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Romanised transliteration as printed by the translator, not the original script. This is what we hold.
1BRIEF NOTICES OF THE DIFFERENT BOOKS. 155 stop where they do not really know, and not try to find it in any phenomenon, or in any event or thing. They must forget both speech and silence, and then they may approximate to the idea of the Great Tao.’ Book XXVI. WAr WO. The first two characters of the first paragraph are again adopted as the title of the Book,—WaAai W4, ‘ External Things ;’ and the lesson supposed to be taught in it is that expressed in the first sentence, that the influence of external things on character and condition cannot be determined beforehand. It may be good, it may be evil. Mr. Balfour has translated the two characters by ‘External Advantages.’ Ha WAn-ying interprets them of ‘External Disadvantages.’ The things may in fact be either of these. What seems useless may be productive of the greatest services; and what men deem most advantageous may turn out to be most hurtful to them. What really belongs to man is the Tao. That is his own, sufficient for his happiness, and cannot be taken from him, if he prize it and cultivate it. But if he neglect it, and yield to external influences unfavourable to it, he may become bad, and suffer all that is most hateful to him and injurious. Readers must judge for themselves of the way in which the subject is illustrated in the various paragraphs. Some of the stories are pertinent enough; others are wide of the mark. The second, third, and fourth paragraphs are generally held to be spurious, ‘ poor in composition, and not at all to the point.’ If my note on the ‘ six faculties of perception’ in par. 9 be correct, we must admit in it a Buddhistic hand, modifying the conceptions of Awang-jze after he had passed away. Book XXVII. YU YEN. Yii Yen, ‘ Metaphorical Words,’ stand at the commencement of the Book, and have been adopted as its name. 156 THE TEXTS OF TAOISM. BK, XXVIII. They might be employed to denote its first paragraph, but are not applicable to the Book as a whole. Nor let the reader expect to find even here any disquisition on the nature of the metaphor as a figure of speech. Translated literally, “Yii Yen’ are ‘Lodged Words,’ that is, Ideas that receive their meaning or character from their environment, the narrative or description in which they are deposited. Kwang-3ze wished, I suppose, to give some description of the style in which he himself wrote :—now metaphorical, now abounding in quotations, and throughout moulded by his Taoistic views. This last seems to be the meaning of his Kih Yen,—literally, ‘Cup, or Goblet, Words,’ that is, words, common as the water constantly supplied in the cup, but all moulded by the TAoist principle, the element of and from Heaven blended in man’s constitution and that should direct and guide his conduct. The best help in the interpretation of the paragraph is derived from a study of the difficult second Book, as suggested in the notes.
2The best help in the interpretation of the paragraph is derived from a study of the difficult second Book, as suggested in the notes. Of the five paragraphs that follow the first, the second relates to the change of views, which, it is said, took place in Confucius ; the third, to the change of feeling in 3ang-jze in his poverty and prosperity; the fourth, to changes of character produced in his disciple by the teachings of Tungkwo 3ze-A/i; the fifth, to the changes in the appearance of the shadow produced by the ever-changing substance ; and the sixth, to the change of spirit and manner produced in Yang K4 by the stern lesson of Lao-3ze. Various other lessons, more or less appropriate and important, are interspersed. Some critics argue that this Book must have originally been one with the thirty-second, which was made into two by the insertion between its Parts of the four spurious intervening Books, but this is uncertain and unlikely. Book XXVIII. ZANG WANG. Zang Wang, explaining the characters as I have done, BK, XXIX. BRIEF NOTICES OF THE DIFFERENT BOOKS. 157 fairly indicates the subject-matter of the Book. Not that we have a king in every illustration, but the personages adduced are always men of worth, who decline the throne, or gift, or distinction of whatever nature, proffered to them, and feel that they have something better to live for. A persuasion, however, is widely spread, that this Book and the three that follow are all spurious. The first critic of note to challenge their genuineness was SQ Shih (better known as Si Tung-pho, A.D. 1036-1101); and now, some of the best editors, such as Lin Hst-fung, do not admit them into their texts, while others who are not bold enough to exclude them altogether, do not think it worth their while to discuss them seriously. Hi Wan-ying, for instance, says, ‘ Their style is poor and mean, and they are, without doubt, forgeries. I will not therefore trouble myself with comments of praise or blame upon them. The reader may accept or reject them at his pleasure.’ But something may be said for them. Sze-ma Kien seems to have been acquainted with them all. In his short biographical notice of Kwang-ze, he says, ‘He made the Old Fisherman, the Robber Xih, and the Cutting Open Satchels, to defame and calumniate the disciples of Confucius. Asien does not indeed mention our present Book along with XXX and XXXI, but it is less open to objection on the ground he mentions than they are. I think if it had stood alone, it would not have been condemned. Book XXIX. TAo AIH.
