Page:Leaves from my Chinese Scrapbook - Balfour, 1887.djvu/95

 CHAPTER X.

A PHILOSOPHER WHO NEVER LIVED.

"Do you know," said a nephew of the Marquis Tsêng to a friend of ours a few years ago, "that we have a book in China that bears a very close resemblance to your Bible?"

"I did not know it," replied our friend; "pray, which may it be?"

"It is called the Works of Lieh-tzŭ," answered the young Chinese.

Now, such a statement as this was quite sufficient to make us turn our attention to the volumes indicated with something more than usual anticipation; and if we find ourselves unable to endorse the description, we have nevertheless discovered much in the book to interest us, and much that deserves recording. Lieh-tzŭ is said to have flourished circâ 400 B.C., and to have been one of the earliest and most illustrious disciples of Lao-tzŭ, the reputed founder of the Taoist philosophy. His book is a congeries of interpolations and additions of a considerably later date; still, it has been honoured with special attention by more than one Emperor, and His Majesty Hsüan Tsung, of the T'ang dynasty (713-756), raised it to the dignity of a classic by the title of Ch'ung Hsü Ching, or Sutra of Fulness and Emptiness. About the philosopher