Book 123 (part 6)

Whether there ever was a personage called Lieh-dze or Lieh Yü-khâu, and what is the real character of the writings that go under his name, are questions that cannot be more than thus alluded to in a note. He is often introduced by Kwang-dze, and many narratives are common to their books. Here he comes before us, not as a thinker and writer, but as a semi-supernatural being, who has only not yet attained to the highest consummations of the Tâo. 169:1 The description of a master of the Tâo, exalted by it, unless the predicates about him be nothing but the ravings of a wild extravagance, above mere mortal man. In the conclusion, however, he is presented under three different phrases, which the reader will do well to keep in mind. 169:2 The great sovereign with whom the documents of the Shû King commence:--B. C. 2357-2257. 169:3 A counsellor of Yâo, who is once mentioned by Sze-ma Khien in his account of Po-î,--in the first Book of his Biographies ( ). Hsü Yû is here the instance of 'the Sagely man,' with whom the desire of a name or fame has no influence. 170:1 Some say the tapir. 170:2 Known to us only through Kwang-dze. 170:3 'The madman of Khû' of the Analects, XVIII, 5, who eschews intercourse with Confucius. See Hwang-fû Mî's account of him, under the surname and name of Lû Thung, in his Notices of Eminent Tâoists, 1, 25. 170:4 Literally, 'the Ho and the Han;' but the name of those rivers combined was used to denote 'the Milky Way.' 170:5 See the Khang-hsî Thesaurus under the character . All which is said about the hill is that it was 'in the North Sea.' 171:1 Shun was the successor of Yâo, in the ancient kingdom. 171:2 All this description is to give us an idea of the 'Spirit-like man.' We have in it the results of the Tâo in its fullest embodiment. 172:1 See the Lî Kî, IX, iii, 3. 172:2 A state, part of the present province of Kieh-kiang. 172:3 Said to have been Hsü Yû mentioned above, with Nieh Khüeh, Wang Î, and Phî-î, who will by and by come before us. 172:4 A river in Shan-hsî, on which was the capital of Yâo;--a tributary of the Ho. 172:5 This paragraph is intended to give us an idea of 'the Perfect man,' who has no thought of himself. The description, however, is brief and tame, compared with the accounts of Hsü Yû and of the Spirit-like man.' 172:6 Or Hui Shih, the chief minister of 'king Hui of Liang (or Wei), (B. C. 370-333),' with an interview between whom and Mencius the works of that philosopher commence. He was a friend of Kwang-dze, and an eccentric thinker; and in Book XXXIII there is a long account of several of his views. I do not think that the conversations about 'the great calabash' and 'the great tree' really took place; Kwan-dze probably invented them, to illustrate his point that size had nothing to do with the Tâo, and that things which seemed useless were not really so when rightly used.