CHAPTER V.
Project Gutenberg EPUB3 edition
Zhuangzi and Giles, Herbert Allen
"He never preaches at people, but puts himself into sympathy with them. He wields no power by which he may protect men's bodies. He has at his disposal no appointments by which to gratify their hearts. He is loathsome to a degree. He sympathises, but does not instruct. His knowledge is limited to his own State. Yet males and females alike all congregate around him.
"So thinking that he must be different from ordinary men, I sent for him, and saw that he was indeed loathsome to a degree. Yet we had not been many months together ere my attention was fixed upon his conduct. A year had not elapsed ere I trusted him thoroughly; and as my State wanted a Prime Minister, I offered the post to him. He accepted it sullenly, as if he would much rather have declined. Perhaps he didn't think me good enough for him! At any rate, he took it; but in a very short time he left me and went away. I grieved for him as for a lost friend, and as though there were none left with whom I could rejoice. What manner of man is this?
"When I was on a mission to the Ch'u State," replied Confucius, "I saw a litter of young pigs sucking their dead mother. After a while they looked at her, and then they all left the body and went off. For their mother did not look at them any more, nor did she any more seem to be of their kind. What they loved was their mother; not the body which contained her, but that which made the body what it was.
"When a man is killed in battle, his arms are not buried with him.
He has no further use for weapons.
A man whose toes have been cut off does not value a present of boots. In each case the function of such things is gone.
"The concubines of the Son of Heaven do not cut their nails or pierce their ears.
For fear of injuring their persons.
He who has a marriageable daughter keeps her away from menial work. To preserve her beauty is quite enough occupation for her. How much more so for a man of perfect virtue?
Who should trouble himself only about the internal.
"Now Ai T'ai T'o says nothing, and is trusted. He does nothing, and is sought after. He causes a man to offer him the government of his own State, and the only fear is lest he should decline. Truly his talents are perfect and his virtue without outward form!"
"What do you mean by his talents being perfect?" asked the Duke.
"Life and Death," replied Confucius, "existence and non-existence, success and non-success, poverty and wealth, virtue and vice, good and evil report, hunger and thirst, warmth and cold,—these all revolve upon the changing wheel of Destiny. Day and night they follow one upon the other, and no man can say where each one begins. Therefore they cannot be allowed to disturb the harmony of the organism, nor enter into the soul's domain. Swim however with the tide, so as not to offend others. Do this day by day without break, and live in peace with mankind. Thus you will be ready for all contingencies, and may be said to have your talents perfect."
"And virtue without outward form; what is that?"
"In a water-level," said Confucius, "the water is in a most perfect state of repose. Let that be your model. The water remains quietly within, and does not overflow. It is from the cultivation of such harmony that virtue results. And if virtue takes no outward form, man will not be able to keep aloof from it."
Mankind will be regenerated thereby, in the same way that evenness is imparted by the aid of water to surfaces, although the water is all the time closed up and does not overflow.
Some days afterwards Duke Ai told Min Tzŭ,
One of Confucius' disciples.
saying, "When first I took the reins of government in hand, I thought that in caring for my people's lives I had done all my duty as a ruler. But now that I have heard what a perfect man is, I fear that I have not been succeeding, but foolishly using my body and working destruction to my State. Confucius and I are not prince and minister, but merely friends with a care for each other's moral welfare."
A certain hunchback, named Wu Ch'un, whose heels did not touch the ground, had the ear of Duke Ling of Wei. The Duke took a great fancy to him; and as for well-formed men, he thought their necks were too short.
Another man, with a goitre as big as a large jar, had the ear of Duke Huan of Ch'i. The Duke took a great fancy to him; and as for well-formed men, he thought their necks were too thin.
Thus it is that virtue should prevail and outward form be forgotten. But mankind forgets not that which is to be forgotten, forgetting that which is not to be forgotten. This is forgetfulness indeed! And thus with the truly wise, wisdom is a curse, sincerity like glue, virtue only a means to acquire, and skill nothing more than a commercial capacity. For the truly wise make no plans, and therefore require no wisdom. They do not separate, and therefore require no glue. They want nothing, and therefore need no virtue. They sell nothing, and therefore are not in want of a commercial capacity. These four qualifications are bestowed upon them by God and serve as heavenly food to them. And those who thus feed upon the divine have little need for the human. They wear the forms of men, without human passions. Because they wear the forms of men, they associate with men. Because they have not human passions, positives and negatives find in them no place. Infinitesimal indeed is that which makes them man: infinitely great is that which makes them divine!
Hui Tzŭ said to Chuang Tzŭ, "Are there then men who have no passions?"
Chuang Tzŭ replied, "Certainly."
"But if a man has no passions," argued Hui Tzŭ, "what is it that makes him a man?"
"Tao," replied Chuang Tzŭ, "gives him his expression, and God gives him his form. How should he not be a man?"
"If then he is a man," said Hui Tzŭ, "how can he be without passions?"
"What you mean by passions," answered Chuang Tzŭ, "is not what I mean. By a man without passions I mean one who does not permit good and evil to disturb his internal economy, but rather falls in with whatever happens, as a matter of course, and does not add to the sum of his mortality."
The play of passion would tend to create conditions which otherwise would not exist.
"But whence is man to get his body," asked Hui Tzŭ, "if there is to be no adding to the sum of mortality?"
This is of course a gibe. Hui Tzŭ purposely takes Chuang Tzŭ's words à double entente.
"Tao gives him his expression," said Chuang Tzŭ, "and God gives him his form. He does not permit good and evil to disturb his internal economy. But now you are devoting your intelligence to externals, and wearing out your mental powers. You prop yourself against a tree and mutter, or lean over a table with half-closed eyes.
God has made you a shapely sight,
Yet your only thought is the hard and white."
Chang Tzŭ puts his last sentence into doggerel, the more effectively to turn the tables against Hui Tzŭ, whose paradoxical theories he is never tired of ridiculing. See ch. ii.