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We hold in our hand a volume printed on thin yellow-brown paper,
almost exactly the same size and thickness as a monthly number of the
CornliiU Magazine. Though equal in bulk, its weight is hardly one-half
that of the magazine ; and so thin is the paper, that the foreign book,
although printed only on one side of the sheet, contains about seventy pages
more than the English one. The writing runs from top to bottom of the
page, as is shown by the dividing lines between the columns. Neither the
arrow-headed inscriptions of Ninevite marbles, nor the hieroglyphics of
Egyptian papyri, present such an intricate puzzling appearance to the un
initiated eye as do these complicated characters j and yet they are more
familiar to our English vision than any other oriental writing ; indeed, we
may venture to say, than any other foreign language whatever. For there
can hardly be man, woman, or child in the British isles, certainly there can
be none among the four millions of London, who have not frequently gazed
at this strange character where it stares them in the face in every
grocer s window upon the sides of tea chests. Owing to its extreme dis
similarity to all other forms of writing, possibly the majority of these
gazers never imagine that what they see is intelligible written language,
but take it to be grotesque ornamentation, congruous to the willow-pattern
piate style of beauty.' Yet these queer-looking pages, with their endlessly
diversified combinations of crosses and squares, straight lines and
flourishes, curves and dots, picture forth to the instructed eye the
thoughts and feelings of a heart that ceased to beat thousands of years
ago, and a brain long since decomposed to join the dust of a land ten
thousand miles away, and that with no less precision than the columns of
the morning s Times, still damp from the press, reflect the ideas which
passed through the editor’s mind last night. If thought be but a mode
of matter in motion, our brain has been just now agitated by vibrations
first set in movement about two thousand three hundred years ago within
the skull of a black-haired, yellow-skinned Mongolian, who pondered the
mysteries of existence while he cultivated his rice-field, somewhere not far
from where the impetuous Hoang-ho turns its turbid rush from a southerly
direction eastward. It is curious to review the strange and various media,
along which the vibrations must have passed from his brain to ours. In
his age pen, ink, and paper were yet unknown. Either he himself, or
more probably his disciples after him, painfully scratched with a knife’«
point rude figures on the smooth surface of slips of split bamboo, to
record the memories of thoughts they would not willingly let die. As the
�LEIH-TSZE.
45
centuries rolled on, woven silk was substituted for the wood, and a brush
of hair took the place of the graving-tool. Later still this costly material
yielded to coarse paper made from the inner bark of trees, ends of hemp,
©r old fishing nets, and by and bye of the fibre of the very bamboo plant
which had afforded the earliest writing-tablets. Centuries before Guthenberg, Faust, and Caxton, this book of tea-chest symbols was once more
graven on wood, but now cut in relief on a block of pear-tree wood, from
which copies were printed off with ink made of lamp-black and gum.
Multiplied by the press, the book held a more secure tenure of existence,
though in a country where book-tvorms and white ants rapidly devour
neglected libraries, new editions must have been frequently issued to pre
serve the work for posterity. Originally the outcome of a human mind,
thinking and teaching amid poverty and obscurity, its author could hardly
have expected it to be remembered beyond the third or fourth generation,
yet here it is, after more than two millenniums, a standard book among
millions of reading men in Eastern Asia ; and at present it is putting in
motion the brain- cells of a red-haired stranger on the banks of the Thames,
and perhaps, by means of these pages, may awaken some interesting and
not altogether valueless trains of thought in the minds of English readers.
The catalogue of the imperial library of China, commenced by the eru
dite Lew Heang, and completed by his son Lew Hin about the commence
ment of the Christian era, enumerated and described upwards of eleven
thousand sections by more than six hundred authors. Three thousand
*
of these contained the classics and their commentators. The remainder
were classified under the heads of philosophy, poetry, the military art,
mathematical science, and medicine. Of this respectable amount of lite
rature by far the larger portion perished ages ago; the imperial library
itself, with nearly its whole contents, being reduced to ashes during an
insurrection in the generation succeeding the completion of the catalogue.
But this library of the two Lew was only a collection of the scattered and
charred fragments of a much larger antecedent literature ; a restoration by
means of new copies of half-legible tablets disinterred from their hidingplaces in gardens, or dug out of old walls, in dilapidated houses. Midway
between Leih-tsze’s time and the labours of the Lew family, occurred the
infamous attempt of that Chinese Vandal, Shih Hwang Te, the first Em
peror of China, to annihilate all literature, with slight exceptions, that
existed in his dominions, that is, throughout what was to him and his
people the whole civilized world. Leih-tsze lived in the feudal age of
China, when the area drained by the Yellow River, was divided into a
hundred petty kingdoms, dukedoms, and baronies, nominally owning
allegiance to one Suzerain, but practically independent. Two centuries
after his death, a Chinese Alexander the Great issued from the extreme
* The meaning of peen, translated “ section,” is uncertain. Originally a slip of
bamboo, it came to mean a chapter of a book, or a book. Probably it stands for sec
tion, or chapter, in the catalogue above referred to, as the authors hardly could have
written eighteen or nineteen works apiece.
�46
LEIH-TSZE.
west of that Eastern orbis terrarum, and welded all these states into one
great despotic empire. Inflated by an insane pride which could not brook
comparison with the mythic glories of the semi-fabulous hero-kings of an
tiquity, and irritated by the conservatism of the literati, who were to him
what the French Legitimists were to Napoleon the First, he resolved to com
mit to the flames every memorial of the past, in order that the history of hu
manity might begin with his reign. The attempt failed. Literature was too
widely spread, and the love of literature too deeply ingrained in the hearts
of the people, for the efforts of a tyrant to exterminate it, even though the
monster went to the length of burying alive four hundred and sixty learned
men who resisted his decrees. But only those books which possessed the
largest amount of inherent vitality could sustain so severe an assault.
Among these was this work of Leih-tsze. This suggests to us a remark of
some importance. Shih Hwang Te’s very objectionable form of biblio
mania was happily as exceptional in Chinese history as Khalif Omar’s
consignment of the library of the Ptolemies to heat the bath fires of Alex
andria was in Western history. But apart from any special and extraordi
nary attacks upon literature, every generation saw multitudes of books
perish in China, either through neglect, or in the catastrophes of fire, war,
or civil commotion. That this particular book should have survived from
the fourth century b.c. to the age of printing, of itself marks it out as
worthy of attention. The preface of the earliest extant commentator,
Chang Sham, who edited Leih-tsze in the fourth century a.d., gives an
interesting glimpse at the process of natural selection which was always
going on, preserving a few favoured volumes from the oblivion into which
numbers of other works continually lapsed. Chang Sham tells us, “I
have heard my father say that his father married a Miss Wong, one of
three sisters. Mr. Wong belonged to an old literary family which had a
passion for book-collecting, and had become possessed of a vast library.
The other Misses Wong also married scholars, and the three young men
vied with each other in transcribing rare books. When there ensued a
time of confusion in the reign of the Emperor Wai (a.d. 310), he and one
of his brothers-in-law fled southward, each one putting as many books as
he could into his baggage-waggons. The road, however, was long, and
frequent attacks of robbers diminished their load greatly; so he said to
the other, ‘We cannot save all the books, let us select the rarer ones to
preserve them from extinction.’ Among those which he himself chose for
preservation were the writings of Leih-tsze.”
