many hundred miles widiout a halt. Someone mentioned this to the dcada and the wren, who agreed chat such a thing was impossible. ‘You and I know very well,’ they said, ‘that the furthest one can ever get even by the most tremendous effort is diat elm-tree over there; and even this one cannot be sure of reaching every time. Often one finds oneself dragged back to earth long before one gets there. All these stories about flying hundreds of miles at a stretch are sheer nonsense.*
The same theme recurs in die most ^rnous of all Chuang Tzu’s allegories, the chapter called The Autumn Flood.
It was the time when the autumn floods come down. A hundred streams swelled the Rjver, that spread and spread till ftom shore to shore, nay ftoui island to island so great was the distance dut one could not tell horse from bull The god of the River felt extremely pleased with himself. It seemed to him that all lovely things under heaven had submitted to his power, He wandered down-scream, going fisrdicr and further to the east, till at last he came to the sea. He gazed eastwards, coufldeutly expecdog to see the further shore. He could discern no end to the waters. Then the god of the River b^an to turn his head, peering this way and chat; but sdH he
55
4
Chuan^ Tzu
could see DO shore. Ac hs:, addressing the ocean, he said wich a deep sigh: ‘There is a proverb whidi says,
None like me
Proves none so blind as he J
1 for ic applies very well to myself ... as 1 realize only coo well when I gaze ac your limitless immensity. Had 1 noc this day eoiolled myself as your disdplc, I might well have made myself the laugtung-scock of all who take the Wider View.*
Kung-sun Lunga said to the recluse, Prince Mou of Wei, ‘When I was young I studied the Way of the Former Kings; when I grew up, I became versed in the dicutes of goodness and duty. From the dialecacians I leamt how to blend idendey and difference, the so and the not^, the possible ajid the impossible. I exhausted the wisdom of the Hundred Schoob, could confute the arguments of countless mouths, and believed that 1 had nothing left to learn. Sut recently I heard Chuaag Tzu speakiz^, and was reduced to helpless amazement. I do not know why it was — perhaps the r^ht a^uments did not occur to me, perhaps be really knows more chan I do. But in any case, '*my beak was jammed**; I had noc a word CO say. Please tell me how one deab with hiriL* Prince Mou leant over hh arm-ren and heaved a deep sigh, then looked up to Heaven and laughed aloud sayii^,
* S«e tomul noco.
* A 6jnoui psdfiic and dialeeeicuui; lived c. 300 ao.
Ckumtg T?«
'Do you not know the story of the frog that livei in the abandoned * well r “How you must envy my delight¬ ful e^tence!" it said to the giant turtle of the Eastern Sea, When 1 feel inclined I can come out and hop about on the railing; then I go back into the pit and rest where a die has fallen out of the wall. When! go into the water I can make it hold me up under the arm-pics and support my chin; when I jump into the mud, I can make it bury my feet and cover my ankles. As for the baby crabs and tadpoles, none of them can compete with nxc. To have the use of all the waters of an entire pool, to have at one's command all the delights of a disused well, that surely is the most diat life can give. Why don't you, just as an experuneni, come down here and see for yourself?”
The giant turtle of the Eastern Sea attempted to get into the well; but before its left foot was well in, its right foot had got wedged fast. Whereupon it wriggled itself free and retreated, saying, "As you have been kind enough to tell me about your well, allow me to tell you aE>out the sea. Imagine a distance of a thousand leagues, and you will still have no idea of its size; imagine a height of a thousand times man's starure, and you will still have no notion of its depth. In the dme of the Great Yii, in ten years there wecc nine doods; but the sea became no deeper. In the dme of T’ang the Victorio\is there were seven years of drought in eight yean; yet the sea did not retreat from its shores. Not to be har^ by the moments that flash by nor changed by the ages diat
' Absiidcncd because is bad drM up.
57
Chung Tzn
pass : to receive much, yet not increase, to receive little, yet not diminish, this is the Great Joy of the Eastern Sea.”
‘Knowledge such as yours gives no standard by which (0 set the boundaries bcrwccn and true; yet you take it upon yourself to scnirinire Chuang Tzu*s teaching. As well might a gnat Cry to carry the Great Mountain on its back or an ant try to cliange> the course of the River. The cask is utterly beyond your powers.
‘Priding yourself upon a wisdom that is unable to coniuce the cranscendanc mysteries of Chuang Tzu^s doc¬ trine merely because your cleverness has brought you a iew short-lived victories, are you not indeed a Frog in the Well?
‘Thoughts such as his, that can cross the Dark Screams of death, mount to the Royal Empyrean, that know neither east nor west, south nor north, but plunge into the boccomJess chasm; thoughts h:om which all bouiv darics have loosened and dropped away, chat begin ui the Secret Darkness, chat go back to the time when all was one — how can you liope to reach diem by the striving of a petty intelligence or ransack them by the light of your feeble sophistries i You might as well look at Heaven through a reed or measure earth with tlie point of a gimlet. Your instruments are too small.
‘Be off with you! But beibre you go I should like to remind you of what happered to the child irom Shou-ling that was sent to Han-tan co Icam the “Han-tan Walk.” He ^ilcd co master the steps, but spent so much dme in * 5c« reanul oocn.
5«
Chuan£ Tzu
trying to acquire them that in Ac end he forgot how one usuiUy Wilks, and came home to Shou-ling crawling on all fours.
‘I advise you to keep away; or you will forget what you know already and find yourself without a trade.'
Kung-sun Lung’s diouA gaped and would not close; Iiis tongue stuck to the roof of his inou A and would not go down. He made off as fast as his legs would carry him.
We have seen Lao Tzu sitting so utterly motion¬ less Aat one could not believe a human being was there at all/ ‘stark and lifoJess as a withered tree.’ Another Taoist adept, Nan-kuo Tzu Chi, was observed by his pupil Yen-ch’Sng Tzu Yu to be sitting wiA his foce cumed upwards to Heaven, breathing gently through parted lips/ motionless as a ploughman whose mace has left him. ‘What is Aisr* said Yen-ch’Sng Tzu Yu. ‘Can limbs indeed be made to become as a wifoered tree, can the heart indeed be made to become as dead aAes f What is now propped upon that stool is not he chat a little wAile ago propped himself upon that stool/* It is evident that in these two passages
> The word her© used becaine in lac« ’^oiscQ the tec&iiical najne of <w <rfthe MX (orm of expiarioo; m© H. Maspero. >r«; luly-Scpteoabet p. 44$ » n a.
59
CkuMg Tzu
some kind of trancc-sute is being described. But the language is conventional and imprecise. Much the same description is given of a man concentrated upon a practical cask»» and again of a man asleep.* It is possible that many commonplace words had, in connection with mystic practices, a technical sense which now escapes us. One common and ordinary word, y«, ‘to wander, to travel,' which in Confudan circles had the technical meaning 'to go from Court to Court as a peripatetic counsellor/s had for the Taoists a very different meaning.
In the bcgmnijig4 Lieh Tzu was fond of travelling. The adept Hu-ch’iu Tzu said to him, T hear that you are fond of travelling. What is it ia travelling chat pleases you’ i *For me,' said Lieh Tzu, *the pleasure of travelling con¬ sists in the appredadon of variety. When some people travel they merely conreii^lace what is before their eyes; when I travel, I contemplate the processes of mutabihey/ T wonder,’ said Hu-ch’iu Tzu, ‘whether your travels are not very mudi the same as ocher people’s, despite the foot chat you diink them so different Whenever people look at anything, they are necessarily looking at pro¬ cesses of change, and one may well appreciate foe muca- bihty of outside things, while wholly unaware of one’s own mutability. Those who take iitfinite trouble about external travels, have no idea how to set about the
tXDCc. »XXU.c. J C£ Mmowvn. i,K. X.
* La. before his ceavenioa. See Liih Tan, TV. g.
do
Chuang Tzu
sight-«eing* tiuc can be done within. The cravellet abroad is dependent upon outside things; he whose s^ht- seeing is inward, can in hinjself find all he needs. Such is die highest form of travelling; while it is a poor sore of journey chat is dependent upon outside things.*
After this Lich Tzu never went anywhere at all, aware diat dll now he had not known what travelling means, *Now/ said Hu-ch'iu Tzu, ‘you may well become a traveller indeed! The greatest traveller does not know where he is going; the greatest sight-seer does not know what he is looking at, His travels do not. take him to one part of creadon more than another; his sight-seeing is not directed to one sight rather than another. Hiat is what 1 mean by true sight-seeing. And that is why I said, “Now you may well become a traveller indeed!*' *
Yu, then, in its Taoist acceptation, is a spiritual not a bodily journey. There is naturally a constant play between these two senses of the word.
Shih-nan I-liao visited the lord of Lu, and found him looking sad. 'Why do you look so sadf he a&ked. *1 study the Way of former kings/ said the lord of Lu, ‘carry on the work of my ancestors, humble myself before the spirits of the dead, give honour to the wise. All this 1 do in my own penon, never for a moment abadng in my zeal. Yet troubles beset my reign. That is why I am sad.’ ‘My lord,’ said Shih-nan I-liao, ‘your method of avoidit^
' The word is appl^ » looklog u warer&lb, views, etc. ; but aUo CO mystic eoateaipljcioa.
6i
Chuang Tzu
crocbln is a superfidal one. The bushy<oated fox and the striped panther, chough they lodge deep In the mountain woods, hide in caverns on the cliff^ide, go ouc at night but stay at home all day. and even when driven desperate by thirst and hunger keep always ^ £roai the rivers and lakes where food might easily be had— despite their quietness, caution, and the mastery of their desires, do not escape nusfortunc, but fail an easy prey to the trapper’s net and snare. And this, not through any £iult of dtcics ; it is the value of their fur that brings then to disaster. And in your case, my lord, is it not die land of Lu itself that is your lordship’s fur, and the cause of your undoing i
T would have you strip away not your fine fur only, but every impediment of die body, scour your heart rill it is &ee from all desire, and travel through the desolate wilds. For to the south there is a place called the Land where Rules. Its people arc ignorant and unspoiled, negligent of their own interests, and of few desires, They know how to snake, but do not know how to hoard. They give, but seek no return. The suitabilirics of decorum, the solemnities of ritual are alihr unknown to them, They live and move thoughtlessly and at random, yet every step they take tallies with die Great Flan. They know how to enjoy life while it lasts, are ready to be put away wben death comes.
1 would have you leave your kingdom and its ways, take Tao as your guide and travel to this land.’
‘it is a long way to go,’ said the prince of Lu, ‘and
62
Ckuang Tzu
dangerous. There are rivers too swift for any boat, mountains that no chariot can cross. What am I to do ‘Humilicy/ said Shih-nan I-liao, ‘shall be your boat. Pliancy shall be your chariot.* ‘It is a long way to go/ said the prince, ‘and the lands through which it passes are not inhabited. There would be no villages where 1 could buy provisions or take a meal I should die long before I reached my joomey’s end.’ Tessen your wants, husband your powers,* said Shih-nan I-liao, ‘and you will have no need to buy provisions on your way. You will cross many rivers and come at last to a lake so wide that, gaze as you will, you cannot see the further shore. Yet you will go on. without knowing whether it will ever end. At the shores of this lake all that came with you will turn back. But you will still have far to go. What matter ? “He who needs others is ibr ever shackled ; he who is nee«icd by others is for ever sad,’* . . . I would have you drop foese shackles, put away your sadness, and wander alone with Tao in the kingdom of the Great Void.'
Kin£ Mu and the Wizard In the dmc of Mu of Chou there came from a land in the for west a wizard who could go into water and frre, pierce metah and stone, rum mountains upside down, make rivers flow backwards, move fortifleations and towns, ride on the air without falling, collide with solids without ii^ury. There was indeed no limit to the miracles that he could perform. And not only could he
Ckuaiig Tzu
change die outward shape o£ inatcrial diiags; he couJd also transform the thoughts of men. King Mu reverenced him like a god, served him like a master, pur his own State chambers at the wizard's disposal, gave him for sustenance the animals reared for Imperial sacriAce, and for his entertainment chose girls skilled in music and dancing.
But the wizard found the king's palace too cramped and sordid to hve in; the choicest delicacies foom the king's kitchen he pronounced to be coarse and rancid, and he would not eat them. The ladies foom the king’s harem he would not look at, so foul and hideous did he find them.