3Asien does not indeed mention our present Book along with XXX and XXXI, but it is less open to objection on the ground he mentions than they are. I think if it had stood alone, it would not have been condemned. Book XXIX. TAo AIH. It has been seen above that Sze-m4 X4ien expressly ascribes the Book called ‘the Robber Kih’ to Kwangyze. Khien refers also in another place to Kih, adducing the facts of his history in contrast with those about Confucius’ favourite disciple Yen Hui as inexplicable on the supposition of a just and wise Providence. We must conclude therefore that the Book existed in K4ien’s time, and that he had read it. On the other hand it has been shown that Confucius could not have been on terms 158 THE TEXTS OF TAOISM. BK. XXX. of friendship with Lid-hsia Xi, and all that is related of his brother the robber wants substantiation. That such a man ever existed appears to me very doubtful. Are we to put down the whole of the first paragraph then as a jeu desprit on the part of Awang-3ze, intended to throw ridicule on Confucius and what our author considered his pedantic ways? It certainly does so, and we are amused to hear the sage outcrowed by the robber. In the other two paragraphs we have good instances of Kwang-jze’s ‘metaphorical expressions, his coinage of names for his personages, more or less ingeniously indicating their characters; but in such cases the element of time or chronology does not enter ; and it is the anachronism of the first paragraph which constitutes its chief difficulty. The name of ‘ Robber Xih’ may be said to bea coinage ; and that a famous robber was popularly indicated by the name appears from its use by Mencius (III, ii, ch. 10, 3), to explain which the commentators have invented the story of a robber so-called in the time of Hwang-Ti, in the twentyseventh century B.C.! Was there really such a legend? and did A wang-3ze take advantage of it to apply the name to a notorious and disreputable brother of Lid-hsia Ki? Still there remain the anachronisms in the paragraph which have been pointed out. On the whole we must come to a conclusion rather unfavourable to the genuineness of the Book. But it must have been forged at a very early time, and we have no idea by whom. Book XXX. YUEH KIEN. We need not suppose that anything ever occurred in Kwang-3ze’s experience such as is described here. The whole narrative is metaphorical; and that he himself is made to play the part in it which he describes, only shows how the style of writing in which he indulged was ingrained into the texture of his mind. We do not know that there ever was a ruler of K4o who indulged in the love of the BK, XXXI. BRIEF NOTICES OF THE DIFFERENT BOOKS. 159
The source text as printed, transcribed diplomatically. Where the source language uses a non-Latin script that reaches us only through a Victorian romanisation, this layer is labelled transliteration, because that is what we hold.
Romanised transliteration as printed by the translator, not the original script. This is what we hold.
1BRIEF NOTICES OF THE DIFFERENT BOOKS. 155 stop where they do not really know, and not try to find it in any phenomenon, or in any event or thing. They must forget both speech and silence, and then they may approximate to the idea of the Great Tao.’ Book XXVI. WAr WO. The first two characters of the first paragraph are again adopted as the title of the Book,—WaAai W4, ‘ External Things ;’ and the lesson supposed to be taught in it is that expressed in the first sentence, that the influence of external things on character and condition cannot be determined beforehand. It may be good, it may be evil. Mr. Balfour has translated the two characters by ‘External Advantages.’ Ha WAn-ying interprets them of ‘External Disadvantages.’ The things may in fact be either of these. What seems useless may be productive of the greatest services; and what men deem most advantageous may turn out to be most hurtful to them. What really belongs to man is the Tao. That is his own, sufficient for his happiness, and cannot be taken from him, if he prize it and cultivate it. But if he neglect it, and yield to external influences unfavourable to it, he may become bad, and suffer all that is most hateful to him and injurious. Readers must judge for themselves of the way in which the subject is illustrated in the various paragraphs. Some of the stories are pertinent enough; others are wide of the mark. The second, third, and fourth paragraphs are generally held to be spurious, ‘ poor in composition, and not at all to the point.’ If my note on the ‘ six faculties of perception’ in par. 9 be correct, we must admit in it a Buddhistic hand, modifying the conceptions of Awang-jze after he had passed away. Book XXVII. YU YEN. Yii Yen, ‘ Metaphorical Words,’ stand at the commencement of the Book, and have been adopted as its name. 156 THE TEXTS OF TAOISM. BK, XXVIII. They might be employed to denote its first paragraph, but are not applicable to the Book as a whole. Nor let the reader expect to find even here any disquisition on the nature of the metaphor as a figure of speech. Translated literally, “Yii Yen’ are ‘Lodged Words,’ that is, Ideas that receive their meaning or character from their environment, the narrative or description in which they are deposited. Kwang-3ze wished, I suppose, to give some description of the style in which he himself wrote :—now metaphorical, now abounding in quotations, and throughout moulded by his Taoistic views. This last seems to be the meaning of his Kih Yen,—literally, ‘Cup, or Goblet, Words,’ that is, words, common as the water constantly supplied in the cup, but all moulded by the TAoist principle, the element of and from Heaven blended in man’s constitution and that should direct and guide his conduct. The best help in the interpretation of the paragraph is derived from a study of the difficult second Book, as suggested in the notes.