The continued existence of an author through two thousand years o
literary vicissitudes, the earlier millennium of which was especially fatal to
literature, may not, perhaps, prove its superior fitness to survive, accord
ing to our estimate of fitness. But it indicates that the book was con
genial to the tastes, and interested the minds, of its preservers. We have
met with the complaint on the part of English readers of Chinese transla
tions, that “ they contain nothing new.” It would be strange, indeed, if
Chinese poetry, philosophy, or religion, should contain any ideas abso
�LEIH-TSZE.
47
lutely new to those who have inherited the wealth of Sanscrit and
Semitic, of Greek and Roman literatures, with all their offspring of later
date. The value of a work like this is not in the novelty of its contents,
but in the light it throws upon the development of the human mind
among a people entirely uninfluenced by our Western progress. We
should find great light would be thrown upon many interesting but difficult
questions in psychology if we could discriminate always between original
and imitative thought. Much which seems to us the purely spontaneous
operation of our minds is, no doubt, unconscious reproduction of what
has been first put into them from outside. If, however, we could enter
into communication with the inhabitants, supposing there to be such, of
Venus, Jupiter, and other planets, and upon comparison of the respective
conditions and developments of mind in each we should find that the
same dominant ideas and principles had manifested and established them
selves in other planets as in our own, our conviction that these ideas and
principles are not the artificial product of restless, baseless speculation,
but the natural and necessary effect of the interaction between mind and
the universe in which it works, would be greatly strengthened. The
mutual comparison which is impossible for us with those star-dwelling
neighbours of ours, we can obtain upon the surface of our own globe,
whenever impassable mountain-ranges, and vast breadths of stormy ocean,
have isolated any portion of mankind for a time sufficiently long to
permit the independent evolution of thought, and its being recorded in
literature. Whenever the time comes that science marks out our globe
into distinct areas of independent mental evolution, China will occupy a
prominent place, making one great division by itself, and affording in its
ancient, vast, unbroken stream of literature the richest materials for
comparison with the rest of the world. In this article we aim at nothing
more than to give the reader a glimpse into the thoughts of an ancient
thinker, some might say, dreamer rather, belonging to a long obsolete
school of Chinese philosophy.
Conclusive proof of the mental isolation, and, therefore, independence
of those old Chinese thinkers is derived from the extant literature itself.
This does not militate against the theory that the black-haired race,
which has almost obliterated the traces of earlier peoples in Eastern Asia,
originally immigrated into the country, probably in successive waves
separated by hundreds of years, from some part of Western Asia, taking
its long pilgrimage across the sterile plateau of Thibet, and following the
course of the Yellow River, until it founded its first permanent settlements
on its banks about seven hundred miles from the sea. These immigrants
may have brought with them the rudiments of writing, as they doubtless did
bring many oral traditions, and habits of thought already formed, or in
formation, before they bade a long farewell to the streams of humanity
which tended south and west. Something, therefore, we must allow them
as their original stock of mental furniture when they came into the land,
at an unknown distant date, two, three, or more thousands of years
�48
LEIH-TSZE.
That which was strongest and most durable of this primitive floating
stock of thought was crystallised in their most ancient books, called the
Classics. We can see in these earliest national records that already, when
they were first inscribed on the bamboo tablets, all memory of derivation
from the West had died out of the minds of the people ; and if a portion of
their contents came into China from beyond the Western mountains, the
earliest scribes had not the faintest sense of the fact. All Chinese litera
ture after this, for about a thousand years, is beyond suspicion purely
Chinese. Take our author for example ; the whole known world to him
extended only about three hundred miles east and west, and about half
that distance north and south. All beyond this region was wrapt in
Cimmerian darkness. On every hand a fringe of savage tribes surrounded
the very limited area of civilisation, through which not the faintest
rumour of what existed to the north and south had penetrated, while the
ocean to the east was but dimly known by vague report, and the great
mountain region to the west was the chosen abode of genii, deified men,
and celestial spirits. Confucius, Laou-tsze, Leih-tsze, Yang-Choo, and
all other leaders of thought in China for some centuries were either
original thinkers, or were indebted to their own national literature only,
not a trace of outside influence being discernible in their writings.
Leih-tsze is for us the name of a book rather than of a man. Unlike
the great national hero Confucius, whose disciples Boswellized before
Boswell, Leih-tsze’s personality has left so faint an impression on his
literary remains, that he has been taken by some Chinese critics for an
imaginary personage. This incredulity we may comfortably waive aside
on the high authority of the imperial catalogue of the reigning dynasty,
which discusses the question temperately and fairly, and decides that
there are no good grounds for doubting that there did live a man by name
Leih Yu-kow, [or, as literature quotes him, Leih-tsze, the philosopher
Leih, whose teachings were compiled into a book by his disciples, in the
form in which we now have it, barring some errors and interpolations
which have crept into the text. Beyond the bare fact of his existence in
the kingdom of Ch’ing, nearly central among the feudal states, about four
hundred years before the Christian era, we have only the most meagre in
formation about him. Though a light of the age, a pupil of distinguished
rabbis, and himself the revered master of a band of attached disciples, he
was neglected by Government, and lived in obscurity and poverty. Once,
indeed, he came into contact with the ruling powers, as the following
anecdote shows :—“ So poor was Leih-tsze, that he bore the traces of
hunger in his emaciated frame. A travelling scholar drew the attention
of the Prince of Ch’ing to this, saying, ‘ In your territory one of the
leading teachers of the age lives in extreme poverty; is it because you,
0 prince, do not love learned men ? ’ The prince immediately sent an
officer to carry relief to Leih-tsze. Leih-tsze came out to receive the
messenger, and with a double obeisance declined the gift. When he
went inside again, his wife taunted him with the reproach, ‘ I was told
b.c.
�LEIH-TSZE.
49
that a philosopher’s wife and children were sure to be well off. Here we
are all starving, and when the ruler sends us relief, you refuse it. This, no
cToubt, is an instance of the fate you are always preaching ! ’ (Leih-tsze
taught necessity and pooh-poohed free will. So his angry spouse seemed
to have him on the hip.) But he quietly rejoined, ‘ The prince only sent
his help in consequence of another man’s report; he has no personal
knowledge of me. Another day he will be listening to some one else’s
report, and finding me a criminal, that is why I declined the gift.’ ” These
philosophers were a proud, at least self-respecting, set, counting it shame
to be pensioners on royal bounty, unless royalty respectfully received
their admonitions. The narrative intimates that, in this case, Leih-tsze’s
independence of spirit saved his life during a revolution which succeeded.
We have a peep at the man inside the philosopher’s cloak in this next
incident. “ Leih-tsze started for Tsai, went half-way, and returned. A
friend asked, ‘ Why have you come back ? ’ ‘I was afraid,’ he replied.
‘What made you afraid ? ’ ‘On the road I stopped to get a meal at the
sign of “ The Ten Syrups,” and they presented me with a grand dinner.’
