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PT. I. SECT. V. THE WRITINGS OF KWANG-8ZE.
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of plumes 1: as to supplying shoes to one who has lost his feet, there is no reason why he should care for them ;-in neither case is there the proper reason for their use'. The members of the royal harem do not pare their nails nor pierce their ears 2; when a man is newly married, he remains (for a time) absent from his official duties, and unoccupied with them 2. That their bodies might be perfect was sufficient to make them thus dealt with ;-how much greater results should be expected from men whose mental gifts are perfect! This Âi-thâi Tho was believed by men, though he did not speak a word; and was loved by them, though he did no special service for them. He made men appoint him to the government of their states, afraid only that he would not accept the appointment. He must have been a man whose powers were perfect, though his realisation of them 3 was not manifested in his person.'
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Duke Âi said,' What is meant by saying that his powers were complete?' Kung-ni replied, 'Death and life, preservation and ruin, failure and success, poverty and wealth, superiority and inferiority, blame and praise, hunger and thirst, cold and heat;— these are the changes of circumstances, the operation of our appointed lot. Day and night they succeed to one another before us, but there is no wisdom
1 See the Lî Kî, VIII, i, 7; but the applicability of these two illustrations is not so clear.
2 These two have force as in 'reasoning from the less to the greater.' With the latter of the two compare the mosaical provision in Deuteronomy xxiv. 5.
'Powers' are the capacities of the nature,-the gift of the Tâo. 'Virtue' is the realisation or carrying out of those capacities.
--C--CI
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