"Sir," replied Chuang Tzŭ, "it was rather you who did not know how to use large things. There was a man of Sung who had a recipe for salve for chapped hands, his family having been silk-washers for generations. Well, a stranger who had heard of it, came and offered him 100 oz. of silver for this recipe; whereupon he called together his clansmen and said, 'We have never made much money by silk-washing. Now, we can make 100 oz. in a single day. Let the stranger have the recipe.'
"So the stranger got it, and went and informed the Prince of Wu who was just then at war with the Yüeh State. Accordingly, the Prince used it in a naval battle fought at the beginning of winter with the Yüeh State, the result being that the latter was totally defeated.
They suffered from chapped hands, while their rivals of the Wu State were protected by their patent salve.
The stranger was rewarded with territory and a title. Thus, while the efficacy of the salve to cure chapped hands was in both cases the same, its application was different. Here, it secured a title; there, a capacity for washing silk.
"Now as to your five-bushel gourd, why did you not make a boat of it, and float about over river and lake? You could not then have complained of its not holding anything! But I fear you are rather woolly inside."
Like it. This, of course, is a sneer. Hui Tzŭ could not see that the greatness of a thing depends upon the greatness of its application.
Hui Tzŭ said to Chuang Tzŭ, "Sir, I have a large tree, of a worthless kind. Its trunk is so irregular and knotty that it cannot be measured out for planks; while its branches are so twisted as to admit of no geometrical subdivision whatever. It stands by the roadside, but no carpenter will look at it. And your words, sir, are like that tree;—big and useless, not wanted by anybody."
"Sir," rejoined Chuang Tzŭ, "have you never seen a wild cat, crouching down in wait for its prey? Right and left it springs from bough to bough, high and low alike—until perchance it gets caught in a trap or dies in a snare. On the other hand, there is the yak with its great huge body. It is big enough in all conscience, but it cannot catch mice.
The adaptability of a thing is oft-times its bane. The inability of the yak to catch mice saves it from the snare which is fatal to the wild cat.
"Now if you have a big tree and are at a loss what to do with it, why not plant it in the domain of non-existence,
Beyond the limits of our external world. Referring to the conditions of mental abstraction in which alone true happiness is to be found.
whither you might betake yourself to inaction by its side, to blissful repose beneath its shade?
"Why does the horizon hold me fast, with my joy and grief in this centre?"—Emerson.
There it would be safe from the axe and from all other injury; for being of no use to others, itself would be free from harm."
Illustrating the advantage of being useless. That which is small and useful is thus shown to be inferior to that which is large and useless.
CHAPTER II.
The Identity of Contraries.
Argument:—Contraries spring from our subjective individuality—Identity of subjective and objective—The centre where all distinctions are merged in One—How to reach this point—Speech an obstacle—The negative state—Light out of darkness—Illustrations.
Tzŭ Ch'i of Nan-kuo sat leaning on a table. Looking up to heaven, he sighed and became absent, as though soul and body had parted.
Yen Ch'êng Tzŭ Yu, who was standing by him, exclaimed, "What are you thinking about that your body should become thus like dry wood, your mind like dead ashes? Surely the man now leaning on the table is not he who was here just now."
"My friend," replied Tzŭ Ch'i, "your question is apposite. To-day I have buried myself. … Do you understand? … Ah! perhaps you only know the music of Man, and not that of Earth. Or even if you have heard the music of Earth, you have not heard the music of Heaven."
"Pray explain," said Tzŭ Yu.
"The breath of the universe," continued Tzŭ Ch'i, "is called wind. At times, it is inactive. But when active, every aperture resounds to the blast. Have you never listened to its growing roar?
"Caves and dells of hill and forest, hollows in huge trees of many a span in girth;—these are like nostrils, like mouths, like ears, like beam-sockets, like goblets, like mortars, like ditches, like bogs. And the wind goes rushing through them, sniffing, snoring, singing, soughing, puffing, purling, whistling, whirring, now shrilly treble, now deeply bass, now soft, now loud; until, with a lull, silence reigns supreme. Have you never witnessed among the trees such a disturbance as this?"
"Well, then," enquired Tzŭ Yu, "since the music of earth consists of nothing more than holes, and the music of man of pipes and flutes—of what consists the music of Heaven?"
"The effect of the wind upon these various apertures," replied Tzŭ Ch'i, "is not uniform. But what is it that gives to each the individuality, to all the potentiality, of sound?
"Great knowledge embraces the whole:
Sees both "the upper and under side of the medal of Jove" at once.
small knowledge, a part only. Great speech is universal:
Speech, according to Chuang Tzŭ's ideal, always covers the whole ground in question, leaving no room for positive and negative to appear in antagonism.
small speech is particular.
"For whether when the mind is locked in sleep or whether when in waking hours the body is released, we are subject to daily mental perturbations—indecision, want of penetration, concealment, fretting fear, and trembling terror. Now like a javelin the mind flies forth, the arbiter of right and wrong.
Thus recognising contraries.
Now like a solemn covenanter it remains firm, the guardian of rights secured.
Adhering to an opinion formed.
Then, as under autumn and winter's blight, comes gradual decay, a passing away, like the flow of water, never to return. Finally, the block when all is choked up like an old drain—the failing mind which shall not see light again.
"Joy and anger, sorrow and happiness, caution and remorse, come upon us by turns, with ever-changing mood. They come like music from hollowness, like mushrooms from damp. Daily and nightly they alternate within us, but we cannot tell whence they spring. Can we then hope in a moment to lay our finger upon their very Cause?
"But for these emotions I should not be. But for me, they would have no scope. So far we can go; but we do not know what it is that brings them into play. 'Twould seem to be a soul; but the clue to its existence is wanting. That such a Power operates, is credible enough, though we cannot see its form. It has functions without form.
As will be gathered later on, Chuang Tzŭ conceives of the soul as an emanation from God, passing to and from this earth through the portals of Life and Death.
"Take the human body with all its manifold divisions. Which part of it does a man love best? Does he not cherish all equally, or has he a preference? Do not all equally serve him? And do these servitors then govern themselves, or are they subdivided into rulers and subjects? Surely there is some soul which sways them all.
"But whether or not we ascertain what are the functions of this soul, it matters but little to the soul itself. For coming into existence with this mortal coil of mine, with the exhaustion of this mortal coil its mandate will also be exhausted. To be harassed by the wear and tear of life, and to