‘ What was there in this to frighten you ? ’ ‘ Truly it made me very un
comfortable. I thought that if my personal appearance won me such
reverence from a poor innkeeper, how much more would it make an
impression upon a monarch of ten thousand chariots, who would surely
employ me in Government, and ascribe merit to me. On this account I
was afraid.’ ‘Excellent,’ replied his mentor, ‘ I see you know how to
conduct yourself. You will come to honour.’ ” The popularity from
which the philosopher shrank, nevertheless, found him out and besieged
him in the form of a numerous band of disciples, who showed their
respect by taking off their shoes before entering his door. This, again,
we are told, is an illustration of destiny. Leih-tsze was to be famous,
and he became so, even against his will.
Though a few passing allusions give us all that we can glean of the
personal individuality of Leih-tsze, this book, supplemented by other con
temporary records, affords a very vivid picture of the state of society in
which he moved. We are apt to think that times so far anterior to our
own must still have retained lingering traces of primeval arcadian sim
plicity of thought and manners. But we are introduced by these pages
to a highly artificial state of civilization, which felt itself removed by
immense spaces of time from the youth of the world. Kings and nobles
feasted in their halls, rode out in four-horse chariots to the chase or the
battle; minstrels, jugglers, mechanicians crowded to their courts for
employment and reward. Ladies sighed in the harems, or plotted with
eunuchs to secure the advancement of their own children in place of the
legitimate heir. Travelling statesmen and philosophers wandered from
court to court with the latest recipe for establishing universal peace, and
bringing mankind under one sway. Below them all was the great mass
of the people engaged in trade, handicrafts, and the cultivation of the
soil, but liable to be called upon for military service, and frequently
�50
LEIH-TSZE.
suffering the calamities of war. In this highly complex condition of
society there were a few men who, instead of taking existence as they
found it, laboured to discover its secret, or to amend its conditions.
Some of these, by the fame of their learning or their wisdom, attracted
disciples around them, and thus established informal schools, where the
instruction was chiefly oral and by example, and in which keen debate
upon the principles of philosophy and ethics was frequent. Among such
self-constituted teachers Leih-tsze held a distinguished place, and to the
admiration of his disciples we owe this record of his doctrines from which
we will now present some specimens.
Mr. G. H. Lewes, after reviewing the history of philosophy from
Thales to Kant and Hegel, considers that he has abundantly proved the
barrenness of all metaphysics and the impossibility of ontology. These
conclusions we do not venture to dispute. His numerous examples from
Ancient Greece and Modern Europe might be paralleled by a third depart
ment in which the metaphysics of China should be exhibited, and India,
of course, would add a crowded fourth. This agreement in prosecuting
inquiries so inevitably barren seems to indicate an innate tendency in the
human mind to ask these questions, unanswerable though they be.
Granted that it is utterly impossible for man ever to extricate himself
from the great stream of phenomena of which he is himself part, and to
survey from the lofty altitude of absolute perception the realities of being,
which here he knows only in its relations, will he ever learn to be con-.
tented in his necessary ignorance ? A few thousands of generations more
may perhaps evolve a human race which shall be incapable of curiosity
about these profoundest speculations ; and the man of the future, having
thoroughly acquiesced in the hereditary conviction that truth is but the
order of ideas corresponding to the order of phenomena, may have ceased
even to scorn metaphysics as equivalent to inquiring about lunar politics,
because the very memory that once such contemplations possessed
irresistible fascination for the human mind shall have been long lost. If
so, the future will be very unlike the past and the present, and for our
selves we acknowledge that the vista of human progress thus opening out
before us does not seem attractive. Leih-tsze, however, lived in a meta
physical age, and in the very foreground of his philosophy we find
abstruse speculations upon the nature of being in itself. A bare transla
tion into English without explanatory notes would hardly be intelligible,
but we may select a few sentences to show the style. “That which
brings forth all things is not born; that which changes things is itself
changeless.
Spontaneously it lives, changes, takes form and colour,
knows, is strong, decays and dies. Yet if you say that it lives and
changes, has shape and hue, possesses knowledge and strength, is subject
to decay and death, you err.” Again : “ There are living things and a
cause of life; there is form, and a cause of form; there is sound
and a cause of sound; there is colour and a cause of colour;
there is flavour and a cause of flavour. That which life produces
�LEIH-TSZE.
51
is death, but the cause of life never comes to an end.
That which
form produces is substance, but the cause of form is immaterial.
That which sound produces is hearing, but the cause of sound is ever
inaudible. That which colour produces is beauty, but the cause of
colour is ever invisible. All these are functions of the Absolute.
*
It can
be male and female, yielding and rigid, short and long, square and
round, living and dead, hot and cold, sweet and bitter, stinking and
fragrant. It is without knowledge and without power, and it is omnis
cient and omnipotent.” All this seems the childish babbling of a
philosophy which has not grown up to manhood, and entered into
possession of a polysyllabic terminology for its ideas ; yet its meaning is
equivalent to Herbert Spencer’s fundamental proposition “ the origin of
all things is inscrutable.” It recognises the existence of that “ some
thing ” which is above, and behind, and in, all phenomena; which no
acuteness of observation can reach, no profundity of meditation can
fathom, but which we know is there. In this direction the latest
researches of modern science and the crude reflections of our Chinese
philosopher both come to a dead stop at exactly the same point.
How crude and fanciful the metaphysical speculations of Leih-tsze
were is apparent in the following imaginary dialogue :—“ King T‘ang asked
Hea-Kih, ‘Was there originally a time when nothing material existed?’
Hea-Kih replied, ‘ If originally there was nothing, whence have existing
things come from ? Will it be reasonable if some day posterity should
ask whether anything existed at this time ? ’ The King continued, ‘ Then is
there really no succession of events ? ’ Hea-Kih said, ‘ The succession of
things is infinite. Beginnings may be endings, and endings may be
beginnings. Who can discriminate them ? But as to that which exists
beyond all phenomena, and before all events, I am ignorant.’ ‘Then is the
universe without limit ?’ asked the monarch. ‘I know not,’ Hea-Kih
replied ; but when pressed for an answer, added : ‘ The non-existent is
infinite. Existence is finite. How do I know this ? It is involved in the
idea of the infinite. The infinite cannot have a greater infinite to bound it.
But as to what limits the finite, I confess my ignorance.’ T‘ang asked,
‘ What is the nature of being beyond the limits of our world ? ’ ‘ Just
like it is in the middle kingdom,’ was the answer. ‘ How know you that ?’
‘ Because,’ he replied, ‘ I have travelled east and west to the limits of civi
lisation, and everywhere I found things the same. At the extreme points
of my wanderings I inquired of the people, and they assured me that
they knew of nothing different beyond them. Thus I conclude that the
whole universe is alike.’ ”
If disposed to smile at the superficiality of these reasonings, yet one
must remember that whether we sound a bottomless ocean with a deepsea line or a pole, the result is the same ; in each case we fail to reach
* We must make apology to the sinologue for the audacity of this translation of
moo wei by the Absolute. Yet does it not approach nearer to the idea of the Chinese
than any other English expression ?
�52
LEIH-TSZE.
the bottom. Our Chinese used the longest line he had, and could do no
more, nor can we.
Leih-tsze’s philosophy of life was fatalism, yet fatalism of a peculiar
shade. He belonged to the school originated by the famous contemporary
of Confucius, Laou-tsze, the watchword of which was taou, “ the path/’
Confucius, too, believed in “ the path,” but his path was the path of duty,
the way of righteousness, following the higher instincts of our moral nature.
