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THE TEXTS OF TÂOISM.
CH. IV.
formed, and that rectification in the same way ensues from being pure and still?
This morsel is all that we have of historical narrative about Lâo-zze. The account of the writing of the Tâo Teh King at the request of the warden of the barrier-gate has a doubtful and legendary appearance. Otherwise, the record is free from anything to raise suspicion about it. It says nothing about previous existences of Lâo, and nothing of his travelling to the west, and learning there the doctrines which are embodied in his work. He goes through the pass out of the domain of Kâu, and died no one knowing where.
It is difficult, however, to reconcile this last statement with a narrative in the end of Kwang-zze's third Book. There we see Lâo-zze dead, and a crowd of mourners wailing round the corpse, and giving extraordinary demonstrations of grief, which offend a disciple of a higher order, who has gone to the house to offer his condolences on the occasion. But for the peculiar nature of most of Kwang's narratives, we should say, in opposition to Khien, that the place and time of Lâo's death were well known. Possibly, however, Kwang-gze may have invented the whole story, to give him the opportunity of setting forth what, according to his ideal of it, the life of a Taoist master should be, and how even Lâo-zze himself fell short of it.
Second, Khien's account of Kwang-zze is still more brief. He was a native, he tells us, of the territory of Măng, which belonged to the kingdom of Liang or Wei, and held an office, he does not say what, in the city of Khi-yüan. Kwang was thus of the same part of China as Lâo-zze, and probably grew up familiar with all his speculations and lessons. He lived during the reigns of the kings Hui of Liang, Hsuan of Khî, and Wei of Khû. We cannot be wrong therefore in assigning his period to the latter half of the third, and earlier part of the fourth century B.C. He was thus a contemporary of Mencius. They visited at the same courts, and yet neither ever mentions the other. They were the two ablest debaters of their day, and fond of exposing what they deemed heresy. But it would only be
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