The king accordingly sec about building a completely new palace, employing all the most skilful wocken in clay and wood, the most accomplished decorators in whitewash and ochre; expending indeed so much upon the work that by the nme it was complete all his Treasuries were empty. The towers were six thousand foet high, and from them one looked down upon die top of foe Chung-nan hills. It was named Hie Tower that hits Heaven. The kii^ chose, foom among the virgios of Ch6^ and Wd. girls of the most transcendanc beauty and charm, anointed them with fragrant oils, straitened the curve of their eyebrows, decked them with confos and ear-rings, dothed them in jackets of the sofust gauze, skirts of the thinnest fioss, beautified them with white powder and with black, set jade rings at their girdles, strewed foe floors with scented herbs, and brought these
Chuang Tzu
ladies to the palace till it was full. For the wizard’s pleasure condnual music was played, Becdying the Clouds^ The Six Gems, The Nine Songs of Snccession, The Morning Dewj every month he received a supply of costly garments, and every morning he was provided with cosdy food. But he was sdll far from content and could only with the greatest difficulty be persuaded to approach this new abode. After some time had passed, during which the magician frequendy absented himself, he one day Invited the king to accompany him upon a journey. Whereupon the magician began to rise from the ground arid the king, clutching at his sleeve, was carried up and up, oil diey reached the sky. Here they halted, just in front of the magician’s house, which was moated with dust of silver and gold and looped widi festoons of jade and pearl It stood out far above the rain and clouds. What it rested upon was hard to say, but it seemed to be supported by a coil of cloud. In this house nothing that his ears and eyes heard or saw, nothing that his nose and mouth smelt or tasted was in the least like what the king was accustomed to in the world of men. This, he thought, must surely be Stainless City, Purple Mystery, Level Sky, Wide Joy— one of the palaces of God. Lookup down at the world below he saw what seemed like a hummock in the ground, with some piles of brushwood lying around it, and suddenly realized dut this was his own palace with its arbours. Here as it seemed to him he lived for twenty or thirty years without a thought for his kingdom. At last the
<^S
2
Ckuati^ Tzu
wizard again iimted him co make a Journey^ and once more they travelled, dll they had reached a pbee where looking up one could noc see die sun or moon, looking down one saw neither river nor lake. So fierce a light blazed and £ashed diat the king's eyes were dazzled and he could not look; so loud a noise jangled and echoed chat his cars were deafened and he could noc listen. His limbs loosened, his entrails were as though dissolved within him, his thoughts were confused, his energy excincr. 'Let us go back,’ he cried to the wizard, who gave him a push and soon they were falling through space.
The next tiling that he knew was that he was sictiag Just where he had sat when the magician summoned him; the same attendants were still at his side, die wine chat they had just served to him was still warm, the food sdil moist. ‘Where have 1 been?' he asked. 'Your Msyesty,' one of his servanB answered, 'has been siniog there in silence,’
It was three days before the king was completely himself again. On his recovery he sent for the wizard and asked him to explain what had happened. ‘1 took you,’ the wizard replied, 'upon a journey of the soul Your body never moved.. The place where you have been living was none ocher than your own palace; the grounds in which you strolled were in fact your own parL
‘Your Majesty, between himself and xkt understanding of such things, interposes habitual doubts. Could you for
Chueng Tzu
a moment divest yourself of Asm, there is no miracle of mine, no trick with tune, that yon could not imitate.
The king was very pleased, paid no further heed to afiw of State, amused himself no more with ministen or concubines, but devoted himself hencefor A to distant journeys of the soul
Yang'-shiti^
Yang-shitig, nurturing life,' chat is to say con¬ serving one’s vital powers, is often Avided by the later Taoiscs into four branches, (i) The Secrets of the Chamber, which enabled the Yellow Ancestor to enjoy twelve hundred concubines without injury to his health; (2) Breath Control; (3) the physical exercises^ which, as in Indian hatha yoga, were associated wiA breath control; (4] Diet.
By some early Taoists, as we shall see, such practices were regarded as yang^hsin^, 'nurturing the bodily frame.’ not as yang-sking, which to them implied an attitude cowaiA life rather than a system of hygiene.
To have strained notions and salted ways of behaviour, to live apart from Ae world and at variance wiA Ae common ways of men, to hold lofty discourse, fill] of resentment and scorn, to have no aim but supericcity— <
* To Che (Hxd^stneefamgs and maidooed bdow a
cotnpiUtion of the aod eenmer ax. Tju, ebap. ?) ad<ij (he
Figeoo’s Bath, (be Monkey Oaoee. the Owl Case, the Tiger Regard.
67
Chu^ Tzu
such Is the wont of the hennit in fai$ mouncaic recess^ of the man in whose eyes the world is always wrong, of those that shrivel in the summer heat or cast themselves into the seething pooL
To talk of goodness and duty, loyalty and faithfulness, respect, 6ugaliry, promoting the advancement of others CO the detriment of one’s own, to seek no end but moral perfection — such Is the wont of those who wotild sec die world in order, men of admomtion and Inscruccion, educators itinerant or at home,
To talk of mighty deeds, to achieve high fame, to assign to the ruler and his ministers the rices chat each is CO perform, to graduate the functions of the high and low, to care for public matters and diese alon^^uch is die wont of those that frequent tribunal and court, of diose whose only end is the aggrandizement of their master, the strengthening of bis domain, who chink only of victories and annexations.
To seek out some thicket or swamp, remain in the wilderness, hook £sh in a quiet place, to seek no end but inacdvicy— such is the wont of wanderers by river and lake, of those chat shun the world, of chose whose quest is idleness alone. To pant, to puff, to hail, to sip.» to cast out the old breath and induct the new, bear- hangings and bird-4creccbings, with no aim but long life— such is the wont of die Inducer, nurturer of the bodily frame, aspirant to P'fing Tsu's high longevity.
But there are those whose thoughts are sublime
• Technical oajncs of breariung ettrcuca.
dS
Chumg Tzu
without being strained; who have never striven afer goodness, yet arc perfect There are those who win no victories for their State, achieve no fame, and yet perfect its policies; who find quietness, though far fiom streams and lakes; who live to great old age, though they have never practised Inducdon {tao-yin). They have divested themselves of everything, yet lack nothing. They arc passive, seek no goal; but all lovely things attend fiicm. Such is the way of Heaven and £arth, the secret power of the Wise. Truly is iesaid, 'Quietness, scUIncss, empti- ness, not-having, inactavity— these are die balancers of Heaven and Earth, die very substance of the Way and its Power/ Truly is it said, ‘The Wise Man rests therein, and because he rests, he i$ at peace. Because he is at peace, he is quiet'* One who is at peace and is quiet no sorrow or harm can enter, no evil breath can invade. Therefore his inner power remains whole and his spirit intact Truly is it said, ‘For the Wise Man life is conformity to the motions of Heaven, death is but pan of the common law of Change. At rest, he shares the secret powers of Yin; at work, he shares the rowing of the waves of Yang. He neither invites prosperity nor courts disaster. Only when incited does he respond, only when pushed does he move, only as a last resort will he rise. He casts away all knowledge and artifice, follows the partem of Heaven, Therefore Heaven visits him -wich no calamity, foe things of foe world do not lay their tram¬ mels upon him, no living man blames him, no ghost * See textual ftOKs.
<59
Cftueng Tzu
isxixks him. His ]i& u like the drifticg of a boat» his deach is like a lying down (o rest He has no aiudedes* lays
QO plans.
*He is full of light yet none is dasled; he i$ faithful, yet bound by no promise. His sleep is without dreams, his waking without grief. His spirit has remained stain¬ less and unspoiled; his soul (hun) has not grown weary. Emptiness, nochingnesSf quiet — these have made him parflier in the powers of Heaven,’
Truly it is said, 'Sadness and joy are the perverters of die Inner Power; delight and anger are offences against the Way; love and hate are sins against the Power. Therefore when the heart ncidier grieves nor rejoices, the Power is at its height. To be one thii^ and not to change, is the climax of soUness. To have nothing in one that resists, is the climax ofempdoess. To remain detached &om all outside things, is the climax of Eneness.’ To have in oneself no contraries, is the climax of purity/^ Truly is it said, 't£ the bodily frame of a man labours and has no rest, it wean itself out; if his spiritual essence is used without cessadon, then it flags, and havu^ flagged, runs dry.
*The nature of water is that if nodung is mixed with it, it remains clear; if nodiing ruffles it, it remains smooth. But if it is obsffucted so ^t it does not flow, then too it loses its dearness. In these ways it is a symbol of die heavenly powers that are in man.*
' T'dn, the o^osce of ‘gxomas.*
> ttt tHe *
TO
Chuang Tzu
Truly K it said, ‘A purity unspoiJed by any cou- caminaaon, a peace and unity not disturbed by any variation, detachment and inacdvicy broken only by sucii movement as is in accord with the motions of Heaven— such are the secrets chat conserve the soul. Does not he who possesses a sword of Kan or Yueh put it in a case and hide it away, not daring to make use of it ? A greater treasure still is the soul It can glide hither and thither where it will, There is no point in Heaven above to which it cannot climb, no hollow in die earth into which it cannot crawl. It infuses and transfi^tms the cen thousand creatures. For it tiiere is no symbol; its name is “One with God’^ (Ti).
Only the way of wholeness and imegrity Can guard the soul.
Guard it so that nothu^ is lost.
And you will become one with the soul.
The essence of this "one,” blending,
Will mingle with Heaven’s law.’
It is of this tluc a rustic saying speaks, which says :
The crowd cares for gain,
The honest man for fame.
The good man values success.
But the Wise Man, his souL
Therefore we talk of his simplidey, meaning that he keeps his soul free from all admixture; and of his whole-
71
Ckuang Tzu
ness, meaning ^at he keeps ic intact and endre. He chat can achieve such wholeness, such integrity we call a Tree Man.
The third chapter of Chuang Tzu is called ‘Principles of life Nurture/ It is extremely short and saappy, and would appear to have been mutilated. Of its three anecdotes only the iirst seems to be directly concerned with yang-sh^ng:
King Hui of Wd had a carver named Ting. When this carver Ting was carving a bull for the king, every couch of the hand, every Inclination of the shoulder, every step he trod, every pressure of the knee, while swiftly and lighdy he wielded his carving-knife, was as carefuUy timed as tiie movemeno of a dancer in the Muibtrry Wood. . . . ‘Wonderful/ said the king. ‘I could never have believed that the art of carving could reach such a point as this.’ ‘I am a lover of Tao/ replied Ting, putting away his knife, ‘and have succeeded in applying it Co the art of carving. When 1 first began to carve I fixed my gaze on the animal in fionr of me. After three years I no longer saw ic as a whole bull, but as a thing already divided into parts. Nowadays I no longer see it with die eye; I merely apprehend it with the soul My sense-o^ans are in abeyance, but my soul still works. Unerringly my knife follows the natural marldngs, slips into the natural cleavages, finds its way into the natural avities. And so by conforming my work co the structure with which I
72
Chuaig Tzu
am dcalii^» 1 have arrived at a point at which my knife never couches even the smallest Hgament or tendon, let alone ^ main gristle.
*A good carver changes his knife once a year; by which time the blade is denced. An ordinary carver changes it once a month; by which dme it is broken. I have used my present knife for nineteen yeacs. and during that dme have carved several thousand bulls. But the blade soil looks as chough it had just come out of the mould. Where part meets part there is always space, and a knife- blade has no thickness. Insert an instrument that has no thickness into a structure that is amply spaced, and surely ic cannot fail to have plenty of room. Ihac is why I can use a blade fer nineteen years, and yet ic sqU looks as though ic were firesh from the ferger^s mould.
^However, one has only to look at an ordinary carver to see what a difEcuIt business he Ends ic. One sees how nervous he is while making his preparations, how long he locks, how slowly he moves. Then affer some small* niggling strokes of the knife; when he has done no more than detach a few stray feagments feom the whole, and even that by dint of continually twisting and turning like a worm burrowing dirougb the eardt, he stands back* with his knife in his hand, helplessly gazing (bis way and chat, and afar hovering for a long dme finally curses a perfectly good knife and puG it back in io case.’
‘Excellent,’ said the king of Wei- *This interview widi
73
Chuong Tzu
the carver Tmg has taught me how man^ vital forces can be conserved/^
Tlie Taoist, then, does not wear himself out by useless conflict with the unchangeable laws of existence; nor does he struggle to amend the unalterable tendencies of his own nature:
When Prince Mou of Wei was living as a hermit in Chiu^-shan,^ he said to the Taoist Chan Tau, *My body is here amid lakes and streams; but my heart is in the palace of Wei, What am 1 to do ?’ ‘Care more for what you have in yourself’ said Chan Tzu, *and less for what you can get from others.' know I ought to/ said die prince, *but I cannot gee the better of my feelings.’ *If you cannot get the better of your feelings/ replied Chan Tzu, ‘then give play to them. Nothing is worse for the soul than struggling not to give play to feelings that it cannot control, This Is called the Double Injury, and of those that sustain it none live out their natural span/
The Taoist mid Tao
Cbuang Tzu in various places gives descriptions, generally in verse, of the Master .Taoist, ‘the supreme man,’ ‘the true 3 man,* ‘the man of supreme inward power.’
* The ten of dui itory is veiy eemipt; buc ihe gseetaJ Kose ii dear. I have followed the reodnuiga of Chu Kuei^o aod Kao Htng,
^ InaouUtcn Hopei. Cf. two ocher veniooa of dui aOiV. in Kvof-nan Ta, XB, and Lfl Shift Cft'iw Cft’ftr, irf.
3 Or 'pure man/ uong pure noc lo the moral acaae buc a« ic is used in (he nrpresnon 'pure gold.' Cf the Hindu eerm
74
Chueng Tzu
‘The great bushknds axe ablaze, but he feels no heat; the River and the Han stream are frozen over, but he feels no cold. Fierce thunders break the hills, winds rock the ocean, but he is not siardcd.’
‘He can cliinb high and not stagger; go through water and not be wee, go through fire and not be scorched/
‘The great floods mount up to Heaven, but he is not drowned; the great drought melts metal and stone, bums fields and hills, but he is not singed.’
lieh Tzu ashed Kuan Yin, sayii^, ‘ “The Man of Extreme Power . . , can tread on fire without being burnt. Walk on the top of the wiiole world and not sca^r." May I ask how he attains to this?' 'He is protected/ said Kuan Yin, ‘by die ptirity of his breath. Knowledge and skill, decerminadon and courage could never lead to this, . - - When a drunk man falls from his carnage, however fast it may be goix^, he is never killed. His bones and joinu are not difrerem from chose of other men; but his suscepdbility to injury is difiereor from theirs. This is because his soul is intact.' He did not know that he was riding; he does not know that he has frUen out Neither death nor life, astonishmenc nor frar can entei into his breast; therefore when he bumps into things, he does not sdfien with fright If such
* b Mnpcrrioui to diiturbauce* from omaidc.
