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THE TEXTS OF TAOISM.
with them to the length of the journey has the same meaning. How should such creatures as the cicada and the little dove be able to know this? Knowledge is great or small, because the years of the parties are many or few so it is that one is inferior to another. Have they not heard of the ming-ling and tâ-khun, which make their spring and autumn for themselves? And so does the phăng, as we may understand. Its not resting till the end of six months is really not a long time to it. The case of Phăng 3û is not worth being taken into account.
APP. V.
This description of the greatness of the phăng is not any fabrication of our author's own, nor any statement peculiar to the Khî Hsieh. The same things are told in the 'Questions of Thang to Kî,' as in paragraph 3.
As to the long journey of the phăng and the marshquail's laughing at it, that is not different from what the other two little creatures said above;-arising simply from the difference between the great and the small. And what difference is there between this and the case of those who enjoy themselves for a season in the world? Yung-ze of Sung is introduced (and immediately dismissed), as not having planted himself in the right position, and not being Great. Then Lieh-ze is brought forward, and dismissed as not being Great, because he had something to wait for. It is only he who rides on the twofold primal ether of the Yin and Yang, driving along with the six elements through all their changes as they wax and wane, and enjoying himself at the gate of death, that can be pronounced Great. This is what is called the Perfect Man; the Spirit-like Man; and the Sage Man.
In illustration of this, as instances of the Great Man, we have, in paragraph 4, Hsü Yû, regardless of the name; the personage on the hill of Kû-shih, in paragraph 5, with no thought of the services he could perform; and Yâo with his deep-sunk eyes, in paragraph 6, no longer thinking much of his throne, and regardless of himself. All these characteristics could be used, and made their possessor great; but let not this lead to a suspicion of greatness as
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