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THE TEXTS OF TÂOISM.
BK, XI.
irritated ?—the Yin or opposite element is too much developed. When those elements thus predominate in men, (it is as if ?) the four seasons were not to come (at their proper times), and the harmony of cold and heat were not to be maintained ;-would there not result injury to the bodies of men ? Men's joy and dissatisfaction are made to arise where they ought not to do so; their movements are all uncertain; they lose the mastery of their thoughts; they stop short midway, and do not finish what they have begun. In this state of things the world begins to have lofty aims, and jealous dislikes, ambitious courses, and fierce animosities, and then we have actions like those of the robber Kih, or of 3ăng (Shăn) and Shih (Zhill) 2. If now the whole world were taken to reward the good it would not suffice, nor would it be possible with it to punish the bad. Thus the world, great as it is, not sufficing for rewards and punishments, from the time of the three dynasties downwards, there has been nothing but bustle and excitement. Always occupied with rewards and punishments, what leisure have men had to rest in the instincts of the nature with which they are endowed ?
2. Moreover, delight in the power of vision leads
"I supply the 'it is as if,' after the example of the critic Lâ Shûkih, who here introduces a sin his commentary (US
Ź TE FIZ ). What the text seems to state as a fact is only an illustration. Compare the concluding paragraphs in all the Sections and Parts of the fourth Book of the Li Ki.
? Our moral instincts protest against Tâoism which thus places in the same category such sovereigns as Yâo and Kieh, and such men as the brigand Kih and Zăng and Shih.
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