73
CliuaM£ Tzu
integrity of the spirit .can he got from wine, how much greater must be die incegricy that is got from Heaven?’
Hie above is a true Taoist passage. Whereas the explanation of the Taoist s invulnerability put for¬ ward in the famous Autumn Flood chapter (a strange blend of sublimity and fatuity) is a feeble rationalization: * *‘Fire cannot bum him, water cannot drown him, cold and heat cannot hurt him, wild animals cannot harm him/‘ This docs not mean that he exposes himself recklessly; it means that he is so well versed in what is safe and what as dangerous, ... so cautious in shunning and approaching, that nothing can do him injury.’
The idea chat mystic practices can bring invul¬ nerability, is also found in Hindu treatises on yo^a : ‘The ambhasl is a great mudrS; the yogi who knows it never meets death even in the deepest water. Even if the practitioner is thrown into burning fire, by virtue of this mudrS (the Agnep) he remains alive.’* It is ideas of this kind chat link the early philosophic Taoism with the magical Taoism which grew up in the second century a.d. and which even at die end of the nineteenth inspired the leaders of the Boxer Revolution with the belief that no weapon could harm them.
The same kind of immunity is attributed to the
> Ghenudi Sunhks, 7}.
76
Ckuart£ Tzu
balian (wizards) of Indonesia and to medicine-men in many parts of Africa* and we might be tempted to suppose that Taoism was a sublimadon of doctrines particularly connected with magicians analogous to the medicine-man or balian. The person, however, who played the role of wizard in ancient China was the wu, a dandng shaman, often but not always a woman, There is never any suggestion that the legendary Taoist saints were regarded as wu, and only one wu is mentioned in Chuang Tzu, a ‘holy wu* called Chi-hsien,‘ whose speciality was fortune-telling.*
Of course, if we regard Chuang Tzu as a philo¬ sopher and conceive of a philosopher as someone who presents the world with a rational alternative to ‘superstition,’ we shall be much upset by the passages which describe the Taoist’s supernatural immunity. It has indeed often been suggested that the similar passage in the Tao Ti Ching ((i. 50) is a later interpolation.
If, on the other hand, we look upon magic, rebgion, and philosophy as ways of dealing with the same anxieties, we shall not be surprised to find these three sometimes overlapping, and shall not « vn.c,
* In X2V. t, \ person is mendcoed whose name contains the element w; but ho docs not figure u x shiman end the word may here be used only is a sort of mmiTnc. denoting chat be wu daemded from a shaman.
77
Chueng Tzu
necessarily put the consolations of magic on a lower footing than those of philosophy or religion. Viewed from this standpoint the Taoist who believes that tigers cannot hann him is just as respectable a figure as the Idealist philosopher who fortifies himself by the belief that the universe consists solely of his own tlioughts.
It may seem strange that, often though the term Tao appears in the foregoing pages, I have made no attempt to explain what the Taoiscs meant by Tao. 1 have purposely avoided doing so because I think that a better idea of this can be got from the anecdotes that I have translated than fcom any attempt at a definition. In Chuavg Tzu there is, of course, no systematic exposition of what Tao is; there ate only dithyrambic descriptions (chiefly in verse), similar to those in the better known Taoist book Tao Ti Ching, which I have translated in The IVay and Ils Po\m'. Here arc one or two such passages:
Tao is real, is faithful, yet does nothing and has no form. Can be handed down, yet cannot be passed &om hand to hand, can be got but cannot be seen. Is its own trunk, its own root.
‘Before Heaven and Earth existed, foom the beginning Tao was there. It is Tao that gave
78
Ckuotig Tzu
gliosts their holy power (shin), that gave holy power to Dead Kings. It gave life to Heaven, gave life to Earth. It can mount above the Pole-star without becoming high; it can sink below (the Springs of Death) without becoming deep. It e»sted before Heaven and Earth, yet has no duration; its age is greater chan that of the Longest Ago, yet it docs not grow old.
‘Without it Heaven could not be high, Earth could not be wide, the sun and moon could not stay their course, the ten thousand things could not Houcish/
In another passage (which unfortunately, owing to cornipdon of the text, becomes unintelligible at the end) we leam Tao is ‘in the ant, in the broken tile, in dung, in mire.’ ‘Do not seek precision,' says Chuang Tzu, speaking of the realm of Tao. . - . ‘I myself have traversed it this way and that; yet still know only where it begins, I have roamed at will through its stupendous spaces. I know how to get to them, but I do not know where they end.’
Dim Your Light
When K^g-sa:^ Ch‘u, a pupil of Lao Tzu, went north and seeded in Wci-lei, 'he would take no sceving- tnan who betrayed any sign of intelligence nor engage
79
Chwm^ Tzu
any handxnaidcn who was in the least personable.^ The bocchy and bloated shared his house, the dithering and fumbling waited upon him. A^r he had lived there for dute yean the crops in Wei-Iei began to Nourish mar- velloiisly. The people said co one another, '‘When he hrst came here, we thought him stupidly eccentric ; but now the day Is not long enough to count our blessings,^ nay, the year is too short to hold them all. Certainly diere must be a Sage amoi^ us, and perhaps it is he. Would it not be well i£ we planned together to sec up a shrine where we could say our prayers to him and worship him as a god ?” *
Keng-sang, hearing o£ their intention to treat him as deity and ruler, was far from pleased. His disdples did not ac all understand this. *TheTe is nothing In oiy attitude/ he said to them, which need surprise you. When the breads of sprii^ is upon them, die hundred plants begin to grow; at the iint coming of autumn, untold treasures mature. So long as the Great Way works unimpeded, sprii^ and aurumn cannot fail at their cask.
1 have heard it said chat where there is a Highest Man living among diem the people herd blindly to their goal, ignorant of where they are going. But now it seems diat the humble folk of Wei-lei have conceived the bright notion of settu^ me up on an altar, of ranging me among die Sages. Am I to consent co be a human sign-
' See textual notes.
* C£ fiM>a <>f Son^, p. i7j Cbleeuogs so raaay that the day is sor long enough for theta ail ).
80
I
Chuart^ Tzu
post? Were I to do so, I should indeed be unmindful of my master Lao Tzu’s reaching.*
The story of Lao Tzu and Yang Tzu-chu, fold above** further illustrates the importance of seeming unimportant.
To be known is to be lost. The wise man ‘hates that the crowd should come/ But to be known (like Colonel Lawrence) for your love of being unknown is to court a double notoriety:
Uch Tru set out for Ch‘i, but turned back when he had only got half-way. 'Why did you start and then turn back again?* asked Po Hun Wu J6n, whom he chanced to meet on his return. was upset by something that happened on the journey/ said LichTzu. 'And what happened that upset you/ asked Po Hun Wu JSn. ‘At five out of ten eatiiig-houscs where I went for food/ said Lieh Tzu, ‘I was served before the other guesc.' T do not sec why that should have upset you,’ said Po Hun Wu Jfin. 'Beause/ said Lieh Tzu, ‘it meant that my inward perfection is not properly secured its fiery light is leaking out through my bodily frame and turning men’s thoughts astray so chat they d^ to me in a way that gives oflence to the honourable and aged and at the same dme puts me in an unpleasant ntuatioo. True, an eating-housekeeper, trafiicking in rice and soup, must lay in a stock greater than he can be sure of selling; his
*Sv*« textual XWKS.
I
Si
Chuu^ Tzu
profits are necessarily small and his uiAuejicc slight, But if even he can embarrass me in this way, how much the more am I in danger from such a one as the ruler of Ch'if with his ten thousand war-chariots! He, no doubt, is worn out with the cares of national govern¬ ment, at his wits' end how to co|»c with all the business that coiifrone him. If 1 were to arrive in Ch‘i he would at once load me widi business, encrust me with all the most dif^cult tasks. That is why 1 was upset.' ‘An admirable point of view,’ said Po Hun Wu J6n. ‘Persist in it and you will sooxi have disciples I’
Not long afterwards he called upon Lich Tzu, and sure enough, tlxere was a long row of shoes outside the door. Po Hun Wu Jin halted fidng the door, planted lus staff in the ground and rested his cliin upon it, and after a while, without saying anydiing, he went away. The door-keeper told lich Tzu, who snatching up his slippers and carrying them In bis hand ran baiefboc to die door, and called out after Po Hun Wu jin. ‘As you are here, I hope, Sir, you will not go away without administering your dose/ ‘It is all over,’ said Po Hun Wu JIu. 'Z cold you before that you would soon have disciples, and now you have got them! It is not that you have been successful in actractii^ the atcenDon of the world, but chat you have been unsuccessful in distracting it What good can they possibly do youi No man can be both admired and at peace. It is evident chat you have aroused admiration, and this admiration (it goes without
8a
Chuat^ Tzu
saying) has wothcd havoc upon your true nature. Remember the saying:
Those who seek your sodety Tell you nodiing;
Such small calk as they bring Is but poison.
Where none cjilighccns, none illumines,
How can wisdom ripen ?*
Buried among the Peepk
There arc those who ‘betake themselves to thicitcts and swamps, seek their dwelling in desert spaces, fish with a hook or sit all day doing nothing at all*; but the Taoist knows how to live in the world without being of the world, how to be at leisure without the solitude of 'hills and seas/ If he ‘buries himself away* it is as a commoner among the common people.
When Conludus was going to Ch’u, he lodged at an eating-house in I-ch lu. In die house next door there was a man and his wife with menservants and maidservants.
. . . *WT2o are ail diesc people f Tzu-lu asked of Con¬ fucius. *They are the servants of a Sage/ said Confucius. 'Their master is one who has buried himself away among the common people, hidden himself amot^ the rice* fields. His &me is extinct, but the sublimicy of bis dis¬ position is unabated. His mouth sdll speaks; bur His heart
33
Chumg Tzu
has lojag since ceased co speak. Ho found himself at variance with the world, and bis heart no longer deigns to consort with it. He is one who walking on dry land is as though he were at the bottom of a pool. I wonder if it is Shih-nan I-hao ?* ‘I will go and invite him to visit us,* said Tzu-lu. ‘Do nothing of the kind,' said Confucius. ‘He knows that I have recognized him and will be sure that when I get to Ch'u I shall persuade the king of Ch'u to send for him. He looks upon me as a clever intriguer; and such a man as that, so far from desiring to meet such an intriguer, hates even to hear him speak. How can you imagine that you will find him sdll there f Tzu-lu decided to go and look. It was as Confucius said; die house next door had been suddenly evacuated.
The Shih-nan I-Iiao (I-liao South of tlie Market) of the above story* had good reason co fear that his peace might be disturbed. In 479 B.C. Po-kung Shdng and Shih Chi were plotting to murder the cwo chief ministers of Ch*u. ‘To deal with the king of Ch*u and the two ministers/ said Sheng, ‘we need five hundred men.’ 1 don’t know where wc can get them from,’ said Shih Ch’i. ‘We ought to get hold of Shih-nan I-liao/ said Sh%ig; wodd be worth as much to us as five hundred men/ So he and Shih Ch 1 went off to see I-liao, bad some calk with him and were both very pleased.
• We have already seen (p. dl) bow be cxkd co conTccc che ddee ofLu ro Taebm.
H
Chueng Tzu
Th«y told him of their plot, but he refused to take part in it. They then held a sword at his throat; but he remained cncirely unmoved. Shih Chi wanted to kill him, fearing that he would reveal the plot. But Sh&ig said, ‘Let him go. A man that cannot be cajoled by promises of gain nor scared by show of force wiE not let out our secret merely in order to win favour with the king,’ According CO one version of the story I-liao was playing ball when the conspirators threatened to kill him. and went on calmly doing so while the sword was at his throat.
A whole chapter of Ch\mg Tzu, the 28th, is devoted to stories of sages who refused the honours that monarchs importunately thrust upon them. These stories have no spedBcally Taoist chacactec and almost all of them occur elsewhere in the literature of the period. The Autumn Flood chapter contains a story much more pointedly told, con¬ cerning Chuang Tzu himself:
When Chuang Tzu was angling in die river P‘u, the king of Ch*u sent two high officers of state, who accosting Chuang Tzu umoimced that the king wished to entrust him with the management of all his domains. Rod in hand and eyes still £xed upon his line, Chuang Tzu replied, have been told that in Ch*u there is a holy tortoise that died three diousand years ago. The
Chuang Tzu
king keeps ic in the gicit hall of his ancestral shrine, in a casket covered with a do^. Suppose that when this tortoise was caught, it had been allowed to choose between dying and having its bones venerated for cen¬ turies to come or going on living with its tail draggling in the mud, which would it have preferred r’ 'No doubt,’ said the two officers, 'it would have preferred to go on living with its tail draggling in the mud-* 'Well then, be off with you,’ said Chuang Tzu. ‘and leave rue to drag my tail in the uiud.’
86
PART C
POLITICS
Contemporary Events
Hitherto we have been journeying with Chnang Tzu *in the realm of Nothing 'Wiaccver/ in terri¬ tories of the mind where ‘now and long ago arc one/ But there is in the book which bears Chuang Tzu s name much which cannot be understood without reference to what was actually happening in China in the second half of the 4th century b.c.
