Fetching
One moment.
Fetching
One moment.
Romanised transliteration as printed by the translator, not the original script. This is what we hold.
12 These were Y4o and Shun, named from the principalities over which their fathers ruled. 5 ‘The streams’ were the methods of culture that arose after the simple virtues and spontaneity of the Tao were lost. PT. II. SECT. 1X. THE WRITINGS OF KWANG-3ZE, 371 ternal and) elegant forms, and went on to make these more and more numerous. The forms extinguished the (primal) simplicity, till the mind was drowned by their multiplicity. After this the people began to be perplexed and disordered, and had no way by which they might return to their true nature, and bring back their original condition. 3. Looking at the subject from this point of view, we see how the world lost! the (proper) course, and how the course (which it took) only led it further astray. The world and the Way, when they came together, being (thus) lost to each other, how could the men of the Way make themselves con- ‘spicuous in the world? and how could the world rise to an appreciation of the Way ?. Since the Way had no means to make itself conspicuous in the world, and the world had no means of rising to an appreciation of the Way, though sagely men might not keep among the hills and forests, their virtue was hidden ;—hidden, but not because they themselves sought to hide it. Those whom the ancients called ‘Retired Scholars’ did not conceal their persons, and not allow themselves to be seen; they did not shut up their words, and refuse to give utterance to them; they did not hide away their knowledge, and refuse to bring it forth. The conditions laid on them by the times were very much awry. If the conditions of the times had allowed them to act in the world on a great scale, they would have brought back the state of unity without any trace being perceived (of how * It is the same character in the text which I have been obliged to translate thus differently, — Sif, Bb2 372 THE TEXTS OF TAOISM. BK. XVI. they did so), When those conditions shut them up entirely from such action, they struck their roots deeper (in themselves), were perfectly still and waited. It was thus that they preserved (the Way in) their own persons. 4. The ancients who preserved (the Way in) their own persons did not try by sophistical reasonings to gloss over their knowledge; they did not seek to embrace (everything in) the world in their knowledge, nor to comprehend all the virtues in it. Solitary and trembling they remained where they were, and sought the restoration of their nature. What had they to do with any further action? The Way indeed is not to be pursued, nor (all) its characteristics to be known on a small scale. A little knowledge is injurious to those characteristics ; small doings are injurious to the Way ;—hence it is said, ‘ They simply rectified themselves.’ Complete enjoyment is what is meant by ‘the Attainment of the Aim?
2A little knowledge is injurious to those characteristics ; small doings are injurious to the Way ;—hence it is said, ‘ They simply rectified themselves.’ Complete enjoyment is what is meant by ‘the Attainment of the Aim? What was anciently called ‘the Attainment of the Aim’ did not .mean the getting of carriages and coronets’; it simply meant that nothing more was needed for their enjoyment. Now-a-days what is called ‘the Attainment of the Aim’ means'the getting of carriages and coronets. But carriages and coronets belong to the body; they do not affect the nature as it is constituted. When such things happen to come, it is but for a time; being but for a time, their coming cannot be obstructed and their going cannot be stopped*% Therefore we should not 1 That is, worldly distinction. ® Because they depend on others. Compare Mencius VI, i, ch. 17, 2. Do PT. II, SECT. 1X. THE WRITINGS OF KWANG-3ZE. 373 because of carriages and coronets indulge our aims, nor because of distress and straitness resort to the vulgar (learning and thinking); the one of these conditions and the other may equally conduce to our enjoyment, which is simply to be free from anxiety. If now the departure of what is transient takes away one’s enjoyment, this view shows that what enjoyment it had given was worthless. Hence it is said, ‘They who lose themselves in their pursuit of things, and lose their nature in their study of what is vulgar, must be pronounced people who turn things upside down.’ 374 THE TEXTS OF TAOISM. BK. XVII. BOOK XVII. Part II. Section X. Khit Shui, or ‘The Floods of Autumn 1.’ 1. The time of the autumnal floods was come, and the hundred streams were all discharging themselves into the Ho. Its current was greatly swollen ?, so that across its channel from bank to bank one could not distinguish an ox from a horse. On this the (Spirit-) earl of the Ho? laughed with delight, thinking that all the beauty of the world was to be found in his charge. Along the course of the river he walked east till he came to the North Sea, over which he looked, with his face to the east, without being able to see where its waters began. Then he began to turn his face round, looked across the expanse, (as if he were) confronting Zo 3, and said with a sigh, ‘What the vulgar saying expresses about him who has learned a hundred points (of the T 4o), and thinks that there is no one equal to himself, was surely spoken of me. And moreover, I have heard 1 See pp. 148, 149. ; EK here perhaps means ‘turbid.’ It has nothing to do with the river King. 8 See Mayers’s Manual, p. 54. Our author adopts the common beliefs or superstitions of his time, and after his fashion puts his own reasonings into the mouths of these mythological personages. It is more difficult to collect the legends about Zo of the sea, or of the Northern Sea. See the Khang-hst Thesaurus under ik 3. PT. II, SECT. X. THE WRITINGS OF KWANG-3ZE. 375
