Page:Zhuang Zi - translation Giles 1889.djvu/237

CAP. XVII.] much; for he knows that there is no limit to dimension. He looks back into the past, and does not grieve over what is far off, nor rejoice over what is near; for he knows that time is without end.


 * Space infinite has been illustrated by Locke by a centre from which you can proceed for ever in all directions. Time infinite, by a point in a line from which you can proceed backwards and forwards for ever.

He investigates fulness and decay, and does not rejoice if he succeeds, nor lament if he fails; for he knows that conditions are not invariable.


 * Fulness and decay are the inevitable precursors of each other.

He who clearly apprehends the scheme of existence, does not rejoice over life, nor repine at death; for he knows that terms are not final.


 * Life and death are but links in an endless chain.

"What man knows is not to be compared with what he does not know. The span of his existence is not to be compared with the span of his non-existence. With the small to strive to exhaust the great, necessarily lands him in confusion, and he does not attain his object. How then should one be able to say that the tip of a hair is the ne plus ultra of smallness, or that the universe is the ne plus ultra of greatness?"


 * These predicates are abstract terms, which are not names of real existences but of relations, states, or conditions of existences; not things, but conditions of things.