“ What Heaven has conferred is called the 'nature; an accordance
with this nature is called the path; the regulation of this path is called
instruction." It is much more difficult to grasp Laou-tsze’s and Leih-tsze’s
meaning when they speak of “ the path ” ; but this difference between
the rival schools is clear. Confucius fixed his mind exclusively on the
ethical side of human nature, while his opponents included in their idea
of “ the path ” not only the totality of human nature, but the totality of
the universe. One student of Taouism explains taou as the “ultimate
ideal unity of the universe.” [It is simpler to take “ the path” for what we
express by “ the course of nature,” only extending nature beyond physical
things to embrace gods and men, mind and matter, heaven and earth, and
all theii’ contents in one universal stream of being, all pervaded by one
uniting principle it is true, but that principle inscrutable to us, and
inseparable from the stream of existence itself. This infinite march of
events moves on of itself in its own irresistible current; it is folly to
struggle against it, wisdom to resign ourselves to be borne along by the
stream whithersoever it tends. “ The Emperor Shun asked Ching : ‘ Can
I attain to the possession of ‘1 the path ” ? ’ ” (Tuott here stands for the inner
secret of being, the reality behind appearances, and perhaps might be
rendered by “ the truth.”) “ Ching replies to him : ‘ Your body is not your
own, how can you acquire and possess taou ? ’ Shun said, ‘ If my body
is not my own, whose is it ? ’
‘ It is a form entrustedto you by Heaven
and Earth,’ was the answer.
‘ Life is not yours. It is a harmony
entrusted to you by Heaven and Earth. Your nature is not yours, it is
a concord entrusted to you by Heaven and Earth. Your children and
grandchildren are not yours. They are new forms entrusted to you by
Heaven and Earth. When you move, you do not know whither you are
going; when you are at rest, you know not what you are grasping. The
very food you eat is made by Heaven and Earth to nourish you, you
know not how. Why should you talk of attaining to the possession of
anything ? ’ ”
In the sixth chapter we have an amusing discussion between fate and
free-will personified. What we call free-will is represented by Mr. Effort,
who challenged Mr. Fate thus : “ How can you compare your merits with
mine ? ” Fate retorted : “ What are these merits of yours which you wish
to compare with me ? ” Effort replied : “ Long life and early death,
failure and success, honour and obscurity, riches and poverty, all depend
upon me.” Fate said : “ Pang-tso .was not wiser than the sages Yau
and Shun, yet he lived to be eight hundred years old. Ngan Uen’s
�LEIH-TSZE.
53
talents were not mediocre, yet he died at thirty-two. Confucius virtue
was not inferior to that of the princes of his day, yet he wandered about
in poverty. The tyrant Chow’s morality was not better than that of the
three sages, yet he enjoyed the royal seat. If these things are your work,
Mr. Effort, why do you confer long life, riches, and honours upon the bad,
and accumulate misfortune on the good ?
Effort replied : ‘ Accoiding
to what you say, I have no merits at all. But that things happen so con
trary is your arrangement, not mine.” Fate answered : “ Since you say
Fate does these things, why talk about their being arranged so ? Crooked
and straight are all the same to me. All things are what they are of
themselves. How can I know anything about it ? ”
The sentimentalism of Xerxes weeping at his grand review would
have met with small sympathy from a Taouist, as the following anecdote,
told by Leih-tsze, shows
“ The King of Tsai, returning from a journey,
came in sight of his capital from the northern hills and burst into tears,
saying, ‘ Beautiful, beautiful, is my royal city ! So stately and spacious,
yet I must leave it and die ! If I were to live for ever, I should never
wish to quit this place and go elsewhere.’ His courtiers wept with him,
saying, ‘ Our food and clothing, our chariots and horses, are poor com
pared with yours. Yet we, too, are unwilling to die, how much more
reason have you to dislike the prospect 1 ’ One among them, however, only
sniiW. The king, observing this, ceased to weep, and demanded of him
why he alone smiled when all the others sympathised with their master’s
grief? The philosopher replied: ‘If virtuous rulers never left their
thrones, T’ae Kung and Hwan Kung would be always reigning. If valiant
Tn An never died, Chong Kung and Ling Kung would constantly occupy
the royal seat. If these monarchs had not vacated the throne, you, my
prince, would to-day be clad in mats and tilling the ground. You owe
your occupancy of the throne to the mutations of life and death.
This same doctrine of fatalism rudely jostles against an Englishman’s
conceptions of providence in our next illustration. Listen to this.
“ Mr. Tien made a great feast in his hall, and sat down among a
thousand guests to the banquet. While the waiters were bringing in fish
and wild geese, Mr. Tien heaved a sigh and said, How generous is
Heaven to man I For our use the corn grows ; for us the waters yield fish,
and birds fly in the air.’ The guests re-echoed these sentiments; until
a boy of twelve years old stepped forth and said, ‘ Not so, my lord. All
things in heaven and earth live by the same right as ourselves. The
large prey upon the small; the strong and intelligent eat the stupid and
weak. It is not that they are made for each other. Man takes what is
eatable and eats it. Why should you think that Heaven produced things
for man’s sake ? Mosquitoes bite man’s skin, and tigers devour his flesh.
Did Heaven produce men for the mosquitoes and tigers ? ’ ”
Fate rules all ; or, since there can be no such conscious intelligence
in fate as the word “ rules ” suggests, all things are by fate. But this
conviction does not interfere with human activity, A considerable part of
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LEIH-TSZE.
Leih-tsze’s teaching is devoted to illustrate the power of mind over
matter. Laying hold of such facts as the immense superiority in feats of
skill, driving four-in-hand, swimming, rowing, archery, and music, and
handicrafts, which is attained by unremitting practice, concentrated atten
tion, utter fearlessness, and freedom from self-consciousness, our author
seems to push them to the extreme of believing that man may possibly
attain, by a still higher degree of abstraction, to an omnipotent command
over material forces. Many of his tales, which have the appearance of
extravagant credulity, may perhaps be intended to convey an allegorical
meaning. We read of men who could ride upon the wind, walk through
fire, over water, and even through solid rocks as through empty space.
These marvellous stories, perhaps, only clothe in fables the philosopher’s
conviction of the power of wisdom and virtue to render the soul independ
ent of the shocks and changes of external circumstances. These mystical
utterances, however, lack the clue needed for their interpretation, and we
are never sure whether Leih-tsze is credulous himself, or playing upon human
credulity, or veiling some subtle meaning under his marvellous narratives.
A few of these tales occupy a border-land between fact and fiction. Here
is one which embodies a notion common enough among ourselves, that
there is a wonderful power in faith, apart altogether from the reality of
what is believed. “ Tsze Wa was a favourite with the Prince of Tsun.
Those whom he patronised were ennobled ; those whom he spoke against
were degraded. Two guests of his on a journey passed the night at a
farm-house. The old farmer, by name Yau Hoi, overheard them con
versing about the power of life and death, riches and poverty, possessed
by Tsze Wa. The farmer, who was grievously poor, drank in all their
words, and on the morrow went into the city and found his way to Tsze
Wa’s door. Tsze Wa’s disciples were all men of good birth, used to dress
in silk and ride in carriages, to walk with a stately step, and look about
them with a lofty air. When they saw Yau Hoi, a weak old man with a
dirty face and untidy clothes, come into the school, they despised him,
and amused themselves by making game of him and pushing him about.