3It is more difficult to collect the legends about Zo of the sea, or of the Northern Sea. See the Khang-hst Thesaurus under ik 3. PT. II, SECT. X. THE WRITINGS OF KWANG-3ZE. 375 parties making little of the knowledge of Kung-ni and the righteousness of Po-i, and at first I did not believe them. Now I behold the all-but-boundless extent (of your realms). If I had not come to your gate, I should have been in danger (of continuing in my ignorance), and been laughed at for long in the schools of our great System?) Zo, (the Spirit-lord) of the Northern Sea, said, ‘A frog in a well cannot be talked with about the sea ;—he is confined to the limits of his hole. An insect of the summer cannot be talked with about ice ;—it knows nothing beyond its own season. A scholar of limited views cannot be talked with about the T4o;—he is bound by the teaching (which he has received). Now you have come forth from between your banks, and beheld the great sea. You have come to know your own ignorance and inferiority, and are in the way of being fitted to be talked with about great principles. Of all the waters under heaven there are none so great as the sea. A myriad streams flow into it without ceasing, and yet it is not filled; and afterwards? it discharges them (also) without ceasing, and yet it is not emptied. In spring and in autumn it undergoes no change; it takes no notice of floods or of drought. Its superiority over such streams even as the Kiang and the 1 Thus the Confucian learning and its worthies were to the system of the T4o only as the waters of the Ho to the great sea. 2 I have translated here as if the reading were BB iad, which is given by Lin Hsi-Aung. The correct reading, however, so far as depends on editions and dictionaries, is BB [Bi ; which is explained in the Khang-hsi dictionary as ‘a great Rock in Ftsang on the East,’ against which the water of the sea collects, and is all evaporated ! 376 THE TEXTS OF TAOISM. BK, XVII,
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.
12 These were Y4o and Shun, named from the principalities over which their fathers ruled. 5 ‘The streams’ were the methods of culture that arose after the simple virtues and spontaneity of the Tao were lost. PT. II. SECT. 1X. THE WRITINGS OF KWANG-3ZE, 371 ternal and) elegant forms, and went on to make these more and more numerous. The forms extinguished the (primal) simplicity, till the mind was drowned by their multiplicity. After this the people began to be perplexed and disordered, and had no way by which they might return to their true nature, and bring back their original condition. 3. Looking at the subject from this point of view, we see how the world lost! the (proper) course, and how the course (which it took) only led it further astray. The world and the Way, when they came together, being (thus) lost to each other, how could the men of the Way make themselves con- ‘spicuous in the world? and how could the world rise to an appreciation of the Way ?. Since the Way had no means to make itself conspicuous in the world, and the world had no means of rising to an appreciation of the Way, though sagely men might not keep among the hills and forests, their virtue was hidden ;—hidden, but not because they themselves sought to hide it. Those whom the ancients called ‘Retired Scholars’ did not conceal their persons, and not allow themselves to be seen; they did not shut up their words, and refuse to give utterance to them; they did not hide away their knowledge, and refuse to bring it forth. The conditions laid on them by the times were very much awry. If the conditions of the times had allowed them to act in the world on a great scale, they would have brought back the state of unity without any trace being perceived (of how * It is the same character in the text which I have been obliged to translate thus differently, — Sif, Bb2 372 THE TEXTS OF TAOISM. BK. XVI. they did so), When those conditions shut them up entirely from such action, they struck their roots deeper (in themselves), were perfectly still and waited. It was thus that they preserved (the Way in) their own persons. 4. The ancients who preserved (the Way in) their own persons did not try by sophistical reasonings to gloss over their knowledge; they did not seek to embrace (everything in) the world in their knowledge, nor to comprehend all the virtues in it. Solitary and trembling they remained where they were, and sought the restoration of their nature. What had they to do with any further action? The Way indeed is not to be pursued, nor (all) its characteristics to be known on a small scale. A little knowledge is injurious to those characteristics ; small doings are injurious to the Way ;—hence it is said, ‘ They simply rectified themselves.’ Complete enjoyment is what is meant by ‘the Attainment of the Aim?
