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PT. II, SECT. X.
THE WRITINGS OF KWANG-BZE.
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Yang Hû', and therefore surrounded you. Now we see our mistake.' (With this) he begged to take his leave, and withdrew.
10. Kung-sun Lung 2 asked Mâu of Wei?, saying, When I was young, I learned the teachings of the former kings; and when I was grown up, I became proficient in the practice of benevolence and righteousness. I brought together the views that agreed and disagreed; I considered the questions about hardness and whiteness 4; I set forth what was to be affirmed and what was not, and what was allowable and what was not; I studied painfully the various schools of thought, and made myself master of the reasonings of all their masters. I thought that I had reached a good understanding of every subject; but now that I have heard the words of Kwang-gze, they throw me into a flutter of surprise. I do not know whether it be that I do not come up to him in the power of discussion, or that my knowledge is not equal to his. But now I do not feel able to open my mouth, and venture to ask you what course I should pursue.' Kung-zze Mâu leant forward on his stool, drew a long breath, looked up to heaven, smiled, and
i No doubt the Yang Ho of Analects XVII, i.
2 The grandson (Kung-sun) of one of the rulers of Kâo (one of the three states into which the great state of Zin had been broken up). He has come down to us as a philosophic sophist, whose views it is not easy to define. See Mayers's Manual, p. 288, and Book XXXIII, par. 7.
3 Wei was another of the divisions of Zin, and Mâu was one of the sons of its ruler at this time, a great admirer, evidently, of Kwang-zze, and more than a match for the sophist Lung
4 Holding, it is supposed, that the attributes of material objects, such as hardness and colour, are separate existences : 'so Mayers, after Wylie.
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