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PT. II. SECT. X. THE WRITINGS OF KWANG-3ZE. 375
parties making little of the knowledge of Kung-nî and the righteousness of Po-î, and at first I did not believe them. Now I behold the all-but-boundless extent (of your realms). If I had not come to your gate, I should have been in danger (of continuing in my ignorance), and been laughed at for long in the schools of our great System 1.'
Zo, (the Spirit-lord) of the Northern Sea, said, 'A frog in a well cannot be talked with about the sea; he is confined to the limits of his hole. An insect of the summer cannot be talked with about ice; it knows nothing beyond its own season. A scholar of limited views cannot be talked with about the Tâo; he is bound by the teaching (which he has received). Now you have come forth from between your banks, and beheld the great sea. You have come to know your own ignorance and inferiority, and are in the way of being fitted to be talked with about great principles. Of all the waters under heaven there are none so great as the sea. A myriad streams flow into it without ceasing, and yet it is not filled; and afterwards it discharges them (also) without ceasing, and yet it is not emptied. In spring and in autumn it undergoes no change; it takes no notice of floods or of drought. Its superiority over such streams even as the Kiang and the
1 Thus the Confucian learning and its worthies were to the system of the Tâo only as the waters of the Ho to the great sea.
2 I have translated here as if the reading were 尾間, which is given by Lin Hsî-kung. The correct reading, however, so far as depends on editions and dictionaries, is; which is explained in the Khang-hsî dictionary as a great Rock in Fûsang on the East,' against which the water of the sea collects, and is all evaporated!
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