2A little knowledge is injurious to those characteristics ; small doings are injurious to the Way ;—hence it is said, ‘ They simply rectified themselves.’ Complete enjoyment is what is meant by ‘the Attainment of the Aim? What was anciently called ‘the Attainment of the Aim’ did not .mean the getting of carriages and coronets’; it simply meant that nothing more was needed for their enjoyment. Now-a-days what is called ‘the Attainment of the Aim’ means'the getting of carriages and coronets. But carriages and coronets belong to the body; they do not affect the nature as it is constituted. When such things happen to come, it is but for a time; being but for a time, their coming cannot be obstructed and their going cannot be stopped*% Therefore we should not 1 That is, worldly distinction. ® Because they depend on others. Compare Mencius VI, i, ch. 17, 2. Do PT. II, SECT. 1X. THE WRITINGS OF KWANG-3ZE. 373 because of carriages and coronets indulge our aims, nor because of distress and straitness resort to the vulgar (learning and thinking); the one of these conditions and the other may equally conduce to our enjoyment, which is simply to be free from anxiety. If now the departure of what is transient takes away one’s enjoyment, this view shows that what enjoyment it had given was worthless. Hence it is said, ‘They who lose themselves in their pursuit of things, and lose their nature in their study of what is vulgar, must be pronounced people who turn things upside down.’ 374 THE TEXTS OF TAOISM. BK. XVII. BOOK XVII. Part II. Section X. Khit Shui, or ‘The Floods of Autumn 1.’ 1. The time of the autumnal floods was come, and the hundred streams were all discharging themselves into the Ho. Its current was greatly swollen ?, so that across its channel from bank to bank one could not distinguish an ox from a horse. On this the (Spirit-) earl of the Ho? laughed with delight, thinking that all the beauty of the world was to be found in his charge. Along the course of the river he walked east till he came to the North Sea, over which he looked, with his face to the east, without being able to see where its waters began. Then he began to turn his face round, looked across the expanse, (as if he were) confronting Zo 3, and said with a sigh, ‘What the vulgar saying expresses about him who has learned a hundred points (of the T 4o), and thinks that there is no one equal to himself, was surely spoken of me. And moreover, I have heard 1 See pp. 148, 149. ; EK here perhaps means ‘turbid.’ It has nothing to do with the river King. 8 See Mayers’s Manual, p. 54. Our author adopts the common beliefs or superstitions of his time, and after his fashion puts his own reasonings into the mouths of these mythological personages. It is more difficult to collect the legends about Zo of the sea, or of the Northern Sea. See the Khang-hst Thesaurus under ik 3. PT. II, SECT. X. THE WRITINGS OF KWANG-3ZE. 375
3It is more difficult to collect the legends about Zo of the sea, or of the Northern Sea. See the Khang-hst Thesaurus under ik 3. PT. II, SECT. X. THE WRITINGS OF KWANG-3ZE. 375 parties making little of the knowledge of Kung-ni and the righteousness of Po-i, and at first I did not believe them. Now I behold the all-but-boundless extent (of your realms). If I had not come to your gate, I should have been in danger (of continuing in my ignorance), and been laughed at for long in the schools of our great System?) Zo, (the Spirit-lord) of the Northern Sea, said, ‘A frog in a well cannot be talked with about the sea ;—he is confined to the limits of his hole. An insect of the summer cannot be talked with about ice ;—it knows nothing beyond its own season. A scholar of limited views cannot be talked with about the T4o;—he is bound by the teaching (which he has received). Now you have come forth from between your banks, and beheld the great sea. You have come to know your own ignorance and inferiority, and are in the way of being fitted to be talked with about great principles. Of all the waters under heaven there are none so great as the sea. A myriad streams flow into it without ceasing, and yet it is not filled; and afterwards? it discharges them (also) without ceasing, and yet it is not emptied. In spring and in autumn it undergoes no change; it takes no notice of floods or of drought. Its superiority over such streams even as the Kiang and the 1 Thus the Confucian learning and its worthies were to the system of the T4o only as the waters of the Ho to the great sea. 2 I have translated here as if the reading were BB iad, which is given by Lin Hsi-Aung. The correct reading, however, so far as depends on editions and dictionaries, is BB [Bi ; which is explained in the Khang-hsi dictionary as ‘a great Rock in Ftsang on the East,’ against which the water of the sea collects, and is all evaporated ! 376 THE TEXTS OF TAOISM. BK, XVII,
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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