What we know for certain about this period is surprisingly little. Anecdotes and imaginary dis¬ courses abound. They have been arbitrarily attached to a defective system of chronology, and the result, chough it teems with contradictions and impossi¬ bilities, has been accepted as history. Recent research, checked by the evidence of a few con¬ temporary inscriptions, has however succeeded in establi^g a meagre outline of faa, which I shall try to indicate here as simply and briefly as possible.
About the middle of the 4th century B.c. China
a?
Chuang Tzu
was divided info a number of independent States. It is best CO begin with Wei, because it lay in the centre of the group and also because wc possess (in a mudlaced form) a contemporary chronicle of diis State which covers the whole period in ques- don, whereas with regard to ocher States our information is much less reliable. From 365 B.c. onwards Wei had its capital near the modem K’ai-feng Fu in Honan. To the west lay Ch 'in, a land of fierce warriors, regarded by the Chinese as semi-barbarians, and certainly little alfitcted as yet by the literary culture that had been built up far away, in eastern China. To the south lay Ch u, a land with a literature and culture of its own. Chuang Tzu was not actually a man of Ch’u. Sue his nadve State Sung stood in close reladonship with Ch’u, and parallels between Chuatig Tzu and the works of the great Ch’u poet, Ch’u Yuan, have often been pointed out.
To the east lay the kingdom of Ch’i, fomous at this lime for its patronage of philosophers. On the southern borders of Ch 1 lay Lu, the home of Confiicius. It is seldom mentioned in the records of the period and had completely lost its political importance. To the north lay the kingdoms of Yen (the modem Peking) and Chao, in constant warfuc with the horse-nomads of the Mongolian
88
Chuang Tzu
scepp€, from whom they leamt and transmitted to the rest of China the art of fighting on horse¬ back and many of the cultural elements that happened to be associated with it; such as the use of gold ornaments.
The main process that we can see at work during the whole period is the gradual expansion in every direction of the Ch’in State, leading up to the complete unification of China under Ch’in rule in 321 B.c. Looking at events from the centre ou^ wards, chat is to say, from the point of view of Wei, we find Prince Hui of Wei, who ascended the throne in 5<58 b.c., pursuing a pohey of defence and internal consolidation. In 361 he drained the P’u-t’ien swamps which lay to the west of his Capital; in 359 he built a Great Wall to defend his western frontier. The period between 361 and 355 » presumably the Seven Years’ Peace referred to by Chuaag Tzu in a passage about to be quoted.
But in 354 the eastern frontier of Wei was violated by the Ch’i, and in a great battle at Kuei- yang in southern Shantung the armies of Wei were defeated and put to flight.
Ten years larcr Wei was again defeated by Ch’i, this time at Ma-Hng in southern Hopei; the Crown Prince of Wei was captured and apparendy died
89
Chumg Tzu
in captivity, for cKe king of Wei said to Mencius:* ‘On the case we were defeated by Ch’i and my eldest son died there.*
Three hundred and forty-two b.c. was a pard- cubrly bad year for Wei. In the summer die eastern frontier was invaded by Ch’i and Sung; in the autumn the famous Shang Tzu (regarded as the founder of Ch ’in’s greatness) led his annies into Wei from the west, and two months later Chao attacked Wei from the nordi. In this year the supremacy of Ch’in as leader among the States was formally acknowledged by die other rulers of China.
South of the Yangtze River lay two ancient maritime Srates that had only parcially adopted Chinese culture: Wu, centring round what is now Suchow, and Yiiel^, centring round what is now Ningpo- Long ago, in 473 B.c., Yiieh had swallowed up Wu. Now it was the turn of Yuch CO d\yindle, In 333 the great southcni State of Ch’u defeated and killed the king of Yuch, and annexed the old Wu territory,
During the next few years Ch’in was continually driving the Wei eastwards, by a series of encroach¬ ments which it is difficult to chronologize exactly. But Ch’in was not only expanding to the cast.
• Mauiut, p. 10.
90
Chuang Tzu
The barbarians (Jung) of Kansu were also being subjected; in 327 B.c. the I-ch’u, who astonished the Chinese by burning instead of burying their dead, became subjea co Ch’in, In 323 Wei, already harassed on east and west, began also to be threatened in the south. 'In the south wc have been humiliated by C]\\\J says tlic king of Wei in die passage already quoted from Mencius, referring almost certainly to the battle of Hsiang-ling (eastern Honan). In 322-320 die Ch mwercaCeady south of the Yellow River, perilously near to the Wei Capital; in 3 id, again moving south, they annexed the semi-barbarian State of Shu, in what is now Siechuan, About this time internal troubles broke out in tlie northern State of Yen, Ch’i ‘came to the rescue,' marched unopposed into Yen, and one morning the people of Yen woke up to dis¬ cover that Yen no longer existed; it was part of Greater Ch’i. This was in 314. Before the end of the year die people of Yen grew tired of their saviours and revolted.
But to return to Wei; m 313 the Ch*in again crossed the Yellow River and captured Chiao in western Honan, and after prolonged struggles, interrupted perhaps by a cavil war in Ch’in, in 290 Wei surrendered die greater part of its Shansi territory co Ch'in.
Chuotig Tzu
There was what we should call i Collective Secoricy school* which believed that Ch^in in¬ tended CO ‘swallow up everything under Heaven/ and looked upon a defensive alliance of the other States and the isolation of Ch’in as the only chance of safety. Other incidcncal advantages of close reladonship between the great northern and southern States were held out as a bait. For example, a protagonist of this policy assured king Wei of Ch*u (died, 329 B.c.) chat ic would lead to his ‘harem being full of lovely girls skilled in music, his stables being fuU of horses and camels' from the northern lands. The men of Ch’in were represented as veritable ‘cigers and wolves' with whom it was immoral to have any relationship.
On the other hand there was a pro-Ch'in school which hoped that the ambitions of Ch*in would be satisfied by a limited expansion eastwards and southwards, and refused to believe that a State so large as Ch’u or one so densely populated and prosperous as Ch’i was in any real danger. The leader of the pro-Ch m school was Chang I, who died in 310 »,c. In 313 we find him demanding that Ch'u should close her north-eastern frontier and break off the alliance with Ch’i, in return for
* I» ii Ctmio that tboe wayi of thought aouaOy niieed; but the jpeechB la wbch they are dramaeued in the Cfcw Km Ts'4 are usagiiury.
92
Chumg Tzu
which he offered the king of Ch a doo leagues of territory ac Shang-yu (in south-western Honan) and girls from Ch in who shall be your concubines, Great King, and wait upon you hand and foot/ The king of Ch u accordingly broke with ChL Meanwhile Chang I, pretending to have had an acddenc when mounting his chariot, absented himself fron^ Court for three months after his return to Ch’in. The Ch’in government affected to know nothing about the bargain with Ch*u; no concubines arrived, no territory was ceded. The king of Ch u, realizing that he had been tricked, made a desperate attempt to renew relations with Ch’i, his messenger aossing the frontier with a borrowed Sung passport. He arrived too late; Ch’i had already allied itself with Ch'in.
When the powerful and aggressive State of Ch’in was threatening destruction to the other States of China, the rhetorician Shun-yii K’un went to the ruler of Wei and advocated an alliance of the other States against Ch’in. The ruler of Wei was so much impressed by his arguments chat he at once despatched Shun-yu K’un to the neigh¬ bouring State of Ch’u, to negotiate an alliance. But fearing that his reputation as a rhetorician would suffer if it were thought that he could only argue on one side, Shun-yuK’un returned to Court
93
«
Ckurng Tzu
just when the mission was about to start and made an equally impressive speech in ^vour of an understanding with Ch’in. The result was tliat the mission to Ch'u was countermanded; but the ruler of Wei could not bring himself to adopt the alternative policy of an understanding with the ‘wolves of Ch’in/ and Shun-yu K’un was no longer admitted to the Court. *
Wliat was the attitude of the Taoist cowards all these marches and coimter-marches> bargains and ruses, towards the reckless slaughter and destruction that bad been devastating China for a hundred years i Like all Taoist aedtudes it is better illustrated by a fable dian by a disquisition:
‘There is a creature,’ said Tai Chin JSn to the king of Wei, ‘that is called the bull-irog. Has your Majesty ever heard of icf ‘Indeed I have,’ said die king of Wei ‘On die buU-frog s left horn,' said Tai Chin Jda, ‘is a country called Bufiec; on its right hom is a country called Maul, These two countries have never been able to decide where Maul ends and BuSet begins. Over the question of this disputed territory battle after battle is fought; die corpses lie piled in dieir tens of thousands, and even when one side or the other has been dislodged from the disputed ground, the victors are nor content to go quiedy home, but pursue and harry the retreating foe for weeks
' HtMt-fuq Txtt, XQ.
Chumg Tzu
on end. ' ‘ W hst fudlc nonsense said the king ind^andy , ‘Pray allow me to show you»’ said Tai ciin 'that my story, so far from being nonsense, is very much to the point indeed. Do you, my lord, believe tim space is limited, or that it sccetches on for ever above and below, north, south, cast and west?’ ‘There is no to it,’ said the king. ‘So then, to someone who knew how to make his mind travel into the illimicabk, the “lands diat arc in communication” would seem a mere insignificant speck?* *Yc$' said the king. ‘Among dicsc lands char arc in comniunicadon,* said Tai Chin Jen, ‘is Wei. In Wei is the city of Ta Liang, and in that dry is your Myesty. Are you really so different from the king of Maul?' ‘Not very different,* said the king.
The objection of che Taoist to war is not based on moral or humanitarian grounds. ‘To love che people is to harm them; to side wich chose who are in the right in order to end war is che way to start fresh wars.’ Ic is based on che absolute insigni¬ ficance and fuality of che utmost that conquest can gain or that defence can secure, when compared with the limitless inward resources of che individual. ‘What am I to do ?’ asked che same king of Wei, when his Conimander-iii-Chicf* pleaded for war
* Kuf^Hua Yes. ‘Give me ewe bundred thotuaod mned cies.* uid this amuUe gencnliBuno. 1 will cepoire all thdr people, carry eCT ebdr horses and eatde, deal wkh tbcir ilng m a way ifiai will CDoadersbIy coo) hu atdotu.a nd chen take his dey. I will piusiio (heir general aiid lash his b*ek ciO I breab his spUK.'
9S
Chuang Tzu
with Ch’i and his minister told him that the Commander-in-Chicf was a scoundrel. *It is ^uitc true,' said the Taoist Hua Tru, ‘that chose who advise you to attack Ch’i are scoundrels; and cqtially true chat those who plead so eloquently for peace with Ch 'i arc also scoundrels. And any¬ one who stopped short at telling you that both were scoundrels would himself be a scoundrel coo.' *Whac then am I to do said the king. ‘Seek Tao/ said Hua Tru, ‘chat is all you need do.'
The Unatrvtd Block
T*u means wood in its natural condition, un- carvcd and unpainted. It is the Taoist symbol of man's natural state, when his inborn powers {ti) have not been tampered with by knowledge or circumscribed by morality. The Taoist cult of p’« is a philosophic restatement of ancient ritual id^: 'If thou wilt make me an altar of stone thou shale not build it of hewn scone: for if thou lift up thy tool upon it, thou hast polluted it.'* The enemies of this simpheity are the sense-organs, with their separate and limited functions. 'The eye is a menace to clear sight, the ear is a menace to subtle hearing, the mind is a menace to wisdom, every organ of the senses is a menace to its own capacity. Sad
' Exodiuxx. 25.
9^
Chuang Tzu
h it indeed that nian should look upon tliesc seats of menace as his greatest treasure.*
What then is man*s true treasure ? It is Jus Inward Vision {ming), a generalized perception chat can come into play only when the distinction between ‘inside* and outside/ between self and ‘things/ between ‘this* and ‘that’ has been entirely obli¬ terated. Chuang Tzu s symbol for this state of pure consciousness, which sees without looking, hears without listening, knows without thinking, is the god Hun-tun fChaos’): ‘Fuss, the god of the Soudiem Ocean, and Fret, the god of the Northern Ocean, happened once to meet in the realm of Chaos, the god of the centre. Chaos created them very handsomely and they discussed together what they could do to repay his kindness. They had noticed that, whereas everyone else has seven apercures, for sight, hearing, eating, breaching and so on. Chaos had none. So they dedded to make the experiment of boring holes in him. Every day they bored a hole, and on the seventh day Chaos died.
Just as the Taoist cult o£pu, the uncarved Block, is founded on ancient ritual ideas, so too this fable is no doubt an adaptation of a very ancient myth. We can indeed get some idea of the sort of primitive myth which Chuang Tzu is here refining and interpreting by comparing the story of Hun-tun
97
0
Chuatig Tzu
(Cluos) with the Australian niytli of Anjir: *In the beginning Aiyir was lying in the shadow of a thickly-lcavcd tree. He was a black-fellow with very large buttocks, but peculiar in rliat there was no sign of any orifice. Yalpan liappened to be passing by at the time and noticing this aj^omaly made a cut in the usual place by means of a piece of quartz-crystal. Approaching the myth ofHun- tun fron^ a quite different point of view, M. Granct* regards ic as an ‘^cliange dc prestations’; 'unc opdeation chirurgicale inychiquc conipcnsc unc bonne licepQon* This strange interpretadon reads like a parody of what is called eke ‘sodologieal approach,* a method whicli M. Granct lias liiinself often turned to sucl) good account.