2The best help in the interpretation of the paragraph is derived from a study of the difficult second Book, as suggested in the notes. Of the five paragraphs that follow the first, the second relates to the change of views, which, it is said, took place in Confucius ; the third, to the change of feeling in 3ang-jze in his poverty and prosperity; the fourth, to changes of character produced in his disciple by the teachings of Tungkwo 3ze-A/i; the fifth, to the changes in the appearance of the shadow produced by the ever-changing substance ; and the sixth, to the change of spirit and manner produced in Yang K4 by the stern lesson of Lao-3ze. Various other lessons, more or less appropriate and important, are interspersed. Some critics argue that this Book must have originally been one with the thirty-second, which was made into two by the insertion between its Parts of the four spurious intervening Books, but this is uncertain and unlikely. Book XXVIII. ZANG WANG. Zang Wang, explaining the characters as I have done, BK, XXIX. BRIEF NOTICES OF THE DIFFERENT BOOKS. 157 fairly indicates the subject-matter of the Book. Not that we have a king in every illustration, but the personages adduced are always men of worth, who decline the throne, or gift, or distinction of whatever nature, proffered to them, and feel that they have something better to live for. A persuasion, however, is widely spread, that this Book and the three that follow are all spurious. The first critic of note to challenge their genuineness was SQ Shih (better known as Si Tung-pho, A.D. 1036-1101); and now, some of the best editors, such as Lin Hst-fung, do not admit them into their texts, while others who are not bold enough to exclude them altogether, do not think it worth their while to discuss them seriously. Hi Wan-ying, for instance, says, ‘ Their style is poor and mean, and they are, without doubt, forgeries. I will not therefore trouble myself with comments of praise or blame upon them. The reader may accept or reject them at his pleasure.’ But something may be said for them. Sze-ma Kien seems to have been acquainted with them all. In his short biographical notice of Kwang-ze, he says, ‘He made the Old Fisherman, the Robber Xih, and the Cutting Open Satchels, to defame and calumniate the disciples of Confucius. Asien does not indeed mention our present Book along with XXX and XXXI, but it is less open to objection on the ground he mentions than they are. I think if it had stood alone, it would not have been condemned. Book XXIX. TAo AIH.
3Asien does not indeed mention our present Book along with XXX and XXXI, but it is less open to objection on the ground he mentions than they are. I think if it had stood alone, it would not have been condemned. Book XXIX. TAo AIH. It has been seen above that Sze-m4 X4ien expressly ascribes the Book called ‘the Robber Kih’ to Kwangyze. Khien refers also in another place to Kih, adducing the facts of his history in contrast with those about Confucius’ favourite disciple Yen Hui as inexplicable on the supposition of a just and wise Providence. We must conclude therefore that the Book existed in K4ien’s time, and that he had read it. On the other hand it has been shown that Confucius could not have been on terms 158 THE TEXTS OF TAOISM. BK. XXX. of friendship with Lid-hsia Xi, and all that is related of his brother the robber wants substantiation. That such a man ever existed appears to me very doubtful. Are we to put down the whole of the first paragraph then as a jeu desprit on the part of Awang-3ze, intended to throw ridicule on Confucius and what our author considered his pedantic ways? It certainly does so, and we are amused to hear the sage outcrowed by the robber. In the other two paragraphs we have good instances of Kwang-jze’s ‘metaphorical expressions, his coinage of names for his personages, more or less ingeniously indicating their characters; but in such cases the element of time or chronology does not enter ; and it is the anachronism of the first paragraph which constitutes its chief difficulty. The name of ‘ Robber Xih’ may be said to bea coinage ; and that a famous robber was popularly indicated by the name appears from its use by Mencius (III, ii, ch. 10, 3), to explain which the commentators have invented the story of a robber so-called in the time of Hwang-Ti, in the twentyseventh century B.C.! Was there really such a legend? and did A wang-3ze take advantage of it to apply the name to a notorious and disreputable brother of Lid-hsia Ki? Still there remain the anachronisms in the paragraph which have been pointed out. On the whole we must come to a conclusion rather unfavourable to the genuineness of the Book. But it must have been forged at a very early time, and we have no idea by whom. Book XXX. YUEH KIEN. We need not suppose that anything ever occurred in Kwang-3ze’s experience such as is described here. The whole narrative is metaphorical; and that he himself is made to play the part in it which he describes, only shows how the style of writing in which he indulged was ingrained into the texture of his mind. We do not know that there ever was a ruler of K4o who indulged in the love of the BK, XXXI. BRIEF NOTICES OF THE DIFFERENT BOOKS. 159
The source text as printed, transcribed diplomatically. Where the source language uses a non-Latin script that reaches us only through a Victorian romanisation, this layer is labelled transliteration, because that is what we hold.
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