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346
THE TEXTS OF TÂOISM.
BK. XIV.
W-hsien Thiâo' said, 'Come, and I will tell you. To heaven there belong the six Extreme Points, and the five Elements 2. When the Tîs and Kings acted in accordance with them, there was good government; when they acted contrary to them, there was evil. Observing the things (described) in the nine divisions (of the writing) of Lo 3, their government was perfected and their virtue was complete. They inspected and enlightened the kingdom beneath them, and all under the sky acknowledged and sustained them. Such was the condition under the august (sovereigns 4) and those before them.'
2. Tang5, the chief administrator of Shang5, asked Kwang-zze about Benevolence ®, and the answer was, 'Wolves and tigers are benevolent.' What do you mean?' said Tang. Kwang-gze replied, 'Father and son (among them) are affectionate to one another. Why should they be considered as not bene
and noiselessly, without any apparent cause; which is the chief subject of the Book. As the description is not assigned to any
must suppose it to be from Kwang-zze himself; and that it is he who asks the question in the last three characters.
1 This is said by the critics to have been a minister of the Shang dynasty, under Thâi-mâu in the seventeenth century B.C.; but even Kwang-zze would hardly so violate the unity of time.
? Generally means the Five Regular Virtues ;' supposed to mean here the Five Elements.
3 Probably the Nine Divisions of the Great Plan,' in the Shù King, V, iv, fancied to be derived from the writing, which a tortoise from the Lo river exhibited to the great Yü.
* Possibly Fd-hsî, Shăn Năng, and Hwang-Tî.
o "Shang' must be taken as the duchy of Sung, assigned by king Wû to the representative of the kings of the dynasty of Shang. "Tang' would be a principal minister of it in the time of Kwang-zze. .6 The chief of all the virtues according to Confucianism.
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