Yau Hoi exhibited no sign of anger. Presently Tsze Wa led them up to
the top of a lofty tower, and cried out, ‘ I’ll give a hundred pieces of silver
to any one who will throw himself down.’ All of them eagerly responded,
and Yau Hoi thinking they were sincere, determined to be first, and threw
himself over. He clave the air like a bird, and alighted upon the ground
without a broken bone. Tsze Wa thought he had escaped by chance. So
he again pointed to a deep pool in the river and said, 1 Down there is a
precious pearl: dive and you will get it.’ Yau Hoi again complied;
dived into the flood, and when he came up, he had really got a pearl.
The spectators then began to suspect something extraordinary ; and Tsze
Wa ordered that food and clothing should be prepared to present to him.
Suddenly a great fire was discovered in Tsze Wa’s treasury. Tsze Wa
exclaimed, ‘ If any one dare venture in, he shall have whatever treasure
he rescues as his reward.’ Yau Hoi entered calmly, and came out again
�LEIH-TSZE.
55
unsoiled and unhurt. Then every one thought he possessed a magic
charm. They crowded round to do him reverence, apologising for their
former rudeness, and begging for his secret. Yau Hoi said, ‘ I have no
secret. I myself do not know how it was done ; but I will try to recount
it to you. Last night Tsze Wa’s guests lodged at my house, and I over
heard them praising Tsze Wa’s power of life and death, riches and poverty,
nnd I perfectly believed it. When I came here, I took all your words to
be true, and only feared lest I should not perfectly trust them and act
them out. I was unconscious of my bodily frame, and knew no fear.
Now that I know you have deceived me, I tremble, and wonder at what I
have gone through. I consider myself lucky that I was not burnt or
drowned. Now I shake with fear, and I shall never dare to approach fire
or water again.’ From this time forward, if Tsze Wa’s pupils met a
beggar or a horse-dealer on the road, they did not dare to be rude to him,
but stopped and bowed.” This represents the power of faith as inherent
in itself. There is another view of faith which regards its efficacy as not
in itself, but in its appeal to a higher Power. Leih-tsze was no theist,
and he was so careless of the national objects of worship that they are
hardly alluded to in his pages. Yet he gives us a story which will convey
to many minds a meaning far beyond his own. “A stupid countryman,
ninety years of age, had his dwelling on the northern slope of a lofty
mountain-range, two hundred miles long and ten thousand cubits high.
One day he was struck with the thought that a road to the south was emi
nently desirable, so he called his family together and proposed to level
the precipices, and make a road through to the southern waters. His
wife remonstrated, hinting that the old man’s strength would not suffice to
demolish a hillock, let alone those great mountains. But the old man
was not daunted, and leading on his son and grandson, the three of them
began to pick and dig, and to carry away the stones and earth in baskets,
and an old widow sent her child of seven years old to help them. Winter
and summer they toiled away, and after a whole year seemed to be where
they began. A shrewd old grey-beard mocked their slow progress ; but
the stupid countryman replied with a sigh, ‘ Your heart is not so intelli
gent as that of this widow’s feeble child. Although I am old, and shall
die, I have a son, and he has a son; these will have children and grand
children. My posterity will go on multiplying without end, and the
mountain will not grow bigger. 'What is to prevent our levelling it ?/
The old man had nothing to say, but the spirit which presides over
snakes heard what was said, and fearing that the work would not stop,
reported the matter to God.
God was affected by their sincerity, and
commanded two genii to remove the mountains, shifting one to the east,
and another to the south, so as to open a pass to the river Han.”
In that last reference to God, Leih-tsze does but for a moment borrow
the language of the ancient creed which he usually lost sight of in his
speculations. On the subject of immortality he seems to have speculated
much, and at times to have indulged some faint hope of existence beyond
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LEItl-TSZE.
the range of present vision. “ Once on a journey he sat down with a
group of his disciples to take a meal by the road-side. One of the
company saw a skull, bleached with age, half hidden by the grass; he
pulled the long grass aside and pointed to it. Leih-tsze said to his disciple
Pak-fung, ‘ Only he and I know, and are independent of life and death.’ ”
But his utterances on this are indistinct, and rather point to an absorption
into an infinite substance than continued conscious individuality. “ The
living, according to nature, must end. The pure spirit-essence is
Heaven’s part, the bodily framework is Earth’s part. When the spirit
essence leaves the form, both return to their true state. From birth to
death man has four great changes, childhood, youth, old age, and death.
In childhood his physical nature is simple, and his will is not divided,
which is the perfection of harmony. External things cannot injure him,
and his virtue is complete. In manhood his passions change like the
wind and overflow like a flood. His desires and anxieties arise in abund
ance. External things fight against him, therefore his virtue declines.
In old age his desires and anxieties become feeble, and his body is near
its rest. External things do not occupy the first place. Although it does
not reach the completeness of childhood, it is superior to middle age. In
death he attains to rest, and returns to its extreme limit.” The Taouist
philosophers are never tired of aiming a blow at Confucianism, and thus
the great sage is made to figure sometimes in ridiculous situations. In
the next extracts there is probably a covert attack on the melancholy
which overshadowed the life of Confucius, and wrapt his end in gloom.
“ Confucius roaming about the Tai mountain, saw Wing K’ai Ki walking
in the fields, dressed in a deer-hide, with a bit of rope for his girdle,
striking his guitar and singing. He asked him, ‘ Sir, what makes you so
joyful ? ’ K’ai Ki replied, ‘ I have many reasons for joy. Of all things
Heaven has made, human beings are most noble, and I have been made a
human being; that is one reason for joy. Men are more honourable
than women, and I was made a man ; this is a second cause for joy.
Some men are born and die before they are out of the nurse’s arms, but I
have gone along for ninety years ; that is a third cause for joy. Scholars
are always poor, and death is the end of man. Why should I regret
being as others and coming to my end ? ’ Confucius exclaimed, ‘ Capital 1
you know how to be magnanimous.’ ” Another of these refreshingly
contented spirits meets us in the following :—“ LamLu, when a hundred
years old, was gleaning in his patrimonial fields, clad only in a sheep
skin, and he sang as he went along. Confucius saw him from a distance,
and said to his disciples, ‘ That old man is worth speaking to, go and
question him.’ Tsze Kung requested leave to go. Encountering him on
a hillock, he looked him m the face, sighed, and said, ‘ Sir, have you not
yet any regrets that you go on singing as you glean ? ’ Lam Lil neither
stopped walking nor singing. Tsze Kung kept on asking, until he looked
up, and replied, ‘ What should I regret ? ’ Tsze Kung said, ‘ In youth you
failed in diligence, in manhood you did not struggle with the times,
�57
LEIH-TSZE.
