Page:Leaves from my Chinese Scrapbook - Balfour, 1887.djvu/168

 were to confine his attention to one thing only, it would be well enough; then he might be said, by his additional reverence for truth, to have almost attained to it. But the man is incapable of thus setting his mind at rest; he diffuses his mental powers abroad over everything without getting any satisfaction; he just acquires a reputation for controversial skill, and nothing more. Alas for the talents of Hui Shih! He employs them lavishly enough, yet reaps no advantage; he pries into everything, but never thinks of penetrating to the root of anything; he is like a body which runs after its own shadow in hopes to catch it up and stop it." It is difficult to realise that there used actually to be men in this stolid, conservative country, this stronghold of platitudinarian orthodoxy, to whom such a description was applicable. Yet here is the proof of it; and not only were their methods analogous to those of the Greek Sophists, but the theories they advanced were very similar too. The arguments of the Sophist Gorgias on the mysteries of existence remind one very curiously of the speculations which Chuang-tzŭ puts into the mouth of the God of the Northern Sea. The aim of Gorgias is to prove that nothing exists; that if anything does exist, it cannot be an object of knowledge; and that if even anything exists and can be known, it cannot be imparted to others. If anything is, says Gorgias, as quoted by Sextus Empiricus, it must be either being or non-being, or even at one and the same time both being and non-being. All these cases are impossible; for a non-being cannot be, because it is the opposite of being; and therefore, if the latter is, the former cannot be; because if it were, it must be at the same time being and non-being. Chuang-tzŭ's North-Sea God is similarly