Page:Zhuang Zi - translation Giles 1889.djvu/173

CAP. XII.] "He can see where all is dark. He can hear where all is still. In the darkness he alone can see light. In the stillness he alone can detect harmony. He can sink to the lowest depths of materialism. To the highest heights of spirituality he can soar. This because he stands in due relation to all things. Though a mere abstraction, he can minister to their wants, and ever and anon receive them into rest,—the great, the small, the long, the short, for ever without end."


 * He is, as it were, a law of compensation to all things.

The Yellow Emperor travelled to the north of the Red Lake and ascended the K'un-lun Mountains. Returning south he lost his magic pearl.


 * His spiritual part, his soul.

He employed Intelligence to find it, but without success. He employed Sight to find it, but without success. He employed Speech


 * Also explained as "Strength."

to find it, but without success. Finally, he employed Nothing, and Nothing got it.


 * He did not employ Nothing to find it. He only employed Nothing.

"Strange indeed," quoth the Emperor, "that Nothing should have been able to get it!"


 * Knowledge, sight, and speech, tend to obscure