The Golden A^e
To the question, 'What would liappen if every¬ one turned Taoist, how could a comnj unity exist at all, if all the minds in it were “wandering in the Illimitable?” ’ tl^e Taoist answer would again be, ‘Seek Tao yourself; tliat is all you need to do.* But there are passages in Chnaiig Tzu and other Taoist books where an ideal State is depicted, the sort of community in which the Taoist would have
* M. F. Ashley-MonUgu, wic Bting OMmg the /itairdiM
p. 130. * Dtmet ft p- iM-
5>S
Chuang Txu
liked to find himself. There arc no books; the people have no use for any form of record save knotted ropes. ‘They relish die simplest sorts of food, have no desire for fine clothing, take pleasure in their rustic casks, ace concent to remain in their homes. The next village might be so close chat one could hear the cocks crowing in it, the dogsbarking, but the people would grow old and die without ever having been chete.’
The people in the Golden Age here described have dogs and chideens, and know how to make ropes. We must suppose that they lived by agri¬ culture which some Taoists regarded as man's ‘natural' occupation: ‘When the people are allowed to do what is ordinary and natural to them, they wear the clothes that diey have woven and cat the food that they have grown.’* But though this, rather than the life of court and camp, is the natural life of men as they exist today, there was in the beginning, in the time of the primeval Chaos (kun~nuing), a state of absolute harmony between man and his surroundings, a life as effortless and spontaneous as the passage of the seasons: the two vital principles of Yin and Yang worked together instead of in opposition. 'Ghosts and spirits molested no one, the weather was perfect, the ten
« DCb.
99
Ckueng Tzu
chousaDd things were unblemished, no living creature died before its time . . . no one did any¬ thing, but everything ‘always happened of" icself.’
Then came the culnire-herocs, inventoR of fire, house-building, agriculture and the like.
The Taoists objected to machinery. Tlicrc are of course many grounds upon which labour-saving devices may be condemned. Tlic common modem objection is chat they cause unemployment; but religious leaders (Gandhi, for example) reject them on the grotmd chat they have a degrading effect on those who use them. The Taoist objcccion was of the latter kind :
Tni-kung, the disdple of Confucius, after travcDing to Ch’u in the south, came back by way of Chin. When he was passing through Han-yin he saw an old man who was engaged in irrigating his vegetable plots. The way this old man did it was to Ici himself down into die well-pit by foocholes cut in the side and emerge clasping a picchcr which he carefully emptied into a channel, thus expending a great deal of cnc^ witli very small resulc.
‘There exists,’ Tzu-kung said to him, ‘a contrivance with which one can irrigate a hundred vegetable plots in a single day. Unlike what you are doing, it demands a very small expenditure of ene^y, but produces very great results. Would you not like me to tell you about it i The gardener raised his bead and gazed at Tzu-kung.
100
Chuang Tzu
‘Wliat is it like i* he aiked. ‘It is an instrument carved out of wood,* said Tzu-kung, ‘heavy behind and light in firont It scoops up the water like a bale, as quickly as one drains a badi-tub. Its name is die well-sweep.' A look of indignation came into the gacdeoefs face. He laughed scornfully, saying, ‘I used to be told by my teacher that where there ate cunning contrivances there will be cunnii^ performances, and where diere are cunning performances there will be cunning hearts. He in whose breast a cunning heart lies has blurred the piisdne purity of his nature; he who has blurred die pristine purity of his nature has troubled the quiet of his soul, and with one who has troubled the quiet of his soul Tao will not dwell. It is not that I do not know about this invention; but that 1 should be ashamed to use it.*
We must then ‘bind the fingen' of die tech- nicians, ‘smash their arcs and plumb-lines, throw away their compasses and squares.' Only then will men learn to rely on their inborn skill, on the ‘Great Skill chat looks like clumsiness.' But the culture^hcroes were not the only inventors who ‘tampered with men's hearts.' Equally pernicious (as be seen in the next section) were on the one hand the Sages, invencocs of goodness and duty, and of the laws which enforce an ardilcialmorality; and on the ocher, the tyrants, inventors of tortures and inquisitions, ‘embitteren of man's nature.'
101
Chuan^ Tzu
Cotfertinictu
OnJy a king who can forget ius kingdom should be entrusted with a kingdom. So long as he is wandering alone with Tao* all will be * peace, quieoxess, and security/ But his subjects will not know why this is so; it will seem to tlicm tliat ‘it happened of its own accord/ Nor will the king know himself to be the saviour of men and things; he ‘seeks Tao; cliat is all/
One that b bom beautiful, even if you give him a mirror, unless you tell him so will not know that he is more beautiful than ocher men. But the fact chat he knows it or does not know it, is told about it or is not told about it, makes no difference at all to che pleasure dut others get from his beauty or to the admiranon that it arouses. Beauty is his nature. And so it is with the love of the Sage for his people. Even if diey give him £une, unless someone tells him, he will not kj;OW chat he loves his people. But che fact that he knows it or docs not know it, is told of it or is not told of it, makes no difference at all either to his love for die people or the peace that this love brings to them. Love is his ruturc.
Ts'ui Chii said to Lao Tzu, ‘You say there must be no government But if there is no government, how are men's hearts to be improved 'The last dung you should do, said Lao Tzu, 'is to Camper with men's hearts. The heart of man is like a spring; if you press it down. It
102
Chuang Tzti
only springs up the higher. ... It can be hot aa the fiercest fire; cold as die hardest ice. So swift is it that in the space of a nod it can go twice to the end of the world and back again. In repose, it Is quiet as the bed of a pool; in action, mysterious* as Heavea A wild steed that cannot be tcdiercd — such is die heart of man,*
The fint to camper wth men s hearts was the Yellow Ancestor,’ when he caught goodness and duty. The Sages Yao and Shun in obedience to his teaching slaved dll ‘there was no hair on thcii shanks, no down on their thighs' to nourish the bodies of their people, wore out their guts by ceaseless acts of goodness and duty, exhausted their enemies by framing endless statutes and bws. Yet all diis was not enough to make the people good. Yao had to banish Huan Tou to Mount ^’ung, drive the San Miao to the desert of San Wei, exile Kui^kung in the Land of the North— things which he would not have had to do if he had been equal to his task. In the ages diat followed bad went to worse. The world saw on die one hand the tyrant Chieh and die brigand Chih; on the other, the virtuous Master Ts$ng3 and the incorrupeible Shih Yu. There arose at last the schools of Confrtcius and Mo T2U.4 Henceforward die pleased and the angry b(^;an to suspect one another, die foolish and the wise to despise one another, the good and the bad to dis* appoint one another, charlatans and honest men to abuse one another. Decay set in on every hand. Men's naniral
* See ttxnul notes. > Y«Uo«Bii\pcTorstbeusua]rtaiukoou.
s Dbeipk ofConfiidus. 4 See below, p itis.
103
I
Chumg Tzu
powers no longer came into play ; Acir uihom faculties were wholly corrupted. Everywhere it was knowledge chat was admired and the common people became knowing and sly.
Henceforward nothing was left in its natural state. It must be hacked and sawed into some new shape, slit just where the inked line had marked it, broken up witli hammer and chisel, till die whole world was in utter chaos and confusion, All this came from tampering with the heart of man!
Those who saw die folly of such methods fled to the mountains and hid in inaccessible caves ; the lords of ten thousand chahoG sac quaking In their ancessal halls, Today, when those diac fell by the cxecuconer's hand lie pillowed corpse on corpse, when prisonen bowed down beneath die cangue arc driven on in such flocks that they have scarcely room to pass, when die maimed and mudlaced jostle one another in their throngs, the Confudans and the followers of Mo Tzu can find nothing better to do, amid the shackled and gyved, dian straddle their legs, bare cheiir arms and go foe one another as hard as they can. Is it believable that such impudence, such shamelessness can exist? Almost I could fmey chat saintliness and wisdom were die clasp and catch that fastened the prisoner's cangue; chat goodness and duty were the bole and eye chat fastened his gyves. Yes, almost I could believe chat Tsing and Shih were the whistling arrows chat heralded the coming of brigand Chih and tyrant Chieh.
104
ChHOfig Tzu
Wlicn Po Chii came to Ch’i. ha saw the body of a malcfeccoj, drawn and quartered. Binding tc^chcc the severed limbs, as one wraps a child in its swaddling- clothes,* he took off his Court dress, covered him with it, CTied aloud and lamented, saying, 'Oh, Sir. do not diitik that you will be alone in youc fate. Univetsal is the disaster that has befallen you, though it has touched you sooner than the test They say “Do not murder, do not Steal." Bur it was they who see some on high, dragged down others to ignominy, putting before men's eyes what drives them to discontent It was they who heaped op goods and possessions, putting before men's eyes what drives them to strife. Set up what drives a man to dis¬ content, heap up what leads him to strife, weary his limbs with toil, not giving him day in day out a moment's rest, and what else can happen but chat he should end like dusi'
The ‘no-govemincnt* doctrine of die beginning of this and similar passages in other Taoist boob has often been compared with the modem anar¬ chism of writers like Kropodun. But there arc important difFcrenccs. The modem anarchists regard government and religious morality as devices invented fay a privileged clasf in ordCT to maintain its privileges ; whereas Taoism looks upon the Sages as misguided altruisu- Moreover, one of the main tenets of modem anarchism is that
' S<« textual lOS
Chuer£ Tzu
no appeal must be made to the authority of ‘meta¬ physical cndties’; and it can hardly be denied that, whatever else it may be or may not be, Tao is undoubtedly a ‘metaphysical entity.*
But anarchists and Taoists are in agreement upon one fundamental point: laws produce criminals; eliminate the Sages who produce laws, and ‘there will be peace and order everywhere under Heaven.’
Once a follower of the great brigand Chih asked him whether dueves had any use for wisdom and morality. ‘To be sure, they do,' said die brigand Chih, just as mud) as other people. To find oneself in a strange house and guess unerringly \riiere its treasures be hid, this surely needs Impiradon. To be the hrsc co enter needs Courage; CO be die last to leave needs Sense of Duty. Never to attempt the impossible needs Wisdom. To divide che spoil fairly needs Goodness. Never has there been or could there be anyone who lacked chese five virtues and yet became a really great br^and.* . . .* Thus no great brigand existtd dll che Sages who taught chese virtues came into the world. If we thrashed the Sages and let the brigands and assassins go, there would soon be peace and order everywhere under Heaven.
Knowing that there are dishonest people who pry into boxes, delve in sacks, raise the lids of chests, to protect
* 'nis story of 'honour moag chitva* uasa in nuay nryiiig foRBS. £6t enmptt in L3 Shih Ch’uit Ch'lu, 54, fiuai-fimi Tzu. XU. ]?. Pao P'u Trv, XXL
106
Chuang Tzu
their property householders provide strong ropes and solid locks; and in the common opinion of the world they act wisely in doing so. But suppose real brigands come. They wfll snatcli up the boxes, hoist the sacks, carry away the big trunks on their backs, and be gone; only too glad that the locks arc solid and the ropes strong. The sole result of what before seemed wisdom was chat the brigands were saved the trouble of packing.
Now I would go so far as to mabitain chat everything commonly regarded as wisdom is simply ‘packing for brigands/ and everything that is commonly regarded as saintliness is simply ‘storing loot for brigands.’ How do 1 know that this is so? Throughout the whole length and breadth of the land of Ch'I (a territory so populous that in any village the sound of the codes crowing and the dogs barking in the next village could be plainly heard), wherever net or snare was spread, wherever take or ploughshare deft the soil, within the four frontiers of all this great territory two thousand leagues square, not a shrine was sec up, not a Holy Ground or Sheaf, not a rule was made in village or household, county or district, province or quarter, that did not tally with the ordinances of the Saviour Kings of old. Yet within the space of a single day T'ien Ch'^ng T^ slew the prince of Ch’i* and stole his kingdom. And not his kingdom only, but widi it all die laws and policies of the Sages and wise men by which the princes of Ch'i had ruled dieir land. True, T'ien Ch'Sng Tru is known to history as a. robber * bi^Sl ».c.
107
Chuang Tza
And assassin; buc in his day be dwelt secure as any Yao or Sbtia. The small Sotcs dared not reprove him; the great States dared not punish him, and for twelve generations his descendanc have held the land of Ch'i . . .
Dealing with the World
The Taoist does noc ‘hide hiiiisclf away in the woods and hills.’ What he hides is not Iiis body» hut his his inhom powers. He knows how to ‘follow others without losing his Self.’ And for this reason the art of the courdcr, to which so much space is devoted by other wriccK of the third century, is not ignored by Taoist literature.
When Yen Ho was about to cake up his duties as tutor to the heir of Ling Duke of Wei, he went to Ch’ii Po Yu for advice. 1 have to deal,’ he said, ‘with a man of depraved and murderous disposition. If I do noc hinder him in hu crimes, I shall be endangering my country; if I do hinder him, 1 shah endanger my own li&. Such shrewdness as he has consists entirely in recogiuzing ocher people’s shortcomings ; it £uls entirely to apprise him of his own. How is one to deal widi a man of this sortt* *1 am glad,’ said Ch’ii Po Yii, ‘diat you have asked this question. You will need much caution and care. The rirst thing you must do Is noc to improve him, buc to improve yourself. It is essential that your outward conduct should be accommodad)^, and equally essential that your heart should be at peace. And yet, both these essentiab have
I08
Chuaii^ Tzu
their danger. Tlic outward accommodation muse on no account aflecc whac is within; nor must the peace chat is within betray itself outside. For if what should be outward goes below the surface,
“You will stumble, you will stagger,
You will topple and expire.”
