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BK. VII. BRIEF NOTICES OF THE DIFFERENT BOOKS. 137
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succeeded in identifying. The second shows us men under such a rule, uncontrolled and safe like the bird that Aies high beyond the reach of the archer, and the mouse secure in its deep hole from its pursuers. The teacher in this portion is Khieh-yü, known in the Confucian school as the madman of Khû,' and he delivers his lesson in opposition to the heresy of a Záh-kung Shih, or “Noon Beginning.' In the third paragraph the speakers are a nameless man,' and a Thien Kăn, or · Heaven Root.' In the fourth paragraph Lâo-gze himself appears upon the stage, and lectures a Yang Zze-kü, the Yang Kû of Mencius. He concludes by saying that where the intelligent kings took their stand could not be fathomed, and they found their enjoyment in (the realm of) noncntity.
The fifth paragraph is longer, and tells us of the defeat of a wizard, a physiognomist in Kăng, by Hù-zze, the master of the philosopher Lieh-zze, who is thereby delivered from the glamour which the cheat was throwing round him. I confess to not being able to understand the various processes by which HÛ-zze foils the wizard and makes him run away. The whole story is told, and at greater length, in the second book of the collection ascribed to Lieh-zze, and the curious student may like to look at the translation of that work by Mr. Ernst Faber (Der Naturalismus bei den alten Chinesen sowohl nach der Seite des Pantheismus als des Sensualismus, oder die Sämmtlichen Werke des Philosophen Licius, 1877). The effect of the wizard's defeat on Lieh-zze was great. He returned in great humility to his house, and did not go out of it for three years. He did the cooking for his wife, and fed the pigs as if he were feeding men. He returned to pure simplicity, and therein continued to the end of his life. But I do not see the connexion between this narrative and the government of the Rulers and Kings.
The sixth paragraph is a homily by our author himself on 'non-action. It contains a good simile, comparing the mind of the perfect man to a mirror, which reflects faithfully what comes before it, but does not retain any image of it, when the mind is gone.
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