Book III (part 2)

or from Man?' Then he added 2 , 'It must be from Heaven, and not from Man. Heaven's making of this man caused him to have but one foot. In the person of man, each foot has its marrow. By this I know that his peculiarity is from Heaven, and not from Man. A pheasant of the marshes has to take ten steps to pick up a mouthful of food, and thirty steps to get a drink, but it does not seek to be nourished in a coop. Though its spirit would (there) enjoy a royal abundance, it does not think (such confinement) good.' p. 201 4. When Lâo Tan died 1 , Khin Shih 2 went to condole (with his son), but after crying out three times, he came out. The disciples 3 said to him, 'Were you not a friend of the Master?' 'I was,' he replied, and they said, 'Is it proper then to offer your condolences merely as you have done?' He said, 'It is. At first I thought he was the man of men, and now I do not think so. When I entered a little ago and expressed my condolences, there were the old men wailing as if they had lost a son, and the young men wailing as if they had lost their mother. In his attracting and uniting them to himself in such a way there must have been that which made them involuntarily express their words (of condolence), and involuntarily wail, as they were doing. And this was a hiding from himself of his Heaven (-nature), and an excessive indulgence of his (human) feelings;--a forgetting of what he had received (in being born); what the ancients called the punishment due to neglecting the Heaven (-nature) 4 . When the Master came 5 , it was at the proper time; when he went away, it was the simple sequence (of his coming). Quiet acquiescence in what happens at its proper time, and quietly submitting (to its ceasing) afford no occasion for grief or for joy 6 . The ancients described (death) as the loosening of the p. 202 cord on which God suspended (the life) 1 . What we can point to are the faggots that have been consumed; but the fire is transmitted (elsewhere), and we know not that it is over and ended 2 . Footnotes 198:1 See pp. 130, 131. 198:2 Under what is said about knowledge here there lies the objection of Tâoists to the Confucian pursuit of knowledge as the means for the right conduct of life, instead of the quiet simplicity and self-suppression of their own system. 198:3 This is the key to the three paragraphs that follow. But the text of it is not easily construed. The 'doing good' and the doing evil' are to be lightly understood. 198:4 A name for the Tâo. 198:5 'The ruler Wän-hui' is understood to be 'king Hui of Liang (or Wei),' with the account of an interview between whom and Mencius the works of that philosopher commence. 199:1 Two pieces of music, ascribed to Khäng Thang and Hwang-Tî. 200:1 There was a family in Wei with the double surname Kung-wän. This would be a scion of it. 200:2 This is Hsien still speaking. We have to understand his reasoning ad sensum and not ad verbum. The master of the Left had done 'evil,' so as to incur the punishment from which be suffered; and had shown himself less wise than a pheasant.