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I shall follow Liehtse's method, and go from story to story at random; perhaps interpreting a little by the way. We saw how Confucius insisted on balance: egging on Jan Yu, who was bashful, and holding back Tse Lu, who had the pluck of two; declaring that Shih was not a better man than Shang, because too far is not better than not far enough.
I fear Ts'in will be our fisherman." * The tale is taken from Dr. H.A. Gile's Chinese Literature. Which duly came to pass. Even in Liehtse's time Ts'in characteristics were well understood: he tells a sly story of a neighboring state much infested by robbers. The king was proud of a great detective who kept them down; but they soon killed the Pinkerton, and got to work again.
So the one of them took up T'ai-hsing, and the other Wu-wang, and transported them to the positions where they remain to this day to prove the truth of Liehtse's story. Further proof: the region between Ts'i in the north and Han in the south that is to say, northern Homan is still and has been ever since, an unbroken plain.
Then why was it not superstition in Professor So-and-so, who found the bones and reconstructed the beastie for holiday crowds to gaze upon at the Crystal Palace or the Metropolitan Museum? Knowledge does die away into reminiscence, and then into oblivion; and the chances are that Liehtse's time retained reminiscences which have since become oblivion-hidden; then rediscovered in the West.
And perhaps, behind this naive Chinesity, lie grand enunciations of occult law. . . . I will end with what is probably Liehtse's most famous story and, from a purely literary standpoint, his best. It is worthy of Chwangtse himself; and I tell it less for its philosophy than for its fun.
I tell this tale, as also that other about the exchange of hearts, partly to suggest that Liehtse's China may have had the actuality, or at least a reminiscence, of scientific knowledge since lost there, and only discovered in Europe recently.
I will finish it with what is really another of Liehtse's stories, also dealing with a man who walked through fire uninjured, unconscious of it because of the one-pointedness of his mind. The incident came to the ears of Marquis Wen of Wei, who spoke to Tsu Hsia, a disciple of Confucius, about it.
Liehtse's tale of the Dream and the Deer leads me naturally to this characteristic bit from Chwangtse:* "Once upon a time, I, Chwangtse, dreamed I was a butterfly fluttering hither and thither; to all intents and purposes a veritable butterfly. I followed my butterfly fancies, and was unconscious of my individuality as a man. Suddenly I awoke, and there I lay, a man again.
Such a man, of course, might have lived later than Chwangtse, and taken his nom de plume of Liehtse from the latter's book; but against this there is the fact that Liehtse's teaching forms a natural link between Chtangtse's and that of their common Master Laotse; and above all and herein lies the real importance of him the real Liehtse treats Confucius as a Teacher and Man of Tao.
Where are you to say that Liehtse's Confucianism ends, and his Taoism begins? It is very difficult to draw a line. Confucius, remember, gave "As-the-heart" for the single character that should express his whole doctrine. Liehtse is leading you inward, to see how the conduct of life depends upon Balance, which also is a word that may translate Tao.
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