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THE TEXTS OF TÂOISM.
APP. V.
when speaking of men's words, I said that they should change places, and look at things from the different standpoints of each other; so with reference to my own words, my holding my ‘Yea,' does not interfere with my changing my place, and taking my position with those who say
Nay' in the case. If indeed there be no words of affirmation and denial, what words will there be? We must go back to the beginning when there were no words. We must go back still farther,—to the vacuity before the beginning when there were no words. If we try to go back even farther still, then great and small, long life and short life, heaven and earth and all things, fade away, blending together in the One. But that ONE is also a word. In this way we go on without end, wishing to make an end of controversy, and instead of doing that, our endeavour only serves to increase it. The better plan is to stop, as is proposed in a former paragraph, to stop at this point.-Even this word about having no controversy may be spared.
The sage, by avoiding discussion, reasoning, and the drawing of distinctions, while he availed himself of words, yet retained the advantage of eschewing words, and was also afraid of calling the demarcations (of propositions) by their eight qualities (see par. 7). Still, however, the trace of the use of words remained with him. It is not so in the case of the Great Tâo and the Great Argument. The Tâo (which is displayed) is not the Tao; the Argument (which is most subtle) does not reach the point; the degree of Non-action is very great; but notwithstanding it is difficult to speak of what is entirely empty of purpose. The way by which the knowledge of the ancients reached the highest point was their stopping when their knowledge extended no farther. If they could know what they did not know, it was by means of the Heavenly Treasure-house ; it was thus they could take their place in the centre of the circle, to which all lines converged, and from which all questions could be answered. If they added what they did know to the sum of what they did not know, they then
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