________________
280
THE TEXTS OF TÂOISM.
BK, IX.
their dwellings without knowing what they were doing, and walked out without knowing where they were going. They filled their mouths with food and were glad; they slapped their stomachs to express their satisfaction. This was all the ability which they possessed. But when the sagely men appeared, with their bendings and stoppings in ceremonies and music to adjust the persons of all, and hanging up their benevolence and righteousness to excite the endeavours of all to reach them, in order to comfort their minds, then the people began to stump and limp about in their love of knowledge, and strove with one another in their pursuit of gain, so that there was no stopping them :—this was the error of those sagely men.
Father of Husbandry, who occupies the place in chronological tables after Fl-hsî, between him and Hwang-Ti. In the Tables of the Dynastic Histories, published in 1817, he is placed seventh in the list of fifteen reigns, which are placed without any specification of their length between Fl-hsî and Shăn-năng. The name is written as and
Digitized by Google