Whereas if the inward peace of the heart betrays itself on the surface,
“Comes recognition, comes &jnc,
Comes bab and woe.”
If the person of whom you speak behaves like a baby, you coo must behave like a baby. If he has his foibla, you coo must have your foibles, If he behaves like a cad, then you eoo must behave like a cad. And if you probe* him, do so in a part where his skin is not sore. Do you not know the story of the mands in die whcel-nic, how it tried ro scop the chariot by waving its arms, and did not realize chat, useful though they had always proved, this was a cask beyond whac they could accomplish t The mantis*s arms are die part i^on which it has most right CO pride itself. Be very careful not to meet a bad man*s villainy b)* displaying ro him what is best in you. For that way danger lies. Have you not heard how a keeper of beasts deals with his dgers t He never ventures to give them a live creature to eat, because when they have killed they become fierce. He never gives them a t^diolc
• P^Honri tcupuncturr ; of course meant merapfioncetly.
10^
Chuar^ Tzu
animal to cat» because when they rend flesh they become savage. He knows chat whac can be done with them when they arc sated cannot be done when dicy arc hungry. Tigers and nien> though so different in spcciesi have this at least in common: towards those cliac look after fliem ffieir feelings will be friendly so long as they are humoured; and if despitt what is done for them they tom savage, it is because their moods have not been studied.
'Tberc was a man who dearly loved his horse. He carried away its droppings in a basket; he scooped up its stale in a clam-shell. One day a fly attached itself to die animal, and this man scotched it Taken by surprise tbe horse began to plunge and rear, broke its halter, bruised its head, tore its breast. His incenrions were for the creature's good; but it was his affection foe it that proved the cause of its undoing. This should be a wamu^ to you/
But there is an arc of ‘living in the world’ (the Budunanites seem also to have discovered it) which might perhaps be better defined as living on the world. It is practised by the ‘Man of Ti* whose inward powers arc so highly developed that the outward sources of his well-being are entirely unknown to him: ‘Whether at home or abroad, he takes no thought for the future; he is free alike from approval and disapproval, from adniicadon and disgust. ... He seems as bewildered as an
110
Chuang Tzh
mfknt that has lost its mother, as helpless as a traveDer who has lost his way; yet, thouglj he has no idea where they come from, he is amply provided with all the goods and chattels a man can need; and diough he docs not know how they got there, he has always plenty of drink and food. Such is the description of the Man of Ti!
I will close die section on Chuang Tzu widi a story which has a certain current interest, for it was quoted at the Treasury by the representatives of die Chinese Government who came to England CO raise a loan in 1938. Tlie representatives of the Treasury (or so 1 was told by a Chinese friend) said they could not see that it was relevant:
Once Chuang Tzu was reduced to such extremities chat he was faced witli starvation and was obliged Co go CO the prince of Wei and ask for some millet. 1 am hoping before long,' said die prince of Wei, ‘co receive die rent-money from die tenants in my fief. Then 1 shall be pleased co lend you force hundred pieces; wiU chat be ail rights' ‘On any way here yesterday/ said Chuang Tzu, looking very indignant, *I suddenly heard a voice somewhere in foe roadway calling for help. I looked round, and there in foe cart-track was a gudgeon. "Gudgeon,” I said, ‘‘what arc you doing there "I am an cxik from foe eastern seas,** said foe gudgeon. "Let me
111
Chiumg Tzu
have a peck-measure of wattr, and you will save my life.” **1 am hoping before long,” I said to it, “to go south to Wu and Yueh. 1 will ask the king to dam the western fiver, so that it may flow your way. Will that be all right ?" “I have lost my proper surroundings and have no place to call my own,” said the gudgeon. “All the same, if you gave me a peck-measure of water I could manage to keep alive. If instead of that you do what you propose, you might as well string me up at once in the dried-flsh shop.*' ’
II2
MENCIUS
AnelMCkU^
H
MENCIUS
The Better Feelings
The wHoJe teaching of Mencius centres round the word Goodness (jen). Different schools of ConfucUnism meant different tilings by this term. But to Mendus, Goodness meant compassion; it meant not being able to bear chat others should suffer. It meant a feeling of responsibility for the sufferings of others, such •as was felt by the legend¬ ary Yu, subduer of the primeval Flood; ‘If anyone were drowned, Yu felt as though it were he him¬ self that had drowned him.* Or such as was felt (so it was said) in ancient times by the counsellor I Yin to whom if .he knew chat a single man or woman anywhere under Heaven were not en¬ joying the benefits of wise rule, ‘it was as though he had pushed them into a ditch with his own hand ; so heavy was the responsibility that he put upon himself for everything that happened under Heaven. ’
According to Mendus, feelings such as this are not product by education. They are the natural birthright ofeveryone, they are his ‘good capadty,*
Mendus
his *gooi knowledge/ his ‘good feelings/ and the problem of education is noc how to gee them, but how to keep them. 'He who lets these feelings go and does not know how to recover them is co be pitied indeed! !f anyone has a chicken or dog that has strayed, he tal^ steps to recover them; but people are content co let their good feelings go and make no effort to find them again. Yet what else is education but the recovery of good feelings that have strayed away?’ How these feelings are lost, how they arc rubbed away by the rough contacts of daily life, is described by Mencius in the allegory of the Bull Mountain:
The Bull Mounuin was once covered with lovely trees. But it is near the capital of a great State. People came with their axes and choppers; they cut the woods down, and the mountain has lost its beauty. Yet even so, the day air and the night air< came to it, rain and dew mounted it dll here wd there fresh sprouts began to grow. But soon cattle and sheep along and browsed on them, and in die end the mountain became gaunt and bare, as it is now. And seeing it thus gaunt and bare people imagine that it was woodless from the start. Now Just as the nacural state of the mountain was quite difrereot from what now appears, so too in every man (little tbou^ they may be apparent] there assuredly were once feelings * S«« cextuaJ ooto Xl6
Mencius
cf decency and kindness; and if diesc good feelings aie DO longer there, it is that they luve been tampered with, hewn down with axe and bill. As each day dawns they are assailed anew. What diance then has out nature, any more dian that mountain, of keeping its beauty ? To os, too, comes the air of day, the air of night. Just at diwn, indeed, we have (or a moment and in a certain degree a mood in which our prompdngs and aversions come near to being such as are proper to men. But something is sure CO happen before die morning h over, by which these better feelings ate ruffled’ or destroyed. And in the end, when they have been ru^d again and again, the D^t air is no longer able to preserve them, and soon our feelings are as near as may be to those of beasts and birds ; so that anyone might make the same mistake about us as about the mountain, and think that there was never any good in us from the very start. Yet assuredly our present state of feeling is not what we begin with, Truly,
*If righdy tended, no creature but thrives;
If left untended, no creature but pines away.’
Confiidus said:
'Hold CO it and you can keep it.
Let go. and it will stray.
For its comings and goings it has no time nor tide;
None knows where it will bide.*
Surely it was of the feelings * that he was speaking.
' See lewual oM». * Tlie inxute go©d fcelingfc
Meruius
How. then, can our ‘good feelings,’ at their height in the calm of dawn, be protected against the inroads of daily agitation* Naturally, by con¬ trolled breathing. The passage in which Mencius discusses his hrcath-ccchnique is hopelessly corrupt and obscure. But that deep aud regular breathing calms and fortifies the iiiiad is a matter of common experience. That a definite technique of breath- concrol, practised over long periods, can reach a point at whicli ordinary consciousness is volun¬ tarily suspended, would not be denied by anyone familiar with Zen or with Indian yoga. But how he Mencius went in yoga technique, what exactly was the namre of his ‘ftood breach,’ hao^jan ckih ch'i» it is impossible to say. He himself, when asked what the phrase meant, replied: 'It is difficult to say.’ As it was capable of ‘fillmg everything between Heaven and Barth’ it was clearly en¬ visaged as something supra-normai, something more than the ait that goes in and out of the lungs. Yet it is wrong to call it spirit, energy, passion or the like; for none of these words include the idea of ‘breath,’ whereas Mencius’s ch'i, whatever else it may be besides, is farst and foremost ‘breath.’
Cevernment by Goodness
Goodness, as wc have seen, depends on peace of 1x8
Mmdus
mind, and Mencius realized that this again depends on economic security. *If beans and millet were as plentiful as fire and water, such a diing as a bad man would not exist among the people.* Conse¬ quently the various (and partly identical) dis¬ courses of Mencius about Government by Good¬ ness, supposed to liavc been addressed to the rulers of Wei, Ch*i and T'^g, consist largely of advice about land tenure, taxation and wlut we should call Old Age Pensions {yitu^ Iw, ‘nourishing the aged*) .
The views of Mencius on land tenure, at any race in the form in whicli cliey have reached us, arc hardly less obscure chan his views on breath- technique. In traditional theory, all land belonged to the Emperor. In practice, as the Emperor existed only in name, it belonged to the rulers of the various States, who retained a great deal of it chcniselves, and gave tlie use of tlje rest to nobles and gentlemen. Together with the right to use an estate went the right to employ the labour of the local peasants, who in return for a rent roughly amounting to a tenth of the produce of the estate— there were inany variations of the system— had the right to tlie rest of the produce. Sometimes parr of the estate was set aside as ‘pubUc land’ and die whole of its produce went to the landlord;* in
‘ Who was very (he ruler bimselT. lip
Mendus
such cases rfic whole produce of the rest of the estate (the ‘private land’) went to the peasants. No doubt there were wide variations of custom, locally and at difiereot periods. But this seems to be the general picture.
A recent writer has stated that Mencius wanted to change this system into an ‘economic institution having socialistic implications/ ‘The land is to be given by the State to the people, who cultivate it in a condition of liberty/ There is nor a single passage in Mendus which supports such an inter¬ pretation. Evidently the traditional system, such as I have outlined, was no longer fiiUy observed in die three States whidi Mcndm desired to reform. It had been devised at a dmc when agriculture was shifting and ‘predatory’; after one plot had been cultivated for several seasons and ceased to give a good yield, it was simply abandoned, and ftesh land was cleared and brought under cultivation. But when, in areas where no fiec land was left, agriculture became settled and stationary, it became necessary to let each plot in turn lie ftUow for several seasons. The system of rent must have required adjuscincnt to this new state of affain; die tascation or non-taxation of ftllow land muse have been the crux of the problem. But this ques¬ tion is never definitely referred to by Mendus.
lao
Mencius
Agriculture is of course necessarily a co-operative business. An individual cannot support himself by ploughing, sowing and reaping unaided. And if this is true of cereal crops (wheat, barley, and the like), it is even more obviously true of rice-culture, with its complicated processes of replanting and irrigation. While agriculture is still in the predatory stage, while new fields are constantly being wrested from jungle or prairie by burning and hewing, the need for collaboration not merely of a whole family or household but of larger groups is evident. It was commonly believed that in old days eight femilies had worked together, and Mencius wanted to revive this system of collabora¬ tion, at any rate in remot« country districts (where perhaps it had not fallen altogether into abeyance), and to encourage the general spirit of co-operation that went with it; ‘the people make friends on their way to the £clds and back again, they help one another in keeping watch and ward, assise and support one another in times of sickness; and so everyone becomes intimate and friendly/ Contrasted with diis system and utterly con¬ demned by Mencius was the kun^, the tribute system, in which each householder had to pay a fixed tribute of grain, determined by the average yield of the land he rilled. This meant that in bad
lar
Mencius
years people had to borrow grain ac high rates of interest in order to pay the full tribute.
The obligadocs of the peasant did not end with the paying of rent on the lands that he cultivated. His labour was also conscripted for tlie building of palaces, treasuries, arsenals, city walls, and defences of ail kinds; and he was of course liable at any dme to be called away on inilicary service. Moreover there were raxes on produce sold in die markets, frontier tariffs on imports from ocher States, vast enclosures in which all hunting rights were reserved for the ruler, and similar fishing reserves.
Government by Goodness meant the abolition of market taxes and frontier taxes; the reduction to a minimum of parks and enclosures ; the use of conscripted labour only at dines of the year when agriculture was slack. It meant the a^licion of savage penaldes; it meant public support for the aged; it meant schools in which the teaching centred on moral instruedou. It is indeed a pity chat Mencius tells us nothing about these schools save that they should exist; adding only some punning etymologies on the various names by which Aey had been known in the past.
Anyone who adopts these measures, even in a small State, will become a True King, that is co
122
Mencius
say. a monarch accepted by all China, dominating not by force but by goodness-
MENCIUS AND THE KINGS The Kings of Wvi
King Hiu of Wei was old iixan, probably gctdng on for seventy, when Maidus came to liis Court. His long reign had been marked by disastrous wars,» in whicli his son had perished. His first question to Mencius was an un&rtunace one. ‘Sir,’ he said, ‘since you have diought it worth while to travel a thotisand leagues to visit me, I feel sure that you have something to tell me which will be of profit to my kingdom.’ To Men- dus the word ‘profit* represented expediency as opposed to right, worldliness as opposed to morality. “Why must your Majesty neci speak of profit?* he asked indignantly. ‘All that I have to say to you is concerned with goodness and right, and with nothing else at all. If your Majesty “How can 1 profit my Kingdom?** your great officers will soon be asking “How can I profit my &mily?“ your lesser officen and common subjects will be asking “How can I profit myself?”
