Page:Leaves from my Chinese Scrapbook - Balfour, 1887.djvu/146



manifestation of mercy." The visitor replied, "But if the people know that your Excellency is so fond of setting birds at liberty, they will vie with each other in catching them to begin with, and numbers of the birds will die. If your object is to save their lives, would it not be better to forbid the people to catch them at all? First to catch them, in order to let them go afterwards, is surely to destroy the just proportions of good and evil."

Then Chien-tzŭ acknowledged that his visitor was right.

A Youthful Anti-Teleologist.

There was a wealthy man of Chi, named T'ien Tsû, who daily fed a thousand people in his own mansion. Among them was one who reverently presented his host with a fish and a goose. T'ien Tsû looked at the offering and sighed. "How bountiful," he exclaimed, "is Heaven to man! It gives us the nutritious grain for food, and produces birds and fishes for our use." All the guests applauded this pious sentiment to the echo, except the young son of a certain Mr. Pao, a lad of twelve years old, who, leaving his back seat and running forward, said—

"You would be nearer the truth, Sir, if you said that Heaven, Earth, and everything else all belonged to the same category, and that, therefore, nothing in that category is superior to the rest. The only difference which exists is a matter of size, intelligence, and strength, by virtue of which all these things act and prey upon each other; so it is quite a mistake to say that one is created for the sake of the others. Whatever a man can get to eat, he eats; how can it be that Heaven originally intended it for the use of man, and therefore created it? Besides, we all know that gnats and mosquitoes suck our skins, and tigers and wolves devour our flesh; so that, according to your theory, we were ourselves created by Heaven for the special benefit of gnats, mosquitoes, tigers, and wolves! Do you believe that, pray?"