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Updated: June 17, 2025
If Chwangtse had lived before Mencius, or Mencius after Chwangtse, Chwangtse could have afforded to see Confucius in his true light, as Liehtse did; but the power and influence of the mind of Mencius were such that in his time there was no looking at the Master except through his glasses.
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.
We may, then, safely call him a Taoist Teacher of the fifth century, or at latest of the early fourth. The book's own account of itself is, that it was not written by Liehtse, but compiled from his oral teaching by his disciples. Thus it begins: "Our Master Liehtse live in the Cheng State for forty years, and no man knew him for what he was.
But where the balance is kept you need few ethical injunctions; the soul is there, and may speak; and sees to all that. Hu-Chiu Tzu-lin, we read, taught Liehtse these things. Said he: "You must familiarize yourself with the Theory of Consequents before you can talk of regulating conduct." Liehtse said: "Will you explain what you mean by the Theory of Consequents?"
"Look at your shadow," said his teacher; "and you will know." Liehtse turned his head and looked at his shadow. When his body was bent the shadow was crooked; when upright, it was straight.
"You may consider the virtues of Shennung and Yuyen," says Liehtse; "you may examine the books of Yu, Kia, Shang, and Chow," that is, the whole of history; "you may weight the utterances of the great Teachers and Sages; but you will find no instance of preservation or destruction, fulness or decay, which has not obeyed this supreme Law of Causality."
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