* See ab&Te, p. Ip,
W
Mcndiis
And while diosc above and those below arc all scrambling for profit, your kingdom will fell into peril. ... 1 would have your Majesty speak only of goodness and right. There is no need to bring in foe word “profit.’* ’
King Hui was a Jiede bccccc than some other kings. This was foe most tlut Mcndiis was willing to concede:
*You most admit.’ said the king, 'that I have taken a great deal of trouble about my kingdom. When the crops felled on the north side of foe river, I moved die peasants across to the east side and sent grain to those who were left behind; and when foe crops failed to the ease of the river, I did the same thing. When I look round and see how neighbouring kingdoms are ruled. I do not £nd anyone who takes as much trouble as I do. Why is it foac despite all this foe population of neighbouring countries does not decrease, and our own docs not increase i’
‘Your Majesty answered Mencius, ‘is fond of war, so kt me cake an illuscracioo connected with soldiering. The drum sounds with a loud noise, weapons cross. Suddenly there is a panic, a lot of soldiers run away, throwing down their helmets and letting thcii weapons trail a^^tr them. Some run a hundred paces before they stop; some only £fcy paces. Suppose those who stopped after £fcy paces laughed at those who stopped after a hundred paces, what should you think ?’ ‘They could not,’ said
124
xhe king. They may have run away less than a hundred paces, but they ran away all the same.’ 'Since that is your view,’ said Mencius, 'your Majesty must not expect an increase in the number of his subjects at die expense of neighbouring kingdoms.'
Hui died in 320 B.c. and was succeeded by King Hsiang, who had not even die merit of being ‘a litde better dian the rest.* On coming out from his first interview with the new king, Mencius said to someone whom he met: ‘The moment I set eyes upon him I could see that he looked quite unfit CO be a niler of men, and on closer contact I found him wholly lacking in dignity. He asked me abruptly “How could we get a world seede- ment?’* “By unificadon,” I said. “Who is capable of uniting the world?” he asked. “If there were a single ruler,” I said, “who did not delight in slaughter, he could unite the whole world.” “And who would side widi him?” he asked. “Every¬ one in the world,” I replied. “Your Majesty knows how in the seventh and eighth months the new grain becomes parched. But soon the clouds roll up, heavy rain fails, and the young plants shoot up in lusty growth. When this is so, it is as chough nothing could hold them back. Today amoi^ chose chat are the shepherds of men there is not in the whole world one who docs not delight in
Mencius
sUaghcer. Should such a one arise, then all people on eartli would look towards him with out- saecclied necks. If he were indeed such a one, the people would come to him as water flows down¬ ward, in a flood that none could hold back.” *
King Hsiang is not mentioned again, and it is commonly supposed that Mencius left Wei soon after his acassion.
About King Hsiang Mencius had, as we have seen, no illusions from the scan. But with the accession of Prince Hung to the dukedoin of T’Ing, a small principality close to Mencius’s birthplace, it seemed as though ‘govcminenc by goodness' was at last going to have its trial. On a very small scale, indeed; for T’Sng was only about ten miles square. But that did not matter; it was large enougli to turn into a ‘good kingdom’; and should a True King (wang) arise,’ he would certainly come to T’6ng co take notes about its ways, and thus a little dukedom would become ‘a tutor of kings.*
The Duke ofTitig
The relations between Mencius and the duke of T’6ng had begun before his accession. Business had taken him to Ch’u in the South and he lud gone considerably out of his way in order to visit
)Z6
Mtndus
Mencius, who was then living in Sung. Mendus discoursed co him upon the fundamental goodness of human nature, frequently dOBg the careers of the legendary monarchs Yao and Shun. On his way back the prince again visited Mencius, who assured him ^t there was ‘only one Way/ applicable alike to tlic smallest principality or the mightiest kingdom.
When the old duke died, duke WSn ( as the prince had now become) said to his tutor Jan Yu, ‘Some time ago when I was in Sung I had a conversation with Mencius, which I have never forgotten. And now that unfortunately the great calamity * has befeJlen me, I should like you to go to him, that I may have his advice before I t^e in hand what must be done.’*
So Jan Yu went to Tsou and asked Mencius for his advice. ‘This is splendid/ said Mendus. ‘The proper discharge of funeral dudes towards a parent taxes a man to his utmost. . . . The rites to be pracdsed in the case of a ruler I have never studied. However, I have heard it said that the three years mourning, with wearing of mourning robes of coarse dodv and the eating of gruel, thick and thin— these are common co all, from the Son of
' The ieith of f»duc.
* WiiK Mgard co the decs of mouraing.
Menchts
Heaven downwards, and did not differ in any of (he three dynasties/
The duke accordingly embarked upon the ‘three years mourning’ as prescribed. But his ministers and the older members of his femily were not at all in favour of it. ‘None of the dukes of Lu, of whose family we arc a cadet branch, ever carried out this “three years mourning,” ’ they protested. ‘Nor did any of our own dukes in T’$ng. It is not possible for you suddenly to revoke tlicir institu¬ tions. Moreover it is written in the Records: In mourning and sacrifice the ancestors are to be followed.*
‘I got it from someone,’ said the duke, meaning that he had not simply invented the ritual out of his head, and he said to Jan Yu, ‘In old days I am afraid I did not pay much attention to my studies and was more interested in driving and fencing- The consequence is that my uncles and the ministers do not think me capable of deciding a matter like this. I should be very sorry if I were not able to cany out this solemn duty as I wish. I want you to go to Mencius and ask him what 1 should do.'
It is only by ignoring dicir protests,' said Men¬ cius, ‘that he can win them over. . . . Wliat the superior approves of, the inferior will end by approving even more than he. The gentleman’s
228
part is like that of the wind; the smaller man’s part is like chat of the grass. When the wind passes over it, the grass cannot choose but bend. This matter rests entirely in the prince’s hands.’
When the tutor came back with this message, the prince said, *It is quite truei it is really for me to decide.’
‘For five months he lived in a mourner’s hat, without issuing instriicdons or admonitions of any kind. His ministers and reiadves were much im¬ pressed, saying that he evidendy understood these matters. When the time for the interment arrived, people came from hi and wide to witness ic. The sadness of his expression and the bitterness of his weeping and wailing gave great satisfaction to all who had come to condole with him.’
The Three Years Mourning
The ’three years mourning’ was one of the main tenets of the Confiiaan movement (until it became a State religion in Han times Confucianism was what we should call a ’movement,’ in the sense in which the Chinese speak today of the New Life Movement, rather than a philosophic school). Naturally the Confudans represented it as a pri¬ meval institution, neglected only in a ktc and degenerate age. Their opponents, as in the passage
129 I
Axitm
Mendu$
above, decried it 05 an arbitrary innovation. In its fall form the three years movimiug (in reality it lasted twency-hve months, bat it was so c^ed because it extended into die third year) involved Irving in a shed near the tomb of the deceased, abstaining from sexual intercourse, wine, meat, music and visits to friends, and the maintenance, during the whole period, of an air of extreme dejection and decrepitude. Tlieorctically it followed the death of either parent, but in practice it was seldom carried out in ite entirety in the case of the mother.
It is clear that such a practice mtisc have repre¬ sented not only an extreme disrupdoa of family and social life, but also a great hindrance to bureauaadc effidoicy. For any official whose father died was obliged immediatdy to quit office for over two years; there are instances, too. of office being quitted for one year upon the death of a grandfrthcr or brother. The mourning for a wife, on the other hand, was a very short and mild a^ir. The ancestors of Confucius came from Sung. The Sung people were the descendants of the Shang, who were conquered, as tradition says, in the 12th century b.c. by the Chou. It has been recently suggested in China that Confucianism was, in its essence, a revival of Shang ideas, and the
Mmcius
three years n^oiiming with all its hampering and unpractical concomitants was originally a Shang iosrinjtion.
It is true chat one Shang king is said to have lived in the inoumcr’s hovel and remained silent for cliree years/ and that nothing of this son is related of any Chou king. Another Shang king is said, much against his will and only ac the instiga¬ tion of a wise minister, to have * grieved’ (not ‘mourned’ in any technical sense) for three years; * but the source is a forgery of the 3rd century a.d. In any case the whole complex of Confudan reforms must be studied in its entirety. The Con- fudans demanded not only an exaggerated cult of dead parents but an extreme subservience to parents while aiive.3 They insisted at the same time upon a segregation of the sexes far striaer (as is evident from numerous anecdotes of Ac preceding cen¬ turies) Aan had hitherto been customary. These demands seem to hang togeAcr psychologically, and apart from the question of surviving Shang
' Sfm Cking, Wu I.
* .S^u Ching, TiMhu. £azli«c wurco merely ny Uut on his lion the new king cumed oat *no( to be eleTer* ana wai sent for three yean eo a country palace to be coached.
) Those who to derive. 'filial ^ry* from ^ung i»cini(ioaa
can find ao b^r proof chan cenam vague allusoni* from die middle of the 3rd ceoniry B.c onwardi. to a ^oog pnace caDcd who is lupposed. rmm the contexts in which he b mentiofied, to have shown filial piety towards his father, bi« not to have been loved in renitXk
Mencius
influence (a possibility which I do not deny), they should be studied in connexion with die whole process of* social disintegration which followed the break-up of the early Chou empire.
Meanwhile, it is obvious that so inconvcnjenc an institution, whatever its psychological or his¬ torical causes, would not have survived foe cen¬ turies unless it had some kind of concrete social value. In the life of the official classes it certainly had such a value. It represented a sort of ‘sabbatical' occurring as a rule towards the middle of a man's official career.* It gave him a period for study and reflection, for writing at last the book chat he had planned and never found time to begin, for repairing a life ravaged by official banqueting, a constitution exhausted by the joint claims of con¬ cubinage and matrimony.
An allowance was usually granted to support the mourner during this long holiday, and strange chougli this institution may at first sight appear to be, I am certain that if it were established in the West, civil servants would cling to it as tenaciously as did the bureaucracy of ancient China.
It may be noted, before leaving tlie subject of mourning, that what chiefly distinguishes Chinese
Chn*i'i ben ksiowrt poems, foe cample *e ’Lary Maus and fishing b the Wei River,’ were vmacn duricie b\i lBt« Yean Moumuif, which covered the years a.d, Sti-Sij.
132
Mauius
mourning is the inordinate length of the mourning period. So lengthy an observance, carried out by so large a proportion of the population (and from the ISC century B.c. onwards it was, during many periods, actually practised by the whole official class), finds no parallel elsewhere. In many parts of the world, ten days has been considered sufficient ; occasionally three months or a hundred days is the period of mourning, particularly in the case of important people. Even in Australia, where some very long mourning periods occur, 1 have seen none menrioned which extends into the third year. As regards the nature of the observances, however, China is not at all exceptional. Among the many score of practices which are mentioned in ritual literature or referred to in anecdotes, there is hardly one which is not familiar elsewhere. Two widely spread practices are mentioned in the following passage of Mencius: Ts^g Hsi, the father of Master Tseng, was fond of jujubes, and after his death Master Tsmg could not bring himself to eat jujubes. ‘Which taste nicer/ said the disciple Kung-sun Ch’ou, ‘mince and roast-meat ot ju- juhes?' 'Mince and roast-raeat, to be sure,* said Mencius. *How was it diea,* asked Kung-sun Ch’ou, ‘that Master TsSng was willing to eat mince and roast-meat, but would not eat jujubes/
133
Mentius
‘Because/ said Mencius, ‘mince and roast-meat arc commonly liked, wHereas a caste for jujubes is peculiar. In the same way we avoid the personal name of the deceased, but noc his surname. The surname is something that he has in conmion with others; the personal name is peculiar to him/
The avoidance of food particularly liked by the deceased figures here as a preference dictated rather by sentiment than by ritual obligation. Similarly we are told' that among the Mafulu of British New Guinea, if a mourner prefers, he may abstain from a favourite food of ^e deceased instead of wearing the customary mourning necklace. Among the Koifa,* however, the mourner is ritually obliged to abstain from the fevourite food of the deceased for six months-
Avoidance of the name of the deceased, observed by many societies in North America, Oceania, Australia and Africa, has a curious accidental udliiy in China. It often happens that a study of the name-avoidances followed in a text will reveal its date. Thus the ritualist plays into the liands of the historian.
The country of T’cng maintained a precarious existence, threatened from the notch by Ch'i and
‘ Jt. "W. WilliAAiMii, 77if Mffjulu, p. J47 (xpxa).
* C. G. Scligrvtaiu T&<* Mef/utfioHi, p. XC4.
Mtrtdus
from the south by Ch u. Apart from his usual discourse on Government by Goodness, almost identical with that pronounced at other and greater Courts, the further conversations of Mencius with duke Wen of T’cng are concerned with foreign policy.
