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PT. II. SECT. VII. THE WRITINGS OF KWANG-8ZE. 347
volent?' 'Allow me to ask about perfect benevolence,' pursued the other. Kwang-zze said, 'Perfect benevolence 1 does not admit (the feeling) of affection.' The minister said, 'I have heard that, without (the feeling of) affection there is no love, and without love there is not filial duty;-is it permissible to say that the perfectly benevolent are not filial?' Kwang-ze rejoined, That is not the way to put the case. Perfect Benevolence is the very highest thing;-filial duty is by no means sufficient to describe it. The saying which you quote is not to the effect that (such benevolence) transcends filial duty; it does not refer to such duty at all. One, travelling to the south, comes (at last) to Ying2, and there, standing with his face to the north, he does not see mount Ming3. Why does he not see it? Because he is so far from it. Hence it is said, "Filial duty as a part of reverence is easy, but filial duty as a part of love is difficult. If it be easy as a part of love, yet it is difficult to forget one's parents. It may be easy for me to forget my parents, but it is difficult to make my parents forget me. If it were easy to make my parents forget me, it is difficult for me to forget all men in the world. If it were easy to forget all men in the world, it is difficult to make them all forget me."
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This virtue might make one think light of Yâo and Shun, and not wish to be they 5. The profit
1 A denomination here for the Tâo, employed by Kwang-zze for the purpose of his argument.
2 The capital of the state of Khu in the south.
s Name of a hill in the extreme north.
The Tâo requires such forgetfulness on the part of both giver and receiver; it is a part of its 'doing-nothing.'
5 I think this is the meaning.
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