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And then there was that dreamer of dreams, of Butterfly dreams, subtle mystical humorous Chwangtse: how could it be otherwise than that clear-minded clarion-throated Philosopher Mang should afford him excellent play? "Confucius says, Confucius says, Confucius says" cries Philosopher Mang.
Why call that about burying gold and casting pearls into the sea one of the supreme utterances? Well; Chwangtse has a way of putting a whole essay into a sentence; this is a case in point.
The enthusiasm, it must be said, took directions legitimate and the reverse; bless you, why should any written page at all be considered lost, when there were men in Han with inventive genius of their own, and a pretty skill at forgery? The Son of Heaven was paying well; to it, then, minds and calligraphic fingers! So there are false chapters of Chwangtse, while many true ones have been lost.
The men of the second stage effectually tidied Liehtse up: Dr. H. A. Giles says he was an invention of the fertile brain of Chwangtse, and his book a forgery of Han times. Well; people did forge ancient literature in those days, and were well paid for doing so; and you cannot be quite certain of the complete authenticity of any book purporting to have been written before Ts'in Shi Hwangti's time.
Laotse and Confucius had caught the wind at its rising, on the peaks where they stood very near the Spirit; Chwangtse and Mangtse caught it in the region of the intellect: the former in his wild valley, the latter on his level prosaic plain.
"Viewing things thus," continues our Chwangtse, "you are able to comprehend and master them. So it is that to place oneself in inner relation with externals, without consciousness of their objectivity, this is Tao. But to wear out one's intellect in an obstinate adherence to the objectivity the apartness of things, not recognizing that they are all one this is called Three in the Morning.
Now then, I want to take one of those clauses, and try to see what Chwangtse really meant by it. "Your individuality is not your own, but the delegated adaptability of God."
What Toism, and especially Chwangtse as I think, did for the Chinese was to publish the syntax and vocabulary of that ancient language; to make people understand how to take these grand protagonists of Tao; how to communicate familiarly with these selfless avatars of the Most High. Listen to this: the thought is close-packed, but I think you will follow it:
From the business of state he would seize hours at intervals to lecture to his courtiers on Tao; I think not in a way that would have been intelligible to Laotse or Chwangtse. Those who yawned were beheaded, I believe. How would such a prodigy in time appear to his own age?
* Giles: Chinese Literature. The truth is, both Mencius and Chwangtse stood a step lower and nearer this world than had the two they followed: whose station had been on the level platform at the top of the altar. But Mencius descending had gone eastward; Chwangtse towards the west.
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