Book Title: Text of Confucianism Part 01
Author(s): James Legge
Publisher: Oxford

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Page 2731
________________ CH, I. THE CLASSIC OF PURITY. 251 senses ; first as an Immaterial Power or Force, and next as the Material Substance, out of which all things come. Lî Hsî-yüeh says that in the first member of par. 1 we have the Unlimited (or Infinite) producing the Grand (or Primal) Finite.' On the Tâo in par. 2 he says nothing. The fact is that the subject of creation in the deepest sense of the name is too high for the human mind. ? Compare T. T. K., ch. 61. 3 I do not understand this, but I cannot translate the Text otherwise. Mr. Balfour has :—'If a man is able to remain pure and motionless, Heaven and Earth will both at once come and dwell in him.' Li explains thus:-# We art . Compare T. T. K., ch. 16, and especially Ho-shang Kung's title to it, the 3. Now the spirit of man loves Purity, but his mind 1 disturbs it. The mind of man loves stillness, but his desires draw it away!. If he could always send his desires away, his mind would of itself become still. Let his mind be made clean, and his spirit will of itself become pure. As a matter of course the six desires 2 will not arise, and the three poisons 8 will be taken away and disappear. 1 Taoism thus recognises in man the spirit, the mind, and the body. 2 "The six desires are those which have their inlets in the eyes, ears, nostrils, the tongue, the sense of touch, and the imagination. The two last are expressed in Chinese by shăn, 'the body,' and î,' the idea, or thought.' 3 'The three poisons' are greed, anger, and stupidity ;see the Khang-hsî Thesaurus, under 4. The reason why men are not able to attain to this, is because their minds have not been cleansed, and their desires have not been sent away. Digitized by Google

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