Page:Zhuang Zi - translation Giles 1889.djvu/291

CAP. XX.] to surroundings, rank and power follow without cease. Such advantages are external; they are not derived from oneself. And my life is more or less dependent upon the external. The superior man does not steal these; nor does the good man pilfer them. What then do I but take them as they come?

"Therefore it has been said that no bird is so wise as the swallow. If it sees a place unfit to dwell in, it will not bestow a glance thereon; and even though it should drop food there, it will leave the food and fly away. Now swallows fear man. Yet they dwell among men. Because there they find their natural abode."


 * In the same way, man should adapt himself to the conditions which surround him.

"And what is the meaning," enquired Yen Hui, "of no beginning and no end?"

"The work goes on," replied Confucius, "and no man knoweth the cause. How then shall he know the end, or the beginning? There is nothing left to us but to wait."

"And that man and God are ," said Yen Hui. "What does that mean?"

"That man is," replied Confucius, "is from God. That God is, is also from God. That man is not God, is his nature.


 * Sc. that which makes him man.

The Sage quietly waits for death as the end."


 * Which shall unite him once again with God.