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192
THE TEXTS OF TÂOISM.
BK, IT,
when deer saw them, they separated and fled away! But did any of these four know which in the world is the right female attraction ? As I look at the matter, the first principles of benevolence and righteousness and the paths of approval and disapproval are inextricably mixed and confused together :-how is it possible that I should know how to discriminate among them ?'
Nieh Khüeh said (further), Since you, Sir, do not know what is advantageous and what is hurtful, is the Perfect man also in the same way without the knowledge of them ?' Wang I replied, 'The Perfect man is spirit-like. Great lakes might be boiling about him, and he would not feel their heat; the Ho and the Han might be frozen up, and he would not feel the cold; the hurrying thunderbolts might split the mountains, and the wind shake the ocean, without being able to make him afraid. Being such, he mounts on the clouds of the air, rides on the sun and moon, and rambles at ease beyond the four seas. Neither death nor life makes any change in him, and how much less should the considerations of advantage and injury do so ?!'
9. Khü Zhiâo-zze 3 asked Khang-wû Zze 3, saying,
Not thinking them beautiful, as men did, but frightened and repelled by them.
2 Compare Book I, pars. 3 and 5.
3 We know nothing of the former of these men, but what is mentioned here; the other appears also in Book XXV, 6, q. v. If
the master' that immediately follows be Confucius they must have been contemporary with him. The Khill in Khang-wû's reply would seem to make it certain the master' was Confucius, but the oldest critics, and some modern ones as well, think that Khangwa's name was also Khill. But this view is attended with more
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