Page:Zhuang Zi - translation Giles 1889.djvu/364

330 of the whole empire, is like splitting a thing at a single blow.


 * Without reference to method or the requirements of the case in point.

"Yao knows that good men benefit the empire. But he does not know that they injure it. Only those on a higher level than good men know this.

"There are nincompoops; there are parasites; there are enthusiasts.

"A man who learns from a single teacher, and then goes off exultant, satisfied with his acquirements though ignorant that there was a time when nothing existed,—such a one is a nincompoop.

"Parasites are like the lice on a pig's back. They choose bald patches, which are to them palaces and parks. The parts between the toes, the joints, the dugs, and the buttocks, are to them so many comfortable and convenient resting-places. They know not that one day the butcher will tuck up his sleeves and spread straw and apply fire, and that they will perish in the singeing of the pig. As they sow, so do they reap. This is to be a parasite.

"Of enthusiasts, Shun is an example. Mutton does not care for ants; it is the ants which care for the mutton. Mutton has a frowsy smell; and there is a frowsiness about Shun which attracts the people. Therefore it was that after three changes of residence, when he came to the Teng district, he had some hundred thousand families with him.