________________
178
THE TEXTS OF TÂOISM.
BK, XXIX.
in their conduct they abased themselves before them. In this way their words and actions must have been at war together in their breasts ;-was it not a contradiction and perversity? As it is said in a book, “Who is bad? and who is good? The successful is regarded as the Head, and the unsuccessful as the Tail." '
3ze-kang said, ' If you do not follow the usual course of what is held to be right, but observe no distinction between the near and remote degrees of kin, no difference between the noble and the mean, no order between the old and the young, then how shall a separation be made of the fivefold arrangement (of the virtues), and the six parties (in the social organisation)?' Mân Kâu-teh replied,
Yao killed his eldest son, and Shun banished his half-brother?:-did they observe the rules about the different degrees of kin? Thang deposed Kieh ; king Wû overthrew Kâu :did they observe the righteousness that should obtain between the noble and the mean? King Ki took the place of his elder brother, and the duke of Kâu killed his 3 :- did they observe the order that should obtain between the elder and the younger? The Literati make hypocritical speeches; the followers of Mo hold that all should be loved equally:-do we find in them the separation of the fivefold arrangement (of the
1 Exaggerations or misrepresentations.
* King Kî was the so-called king Kî-lî, the father of king Wăn. His elder brother, that the state of Kâu might descend to him, left it, and withdrew south to what was then the wild region of Wů. See Analects, VIII, 1; the Shih King, III, i, Ode 7. 3, 4.
& Who had joined with Wa-kăng, son of the tyrant of Yin, in rebellion, thus threatening the stability of the new dynasty of Kâu.
Digitized by Google
