Page:Leaves from my Chinese Scrapbook - Balfour, 1887.djvu/113



parties, the trusting and the trusted, are equally sincere! Lay this to heart, my children."

Men and Brutes.

When the Director-General of State Music, in the days of the Emperor Yao, played on the musical stones, all the animals were attracted by the sound, and came and danced to it; and as the pandean pipes blended harmoniously at the close, phœnixes drew near and listened reverently; thus music was made a means of influencing beasts and birds. In what, then, do the hearts of the brute creation differ from those of human beings? The only differences between them lie in their voices and their outward forms, and the fact that they are unacquainted with the principle of social intercourse. Now, the Sage knows and understands everything, and therefore he is able to induce their obedience, and so make use of them. And there is a department of the intelligence of animals which is naturally identical with that of men. All animals, for instance, are endowed with the instinct of self-preservation, and this without being at all indebted to men for the idea. Males and females pair together, mothers and their offspring love each other; they avoid the open and unsheltered plain, and take refuge in precipitous places dangerous to man; they flee from cold and seek warmth; they live in flocks, and wander with those of their own kind; the young stay inside their lairs, while the full-grown ones go outside; they go to watering in company, and feed when the muster is called. In high antiquity brutes lived in harmony with men, and walked with them without fear. Later, they began to fear men; then they were scattered and cast into disorder. In after ages they concealed themselves, lurking in ambush, and skulking far away in order to escape injury. In one state there were men from time to time who were able to distinguish the language of the different sorts of animals; but this was a special accomplishment, and confined to a few. In high antiquity, however, the men of supernatural wisdom enjoyed a complete knowledge of all the properties, external and internal,