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THE TEXTS OF TÂOISM.
BK. XXVI.
Hsiao-ki 1 had to endure his sorrow, and 3ăng Shăn his griefs.
When wood is rubbed against wood, it begins to burn; when metal is subjected to fire, it (melts and) flows. When the Yin and Yang act awry, heaven and earth are greatly perturbed; and on this comes the crash of thunder, and from the rain comes fire, which consumes great locust trees s. (The case of men) is still worse. They are troubled between two pitfalls 4, from which they cannot escape, Chrysalis-like, they can accomplish nothing. Their minds are as if hung up between heaven and earth. Now comforted, now pitied, they are plunged in difficulties. The ideas of profit and of injury rub against each other, and produce in them a very great fire. The harmony (of the mind) is consumed in the mass of men. Their moonlike intelligence cannot overcome the (inward) fire. They thereupon fall away more and more, and the Course (which they should pursue) is altogether lost.
2. The family of Kwang Kâu being poor, he went to ask the loan of some rice from the Marquis Superintendent of the Hos, who said, 'Yes, I shall be
1 Said to have been the eldest son of king WQ Ting or Kâo Zung of the Yin dynasty. I do not know the events in his experience to which our author must be referring.
The well-known disciple of Confucius, famous for his filial piety.
8 The lightning accompanying a thunderstorm. • The ideas of profit and injury immediately mentioned.
* In another version of this story, in Lill Hsiang's Shwo Yuan, XI, art. 13, the party applied to is 'duke Wăn of Wei;' but this does not necessarily conflict with the text. The genuineness of the paragraph is denied by Lin Hsî-kung and others; but I seem to see the hand of Kwang-sze in it.
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