now you are old you have neither wife nor child; death’s appointed
day is near; what occasions for joy can you have that you should
sing as you glean ? ’ Lam Lu smiled and said, ‘ All men share in
my causes for joy; but they, on the contrary, take them for sorrows ;
because when I was young I did not work hard, and in my manhood
I did not struggle with the times, therefore I have attained to this green
old age. Now I am old, because I have neither wife nor child, and
death’s appointed day is near, therefore I rejoice like this.’ Tsze Kung
replied, ‘ It is natural to man to love long life and to dislike death;
how is it that you take death to be a cause for joy ? ’ Lam Lil said,
‘ Death and life are but a going forth and a returning, therefore when I
die here, how do I know that I shall not live there ? And how do I know
that planning and craving for life is not a mistake ? Also, how know I
that for me to die now is not better than all my previous life ? ’ Tsze
Kung heard, but did not understand what he meant; so he went back and
told the Master. The Master said, ‘ I knew he was worth speaking to,
and so it has proved. But though he has got hold of the thing, he has
not got to the bottom of it.’ ”
Live without care, die without fear; such was our author’s philosophy
of life. When we compare his ethical teaching with that of his great
predecessor Laou-tsze, five or six generations before, we are struck with
the marked degeneracy of his moral tone. In his Taou Teh King, the
founder of the Taouist sect, despite his sphinx-like style, impresses us
with a sense of his profound moral earnestness. Though Laou-tsze dis
sented altogether from the Confucian system, nevertheless we see in him
an eager yearning for perfection, a pensive sadness in the contemplation
of human follies and crimes, a positive inculcation of personal virtue,
which draw out our hearts towards “ the old philosopher.” Confucius
was the stern practical reformer like Calvin, whom we rather admire than
love ; while Laou-tsze possesses the attractive power of the mystic Tauler.
It would be utterly unjust to attribute to the founder of Taouism the
moral aberrations of his successors, even though we can detect in his
teachings the germ of the subsequent evil development. For if we can
detect it, he could not, and we cannot doubt that his devotion to virtue
was as sincere as his conception of it was beautiful. If called upon to
express the guiding principle of his moral teachings by one word, we
shall not be exalting it above its intrinsic merits by choosing that noblest
of words, self-abnegation. Not that he in the dim light of heathenism
could see all that that word now implies to us in the clear light of our
Christianity. The passive side of self-abnegation was more evident to
him than the active. But amid the confused noises of a distracted world,
the shock of battles, the intrigues of courts, the restless contentions for
honour and advancement of the officials and scholars, the fierce pursuit of
wealth by the merchants and artizans, Laou-tsze distinctly heard a still
small voice, summoning him, and through him mankind, to the calm serenity
of a life freed from selfish desires, devoid of covetousness, envy, and ambiVOL. XXX.—NO. 175.
4.
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LEIH-TSZE.
tion, strong in acknowledged weakness, and victorious over pride and
violence by the might of meekness and humility. To him the type of
perfect goodness was water; “ water which is good to benefit all things,
while it does not strive, but runs to the place which all men disdain.”
The defects of his conception are manifest to us, though while yet untested
by experience he may well have failed to perceive them. He disliked
political reformers, because in them self-exaltation mingled with their
desire to reform the world. He disliked preachers of morality, because
their labours were an indication of, in a sense, the result of, the loss of
morality. He disliked an artificial state of society, because it abounded
in temptations to pride, covetousness, and deceit. This antagonism to
effort, led him into the extreme of depreciating even effort for self-improve
ment. He appeared to entertain a vague hope that if men would only let
themselves alone, strive for nothing, not even for goodness, the great Taou,
that ineffable, inexplicable something, too mysterious to have even a name,
would itself flow through the channels of the human heart, and bear the
life along in the right direction. With all this exaggeration of his favourite
precept “ do nothing,” his own personal attachment to virtue was sincere
and supreme ; and doubtless, while he continued to influence his own
philosophy, this loyalty to virtue endured among his followers.
Leih-tsze lived near two centuries later, and in his teachings the
earnest moral purpose of Taouism has given place to a licentious indifferentism. Here and there, indeed, we come across some lingering echoes
of the traditional admiration for meekness and humility, but for the most
part the philosopher is so lost in contemplation of the mystery of existence
that he has not a spare thought left for these particular phenomena, virtue
and vice. He is much more interested in the question whether man may
not, by the power of abstract contemplation, penetrate into the secret of
existence, and gain a superhuman control over natural forces. He still
holds theoretically that the riches, power, and fame of the world are all
delusive appearances, and that to be free from appetites, and passions,
and self-assertion, is “the path;” but he -has ceased to entertain the
slightest hope that out of this doctrine will ever come a moral renovation
of the world. Indeed, he suspects now that the distinctions of virtue and
vice are themselves but delusive imaginations, as much as the pomps and
vanities of life which his leader eschewed. One can hardly read the
following specimens of his teaching without a shudder of disgust:—
“ Tsze Ch‘an * became Prime Minister of Ch'ing, and had sole authority
in the Government. Within three years he brought the whole kingdom
into a state of order. The good gladly submitted to his sway, and the
bad obeyed his laws from fear. But his own brothers, Ch‘iu and Muk,
were addicted to vicious pleasures ; Ch‘iu loved wine, and Muk loved
women. A thousand jars of wine stood in Ch‘iu’s cellar, and heaps of
grain in his barns. When one passed his door at the distance of a
hundred paces, the smell of distillation filled the nostrils. In his drink
* A disciple of Confucius, and one of his personal attendants.
�LEIH-TSZE.
59
ing bouts Ch'iu forgot politics and morals, riches and poverty, friends
and relatives, care of life and fear of death. Although the house were on
fire, or swords clashing in his very face, he would know nothing about it.
In Muk’s harem were scores of concubines, selected for their youth and
beauty; and at times he would shut himself in the inner apartments for
three months together, not at home to his nearest relative or dearest
friend. His emissaries haunted the whole country-side in search for
lovely maidens, whom gold might tempt to enter his harem. Tsze Ch‘an
grieved over his brothers’ ill-conduct night and day, and at last secretly
consulted Tang Sik about it. ‘ I have heard,’ said he, ‘ that a man
must first of all regulate himself, next his family, and then the kingdom,
proceeding from the near to the distant. Now I have brought the
kingdom under government, but my own family is disorderly; this is
contrary to “ the path.” Tell me, I pray you, how I may save my brothers.’
Tang Sik replied, ‘ I have been wondering at it for a long time, but was
afraid to speak about it. Why, sir, do you not find some opportunity of
instructing them in the importance of following one’s (moral) nature, and
according with (Heaven’s) decree, and also of alluring them by setting
before them the high esteem which attends upon the practice of propriety
and righteousness ? ’
“ Tsze Ch'an took Tang Sik’s advice, and went to visit his brothers;
and began his instructions by saying, ‘ Man’s superiority to the brutes con
sists in intelligence and forethought. Intelligence and forethought produce
the rules of propriety and righteousness. Propriety and righteousness
lead to fame and office. If you act upon the incentives of your passions,
and abandon yourselves to wine and lust, you imperil your own lives.
Listen to a brother’s words, and if you repent in the morning, before
night you shall receive a government appointment.’ Ch‘iu and Muk
replied, ‘ Long ago we attained to knowledge, and made our choice; do
you suppose we waited for you to come and teach us before we could un
derstand ? Life is not easy to get, but death comes of itself. Who
would think of wasting a life so hard to get, by spending it in watching for
a death which comes so easily ? And as to caring for proprieties and
righteousness, in order that we may brag over others, and doing violence
to our own natures, in order to win an empty name, in our view this
would be worse than death itself. All we wish is to exhaust the joys of
life, and seize the pleasure of the present moment. Our only grief is that
our physical capacity for pleasure is so small, we have no leisure to sorrow
over loss of reputation or danger to life. If you are so puffed up by your
political success, as to think of leading our minds astray by the seductions
of glory and official salary, we think it mean of you and pitiable. Now
we will tell you the difference. External government, however clever, is
not certain of success, and inflicts suffering upon people. Internal go
vernment never leads to disorder, and men joyfully conform to nature.