T Sng, said die duke, *is a small country, sand¬ wiched between Ch’i and Ch’u. Which ought I to serve, Ch’i or Ch’u?* ‘Upon policies of that kind,* said Mencius, ‘I can give no opinion. But if I must needs speak, there is one course that I would urge upon you. Dig out your moats, heighten your walls and guard them along with your people. Show that you are ready to die, and your people will not desert you. So much at least you may do,*
‘I hear,* said the duke on another occasion, ‘that the men of Ch*i are fortifying Hsieh* and am very much alarmed. What course ought I to pursued *Of old,* said Mencius, ‘when king T’ai dwelt in Pin, the men of Ti» attacked him. He withdrew from Pin and settled at the foot of Mount Ch*i. He would have been glad enough to stay where he was, but he had no choice in the matter. Do right yourself and in days to come there will certainly be among your descendants one that will • was ibrtiAcd In 322 t.c. ^ Kegard«d a barWiin»,
135
Mencius
become a True King. A gcntlcmfin “when he makes the framework, leaves a loose thread liang- ing'’;* for he thinks of those who arc to continue his task. Whether you fail or succeed depends upon Heaven- Wltac other States do is their con¬ cern; yours is to do what is rigl« with all your strength. That is all.*
And agair\; *T eng is a small country,’ said the duke win. *Wc have done our utmost to meet the demands of the large countries, but they are not satisfied. What course ought I to pursue?* *Of old,' said Mendus, 'when king T’ai dwelt in Pin, the men of Ti attacked him. He offered them hides and silks; but they were not satisfied. He offered them dogs and horses; but tliey were not satisfied. He offered them pearls and jade; but they were not satisfied. At last he assembled the elders of Pin and addressed them, saying, “What the men of Ti want is my land. 1 have heard it said, 'A gentleman cannot suffer chat what supplies the people with their food should be allowed to compass their ruin.’ My friends, you will do well enough without your king. The dme has come for me to leave you.*
‘So he left Pin, crossed Mount Liang, built a village at the foot of Mount Ch’i and settled there. The people of Pin sud, “He is a good man; we > MMspbot ot >tfaw
136
Mencius
should do ill to lose him.” And they went in a band, like people flocking to market. Some say, of course, that what has been kept for genera¬ tion after generation cannot be thus disposed of by one individual, and chat he ought to lay down his life rather than go away. It is for you, my lord, to clioosc between these two.’
Mencius and the king of Sung
A rumour seems to have got about, probably soon after the annexation of Yen, that the small State of Sung, which lay between Wei and Ch’u, was about to put into practice Kingly Govenunent, that is to say, Government by Goodness (Jin). The news was brought to Mencius by the disciple Wan Chang, who told him that the countries of Chi and Ch’u were displeased by what was going on in Sung and were preparing to attack.
The ruler of Sung at this time was king Yen, of whom surprising things are told us by the historian Ssu-ma Ch’icn.* Tn the cast he defeated Ch'i, capturing hve castles; in the south he defeated Ch’u, taking three hundred leagues of their land; in the west he defeated Wei . - .* That so small a country as Sung should have thus defeated three of the most powerful States in China is hard to • Cb. sS. SsiHma Cb’Mii died (. So ».c.
137
MeiKius
believe. What follows is obviously mythological: *Kmg Yen filled a leather sack with blood, hung it up and shot arrows at it, saying that he was shooting at Heaven; he abandoned himself to wbc and women, and when his ministers reproved him he shot at them with his bow.’
Shooting at a sack filled with blood or some other form of target hung aloft as a symbol of Heaven is a widely spread folk-lore theme. In the Mohammedan world die archer is Niinrod; in early China, the Shang kbg Wu-j.» Nimrod was a tyrant who conquered the whole earth; Heaven alone defied him. Many of his subjects, however, including his son Abraham, still worshipped the God of Heaven and were aghast at his iniquidcs. He therefore decided to make war upon God and become King of Heaven as well as of Earth. He built a great tower (the Tower of Babel) from the cop of which he shot an arrow at God. The arrow fell down again, dripping with blood. But Nimrod suddenly became grey and old. Too feeble to move, he lay there dll a host of ants devoured him.
The stories of king Yen’s atrocities were merely and-Sung propaganda, put about by the States which intended to parddon Sung. A source* about
' Tnditional 4bte, i!9^ti95 b.C.
* Chm Kuo Ti'/, Veil sorin, I.
138
Mouius
a hundred years earlier than the history of Ssu-ma Ch'ien makes this quite dear; ‘The king of Ch’in, wanting co attack An-i (in Wei) and fearing that Ch’i would conic co the help of Wei, slandered the king of Sung in a jncssage to the king of ChH, saying: “The king of Sung is unprincipled. He has made a wooden image of me and shoocs at its fare.* His country docs not border on mine and is too far off for Jiic co be able to send an army to attack him. If you would oblige me by destroying Sung on my belialf, I should be quite as happy to see his kingdom in your hands as in mine/* Therefore he captured An-i* and allowed the blame for the descruedon of Sung co fall upon Ch’i.’
Elsewhcre3 in che same book an inclcemcnc against Sung is puc into the mouth of Su Ch’m:« ‘I have heard it said chat it is the duty of a king who aspires co the praise of die world to punish cyraiits, suppress disorders, remove tlie unprinci¬ pled and attack the unrighceous. The king of Sung shoots at Heaven, lashes the earth, has case bronze figures of all the rulers and makes them wait upon him in the lacrine, nudging their arms and rwirching chek noses. No such iniquicy has ever before been
• A siaubt coornucy is airribuceii ro (be cyiuic CKou.
* A cowD in Wei. } Yea srocies, 1. {ugo earlier.
4 Legendary protagouisc of (be Collective Semriry policy.
Mencius
witnessed under Heaven. If your Majesty (the king of Chi) docs not slay hiro, your reputation will suffer-’
Here, finally, is an account from the same book of how the king of Sung’s overweening ambitions originaced :
During his reign a sparrow gave birth to a falcon in a comer of the dty wall. The Grand Scribe was told to find our what this portended.
‘Great born of small,
Means dominloti over all,’
he reported. The king of Sung was delighted. He there>- upon destroyed the States of T’Ing and Ksich and annexed all the territory north of the river Huai- Growing more and more confident in himself and intending to establish himself as master of all China without further deby. he shot arrows at Heaven, scourged the Earth, destroyed the Holy Ground and burnt the Millet Sheaf, saying that all spirits and divinities were subject to his power. The ciders of Sung and the ministers chat sought to admonish him he mocked at; he made a faceless hat to show to those that were too bold.^ He split a hunch¬ back's hump and cut open the shin of a wayfarer who was aossing a stream early in the momir^.' His subjects
• Hie cexi teems to be eorrupi. In the Hnn HsU k mu *be made a heaijlfo cc&q c& show , . / which is o^ually obscure.
* ThB is one of the acrodeks amUMued to the tyrant Cbou: he is said to have doue it to an old man to see whether it was true that old men have no marrow in eheir bones.
140
Mtmus
were in consternation. The king of Ch’i, hearing of all this, attacked him. and the people of Sung making no attempt to defend their walls fled in every direction. Hie king of Sung took refuge in the house of his minister Ni Hou, but was caught and put to death.
Even Dr. L«gge,* writing over two thousand years later, calls king Yen ‘entirely worthless and oppressive’; such is the long-range power of pro¬ paganda, The aim of these stories (which have no doubt been much romanricized and exaggerated by che compilers of the Chan Kuo Ts*i) was of course to represent the attack on Suug as a Righteous War, an authorized chastisement, similar Co those by which che virtuous kings of antiquity destroyed the tyrants Chieh and Chou.
The duty of die odicr States to ‘punish’ any State which was being badly ruled is strongly emphasized by die Confudans and was acknow¬ ledged {though less emphatically) by their rivals the Mohiscs. But whereas when an individual was accused of crime, there existed an elaborate machinery by whicli to discover whether the allegation was well-founded, there was no inter¬ state Court whidi could investigate charges against a government, and dxe Righteous War prindplc becajnc merely a moral doak under which to
I MffMCiHt. p. J47.
Mmdus
cover acts of aggression. It was in fact a mechanism, &iuUar enough today, for bridging the gap between, the amoralism of those who actually handle the affairs of a Slate and the inconvenient idealism of the masses.
The disciple Wan Chang was dismayed by the fate of Sujig. Here was a small State which was attempting to put into practice Kingly Govern¬ ment, dial is to say government by Goodness, as advocated by Mencius, According to the teaching of Mencius the result should have been chat all die other Stares in China immediately put themselves under die leadership of Sung. In point of fact, quite ehcopposicc had happened. Two of the largest States, Ch*i and Ch’u, after violent onslaughts of propa¬ ganda against Sung, wete about to lead their annfes against it. How, asked Wan Chang, did Mencius explain this apparent reversal of his principles
Mendus replied by reiterating the stories of legendary andenc kings who had won the support of everyone under Heaven by putting into practice in their own small territory the humane precepts of Kingly Government. If Sung had failed to win such allegiance, it could only be because Sung 'was not in point of fact practising Kingly Govcmmcnc or anything of the kind. For if the king of Sung were indeed practising such government, everyone
142
Mfndtu
Within the Four Seas would raise his head and gaze towards him. wanting to have him and no other as lord and king. Then, mighty though the lands of Chi and Ch’u may be, what would Sung have to fear feom them?'
To what exceac Sung was artenipting to practise Government by Goodness, as defined by Mencius, we have no means of judging. The interest of this passage D3 us is that it illustrates the overwhelming validity of the legendary past, even when con- feonted with recaldtrant fects of the luomcnt. Mencius was at this dme either in Sung or in any case not fer off; yec instead of discussing or trying CO ascertain what was actually happening in Sung, he dtes legends of remote andquicy to prove that what is asserted to be happening now and close at hand cannot really be happening.
It is this oscrich-like atricude to *the actual facts of the world as it now exists’ that brought Con- fiidanism into discredit as a practical morality and paved the way for the Realises.
Mencius and the king oj ChU
The ambition of king Hsuan of Ch’i (319—301 B.C.). * like that of ocher Chinese rulers of ^ time,
' Thu chronology, diflereoc from chat found in chc cumnr ^roao* logical ubies. is now genecalJy aecepced. See Maapero, La Cbcondi^ de$ xok de Tl’i. T'ewif Paa, 1^7.
Mencius
was to found a hegemony, to dominate all the odier States, to become what was called a po, a Senior Baron. Regarding Mencius as a learned man, versed in the history of the past, the king naturally questioned him about former hegemons, and the means by whicli they attained their posi¬ tion. But the Coiifudans refused to accept sucli dictators as models of kingship. According to them, the po wins his position merely by physical force; whereas the True King conquers the world by goodness. So when king Hsiian asked about the statecraft of the great hegemons, Mencius quickly changed the subject, and o^ered Instead to tell him about True Kingship.
^Whac course must I pursue in order to become a True King i asked Hsuan. ‘Constieute yourself the pro¬ tector of the common people/ said Mencius, *and nothing can stop you becoming King.' 1 am afraid,’ said Hsiian. *I am not the right sort of person to be a "protector of the common people.” *
‘You arc/ said Mencius.
‘How do you know chat lam?' asked the king.
‘From the following story/ said Mendus, ‘which was told me by the courocr Hu Ho. "The king,” said he, "was sitting up in the hall, when a man leading a bull passed through the courtyard below. ‘Where are you taking che bull?' asked die king. To be slaughtered/
Mfncius
Mid the man. 'We are using ics blood to consecrate a new bell/ ‘Lee it go!’ said die king. ‘I can’t bear to see a f»or fiightened, harmless diing like chat going to its death/ ‘Your Majesty means that the beE is not to be consecrated ?' asked the man. ‘Of course it will have to be consecrated/ said the king. 'You can use a sheep instead/ " That was the story I heard. But peihaps you will say it is not true/
'It is perfectly true/ said the king. ‘Very well then/ said Mendus, 'such feelings as you showed oa that occasion are all that a ruler needs in order to become a True King. As a matcer of fact, most people thought that you behaved like this out of meanness. But I knew quite well chat it was because you could not bear the idea of this creature being slaughteiei* ‘Indeed it was/ said the king. 'Did people really say . . . ? Of course, Ch’i is not a large country; but it would be strange indeed if I were to grudge the loss of one bull. No, it was just as you said. I could not bear ro see a poor, fiightened harmless thing going to its death. That was why I su^ested using a sheep instead.’ ‘You can hardly be surprised that people thought you grudged die bull,' said Mencius; ‘for you were quite wihing to sacrifice a smaller animal instead, and this made your true feelings very difficult for them to understand. “If the king were really pained at the idea of an innocent creature being led to the slaughter, this would apply Just as well to a she^ as to a bull/’ that is what they must have said.*
The kii^ smiled. ‘I wonder what it was exactly that I
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did £ee],* he said. ‘I really did not grudge the expense. Boc I see now diac my having proposed a sheep instead made ic quite natural chat people should chink I grudged it*
‘Never mind/ said Mencius. “That is the way that pity works. You had seen the bull and had not seen the sheep. That is how a gentleman should feel about animals. If he has seen them aHve» he cannot bear to see them die. If ho has heard their cries, he cannot bear to eat their flesh. That is why a gentleman never goes too near the kitchen.' This pleased the king. ‘It says in the Songs,’ ^ he replied,
’Tht feelings that others have By inference I measure.
This applies very well to you. It was I who did ^ thing; but when I came to bok into myself and search for the reason, I could not understand my own feelings. But as soon as you explained thena to me. something in my ovm heart at once clicked. Tell me. how can fr^lingt of this sort help me to become a True King f ‘Suppose.* said Mendus, ‘someone were to state to you that he was strong enough to Ufe three thousand cacties, but not strof^ enough to life one feather; or chat his sight was so good chat he could see the dp of a hair, but that he could not see a cartload of would
you bebeve himt* *No/ said the king. ‘How can it be then,* asked Mencius, ‘chat your softness of heart is so