________________
PT. II. SECT. VII. THE WRITINGS OF KWANG-BZE.
357
some do not acknowledge this, it is because the gate of Heaven? (in them) has not been opened.'
6. At an interview with Lão Tan, Confucius spoke to him of benevolence and righteousness. Lâo Tan said, 'If you winnow chaff, and the dust gets into your eyes, then the places of heaven and earth and of the four cardinal points are all changed to you. If musquitoes or gadflies puncture your skin, it will keep you all the night 2 from sleeping. But this painful iteration of benevolence and righteousness excites my mind and produces in it the greatest confusion. If you, Sir, would cause men not to lose their natural simplicity, and if you would also imitate the wind in its (unconstrained) movements, and stand forth in all the natural attributes belonging to you ! —why must you use so much energy, and carry a great drum to seek for the son whom you have lost 3? The snow-goose does not bathe every day to make itself white, nor the crow blacken itself every day to make itself black. The natural simplicity of their black and white does not afford any ground for controversy; and the fame and praise which men like to contemplate do not make them greater than they naturally are. When the springs (supplying the pools) are dried up, the fishes huddle together on the dry land. Than that they should moisten one another there by their gasping, and keep one another wet by their milt, it would be better for them to forget one another in the rivers and lakes 4.'
See Book XXIII, par. 9. The phrase= . 2 The common reading is a mistake for y.
Compare the same illustration in the preceding Book, par. 7. This illustration is from Book VI, par. 5.
Digitized by Google