Page:Gems of Chinese literature (1922).djvu/294

 their water. Ah me! Deep mountains and wide marshes give birth indeed to dragons; but the footprints of our noble representative can never have been familiar to the small-sized gentlemen of the Country of Dwarfs. 

Just now, all China is under the influence of Yang Chu. There are those whose talk is of but whose deeds are of Yang; there are others whose talk and deeds are both of Yang. The limit is reached by those whose talk is of Mo Ti but whose deeds are of Yang; and there are even some who, recognizing neither Confucius, nor Yang, nor Mo, carry out the principles of Yang amid those of no understanding. Alas! Yang's teachings have been the ruin of China. They have indeed, and the only way to save her is to turn to the teachings of Mo Ti; not to the teachings of any other Mo but to the teachings of the real Mo, Mo the philosopher. 

“Without Liberty, better die.” New words these! During the 18th and 19th centuries these words were the foundation on which States were established by the various peoples in Europe and the Americas,―will liberty in the same sense serve the purpose of the modern Chinese nation? I reply that liberty connotes equal rights for all; it is an important factor in human life, and there is no direction in which it will fail to serve such a purpose. At the same time it should be noted that a distinction must be made between real liberty, false liberty, complete liberty, partial liberty, the liberty of civilization, and the liberty of savages. “Liberty!