Your external government barely gets a temporary success in one small
kingdom, and after all does not accord with the hearts of the people. Our
4—2
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LEIH-TSZE.
internal government may be applied to the whole world, and then kings
and statesmen will have no more to do. We have long been wishing to
teach you our doctrine, and do you on the contrary bring your doctrine to
teach us ! ’ Tsze Ch'an was dumfoundered, and departed without a word.
Next day he reported the interview to Tang Sik. Tang Sik said, ‘ You,
sir, have been living with perfect sages, and you did not know it. Who
will say that you are wise ? The good order of the kingdom is an
accidental circumstance, not to be imputed as merit to you.’ ”
This licentious creed was the deliberate choice of Taouism ; though of
course Taouists used to the full our grand human liberty of inconsistency,
and by no means carried out their principle either to its full logical or
practical consequences. Still it remains a fact, that for a space, if only a
brief space, philosophy in China rejected morality, and exalted licentious
ness to the dignity of a religion. As a natural result Taouism rapidly de
generated, and at the same time lost its hold upon the people. If in their
lifetime Laou-tsze held his banner of spontaneity bravely aloft, and Confu
cius waged a desperate but hardly equal strife under the standard of rigid
self-discipline, the two teachers were in their hearts fighting on the same
side, to reclaim a lost world to truth and virtue. But while the Confucianists remained staunch to this double object of pursuit, truth and
virtue, the Taouists thought they perceived an inconsistency between
them, and chose truth rather than virtue. The complete victory of Con
fucianism along the whole line is a fact worthy of our consideration.
Confucius was the prophet of conscience, not only grasping tenaciously
the truth of the moral supremacy of conscience, but believing most
devoutly in its divine origin, and his own divine mission to defend its
rights, and also that there could not be salvation for humanity except in
obedience to its behests. In his lifetime he fought an Ishpaaelitish con
flict, a guerilla warfare for his sacred faith. Every man’s hand seemed
against him, apd it was as much as he could do to live with his principles,
though the life of a wanderer from one city to another, from one kingdom
to another people. After his death his disciples fought for his truth like
soldiers combating desperately over the corpse of their dead leader, and
still for generations the battle seemed to hang in the balance. But at last
the victory was achieved, and it was final and glorious. Conscience
proved its own supremacy, by putting these doctrines of natural licence to
disgraceful rout. Now, and for these thousand years and more, that be
wildering attempt of Leih-tsze’s to confuse the distinctions between right
and wrong has seemed as strange and unnatural to the Chinese mind as
it seems to our own. The sect continued, but as a small minority of the
nation, a minority given over to idolatry, superstitious arts, magic,
alchemy, the philosopher’s stone, and the elixir of life. But the name of
Taou has never lost its potency in China, and for centuries it has been
united with Confucianism and Buddhism as a member of the trinity of
philosophies. At the parting of the ways, whei’e the doctrine of nature
and spontaneous life diverged from the doctrine of virtue and stern self
�LEIH-TSZE.
61
discipline, the nation bade farewell to the dreamy mysticism of Laou-tsze,
to follow the banner of Confuciu's and conscience. Yet a memory of the
sweetness and serenity of those earlier musings lingered long in the
national mind, preserving the ancient doctors of Taou from oblivion and
their writings from contempt. They appealed to our nature on one side,
and they had glimpses of one side of truth also, and although we rejoice
in the clear victory of the teacher of righteousness and benevolence, as a
notable instance of the survival of the fittest in the mutual struggle for
life of the philosophies, we acknowledge that the far-off echoes of ancient
Taou sound a note, an under-tone of which can be detected in many
quarters, even in our modern Christian England.
There is a vein of humour in Leih-tsze which enlivens with a genial
light some of his shrewd observations of human nature ; and though he
fails to smite at vice with the trenchant blade of moral faith, he manifests
a visionary longing for a happier state in which vice is not. With a few
extracts illustrative of these traits, we will close this notice of him.
‘ ‘ In the state of Ki there was a man who was anxious lest heaven and
earth should fall to pieces and he have no place to lodge his body in. He
could neither eat nor sleep from anxiety. And there was another who
was anxious about his distress and went to enlighten him. ‘ The heaven
gathers air,’ he said, ‘ and there is no place which is not full of air: sun,
moon, and stars are only collected air which contains light; even if they
could fall they would do no harm.’ His pupil said, ‘ Suppose the earth
should break, what then ? ’ ‘ The Earth,’ replied his mentor, ‘ is an ac
cumulation of clods, packed close together on all sides. You may go
about the whole day treading and trampling on the earth without any fear
of its breaking.’ His hearer rejoiced like a released prisoner, and the
teacher rejoiced in sympathy with him. But Chang Lo heard it and said
with a smile : ‘ Rainbows and clouds, wind and rain, sky and mountains,
seas and rivers, metals and stones, fire and wood, are all but forms of
matter in combination. Who says they will not be destroyed ? A little
thing like man in the midst of the vast universe may think it
indestructible, and to trouble ourselves about such a remote contingency
is needless. But heaven and earth will inevitably be destroyed, and if
you encountered that time, how could you help being anxious ? ’ Leih-tsze
heard and smiled, saying : ‘ It is equally erroneous to say that the universe
will be destroyed, and to say that it will not be destroyed. We are
unable to determine it either way. Life does not know death, and death
does not know life. Why should I trouble my mind about the permanency
of the universe ? ’ ”
“ Yang Choo was travelling through Sung, and came to an inn. The
inn-keeper had two wives, one of whom was pretty and the other was
ugly. He esteemed the ugly one and slighted the pretty one. Yang Choo
asked the reason. The inn-keeper replied : ‘ That pretty one thinks herself
pretty, but I do not perceive her beauty. The ugly one thinks herself
ugly, but I do not perceive her lack of comeliness.’ Yang Choo said to
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LEIH-TSZE.
his disciples : ‘ Remember this; if you act virtuously without attributing
the merit of it to yourself, where will you go without being loved ? ’ ”
“ When the great Yu was regulating the waters, one day he lost his
way, and wandered into a country on the northern shore of the North
Sea, he knew not how many times ten thousand miles from China. In *
that land was neither wind nor rain, frost nor dew, nor did he meet with
any kinds of animal or vegetable life. On all sides the ground was per
fectly smooth, only gently rising in elevation in the centre. A vase-shaped
mountain rose in the middle of that country, with a circular orifice on
the summit, from which a fountain issued, called the spiritual fountain.
