Page:Gems of Chinese literature (1922).djvu/40

 YANG CHU. 4th century b.c. [A heterodox thinker who taught the doctrine of egoism, as opposed to the altruism of (q.v.), also a dissenter from Confucianism pure and undefiled. Yang Chu has left us no book. His views, as given below, are taken from chapter VII of the work ascribed to (q.v.), the authenticity of which has already been discussed under the name of its alleged author. These views are supposed to be stated in the actual words of Yang Chu, and at any rate may be held to represent adequately the opinions of the great egoist.]  IS LIFE WORTH LIVING?  HUNDRED years are the extreme limit of human life, an age which not one in a thousand attains. Let us take the case of a man who does. His helpless infancy and his helpless old age will together occupy nearly half the time. Pain and sickness, sorrow and misfortune, actual losses and opportunities missed, anxieties and fears,―these will almost fill up the rest. He may possibly have some ten years or so to the good; but even then he will hardly enjoy a single hour of absolute serenity, undarkened by the gloom of care. What, then, can be the object of human existence? Wherein is happiness to be found? In the appointments of wealth and luxury? Or in the enjoyment of the pleasures of sense? Alas! those will not always charm, and these may not always be enjoyed. Then again there is the stimulus of good report, there is the restraint of law, in things we may do and in things we may not do. And thus we struggle on for a breath of fame, and scheme to be remembered after death; ever on our guard against the allurements of sense, ever on the watch over our hearts and actions. We miss whatever of real happiness is to be got out of life, never being able even for a single moment to relax the vigilance of our heed. In what do we differ, indeed, from the fettered captives of a gaol? The men of old knew that with life they had come but for a while, and that with death they would shortly depart again. Therefore they followed the desires of their own hearts, and did not deny themselves pleasures to which they felt naturally inclined. Fame tempted them not; but led by their instincts alone, they took such