Its fragrance was sweeter than rose-gardens or cinnamon groves, and its
taste was more exquisite than that of the finest wine. From one source it
divided into four channels and flowed down the mountain, meandering
through the whole land and watering every corner of it. The climate was
serene, perfectly free from malaria. The people who lived there were of a
gentle disposition and in harmony with their external circumstances. No
strife nor violence marred their peace. Their hearts were tender and their
frames were soft. They were innocent of pride and envy. Old and
young dwelt together, and they had neither prince nor official among
them. Men and women wandered about in company, and they employed
no match-makers, sent no marriage presents. They dwelt on the banks of
the stream, and needed not to plough and sow. The climate was so
genial that they did not weave nor wear clothes. They lived to be a
hundred years old; premature death and disease being unknown among
them. The population was always increasing, till it was innumerable ;
and enjoyed perpetual felicity, ignorant of decay, old age, grief and
hardship. Delighting in music, the voices joining harmoniously in song,,
ceased not throughout the day. If hungry or weary they drank of the
spiritual fountain and their strength and spirits were restored to their
normal condition. Too deep a draught intoxicated, and then they slept
for a week without waking. When they bathed in the spiritual fountain
their skin became glossy and the fragrance exhaled for a week. When
King Muh of Chau entered that kingdom he tarried there for three years
without a thought of home. On his return to his royal palace he was
plunged in profound melancholy, refused food and wine, and all the
delights of his harem, and several months passed before he recovered.”
“ A man in the East, while on a journey, was reduced by starvation,
and lay dying by the road-side. A celebrated highwayman passed that
way, and, pitying him, dismounted, and put a bottle to his lips. After
three sucks the dying man revived, and opened his eyes. Seeing his
deliverer bending over him, he inquired his name, and being told, ex
claimed, ‘ Are not you the famous robber ? What induced you to give
me drink ? I am an honest man, and cannot receive food from you.’
Thereupon he beat the ground with his arms and tried to vomit, gasped
and gurgled in his throat, fell back, and expired. But if the man was a
robber, his drink had not committed theft. How strangely men confuse
�LEIH-TSZE.
63
**
things.
This is a satire upon certain well-known anecdotes of Confucian
worthies, whose unbending scrupulousness appeared ridiculous to our
Taouist believer in non-resistance to the universal life-stream of nature.
“ A neighbour of Yang Choo lost a sheep, and calling upon the
villagers to go in search of it, he asked the assistance of Yang Choo’s
servant also. Yang Choo inquired why so many persons were needed to
seek for a single sheep. His neighbour said, ‘ Because the roads and by
paths are many.’ When they returned, he asked if the sheep had been
found. ‘ No, it is lost,’ they answered. ‘ How lost ? ’ he demanded.
‘ The bypaths branch out into other bypaths, and we could not pos
sibly tell which way it had gone, so we returned.’ A shade of sadness
fell upon Yang Choo’s countenance ; for a long time he did not speak,
and he did not smile again that day. His disciples marvelled, and
requested an explanation. 1 The sheep was not a valuable animal, and it
did not belong to you; why should it cloud over your happiness like
this ? ’ Yang Choo returned no answer. Discussing it among them
selves, one of them said, ‘ The great path divides into many by
paths, and many sheep are lost therein.. How is it that you sit in the
master’s school, and have not yet learned to interpret the master’s
meaning ? ’ ”
“ Yang Choo’s younger brother went out for a walk in a suit of
white silk, but rain coming on, he borrowed a black cloak to return in.
When he reached the door, his dog came out and barked at him. The
young man was provoked, and raised his hand to strike the dog. Yang
Choo said, ‘ Do not beat him; you are no better yourself. Suppose
your dog went out white, and came back black, would it not startle
you ? ’ ”
“ One new year’s day, the people of Ham Tan presented a number of
pigeons to their lord. He was very pleased, and liberally rewarded them.
A guest of his inquired the reason. ‘ This is new year’s day,’ he said,
‘ and I shall set them all at liberty to fly back to the woods, and
so express the good-will of my heart to all living things.’ His guest
replied, ‘ The people are aware of your intention to release the birds, and
therefore they entrap and catch them, and many are killed in their
attempts. If you wish to keep them alive, the better way would be to
prohibit catching them.’ ”
“A man who had lost his axe, suspected his neighbour’s son. He
watched him, and said to himself, ‘ He is the thief; he has the gait of a
thief, the face of a thief, the voice of a thief; everything in his appearance
and behaviour says as plainly as possible that he has stolen the axe.’
But happening one day to find the axe in his own garden, when he next
met his neighbour’s son, there was nothing whatever in his looks or
behaviour which could lead one to suspect him to be a thief.”
“ Confucius, on a journey, saw two children disputing, and asked the
reason. One of the lads said, ‘1 say that the rising sun is near us, and
at noon it is far off.’ The other said, ‘ No, the sun is far off at dawn, but
�64
LEIH-TSZE.
near at mid-day.’ The first said, 1 Why, when the sun rises it is as large
as a chariot-wheel, but in the middle of the day it is no larger than
a plate ; is it not small when at a distance, and large when it is near ? ’
The other said, ‘ When the sun first rises, its rays are mild and genial;
but at noon it is blazing hot. Surely it is hotter when near, and cooler
when afar.
Confucius could not decide the point. The two children
smiled and said, ‘ Who will say that you know much ? ’ ”
The English reader may be disposed to think that in this respect there
is not much to choose between Confucius and Leih-tsze and all the rest
of China s boasted sages. They lived before the Baconian philosophy;
and a clever boy from one of our primary schools could instruct them in
the exact sciences. But unless, in the progress of human evolution,
man develops into a being very different from what he always has been,
the subject-matter of Taouistic speculation will continue to possess
intensest interest and unrivalled practical importance for mankind. Our
meditations upon the whence and the whither may fail to lead to those
definite and clear conclusions which science craves, but they exert a
momentous influence upon the formation of a practical rule of life. One
does not need to go far in modern literature in order to detect an order of
thought which is strictly parallel to that naturalistic philosophy of which
Leih-tsze is a representative. Those old Chinese thinkers were but
following a tendency in human nature, which exists in us still; and
it can do us no harm to learn whither it led them, and what it ended in.
Happily we have a sure confidence that, as nobler instincts and loftier
aspirations prevailed in the far East, leaving this indolent epicurean
philosophy to lose itself in the ignominious quagmire of absurd and
degrading superstition, so the philosophy of conscience and duty, of effort
and conflict, will prevail, and must prevail in the long run, however for a
time men may seem to lose heart and long for the land of the lotos
eaters.
F. S. T.
�
Dublin Core
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Title
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Victorian Blogging
Description
An account of the resource
A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
Creator
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Conway Hall Library & Archives
Date
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2018
Publisher
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Conway Hall Ethical Society
Text
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text.
Original Format
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Pamphlet
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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Leih-tsze
Creator
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Storrs-Turner, Frederick
Description
An account of the resource
Place of publication: [London]
Collation: [44]-64 p. ; 23 cm.
Notes: From the library of Dr Moncure Conway. Article signed F.S.T. The Reverend Frederick Storrs-Turner was a British clergyman and campaigner against the opium trade. From the Cornhill Magazine 30 (July 1874). Full name of author, magazine title and issue number from Wellesley Index to Victorian Periodicals, 1824-1900.
Publisher
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[Smith, Elder & Co.]
Date
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[1874]
Identifier
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G5346
Subject
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China
Opium
Rights
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<a href="http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/"><img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /></a><span> </span><br /><span>This work (Leih-tsze), identified by </span><a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk"><span>Humanist Library and Archives</span></a><span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</span>
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application/pdf
Type
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Text
Language
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English
China
Conway Tracts
Leih-Tsze