Philosophers very seldom become real friends, and the more they are thrown together the less cordial become their relations. The story goes that Confucius as a young man went to pay his respects to Lao-Tsze, but that the latter gave his visitor very haughtily to understand that he considered him wanting in humility, by which he probably meant that Confucius was too much occupied with the things of this world, and not enough with those of heaven. The fact is, that the younger reformer was interested in everything that was going on wherever he happened to be, and was ready to talk to everybody. For all that, however, he studied the most abstruse psychological problems, and I do not suppose that even Lao-Tsze himself could have made a better answer than Confucius did to the King of Lu when he asked the difficult question quoted below. [Sidenote: THE KING OF LU] It must be remembered that in the time of Confucius, China was divided into little kingdoms, all of which the sage, who was fond of travelling, visited in turn. When he arrived at Lu, the king, who was already an old man, received him at once, and is reported to have thus addressed him: "I have been expecting you with impatience, for I want you to explain certain things to me about nature and man. Man, our sages tell us, is distinguished from all other visible beings by the intellectual faculty which renders him capable of reasoning, and all our wise men agree in adding that man derives this valuable faculty direct from Heaven. Now is it not true that we derive our whole nature from our parents, even as other beings are reproduced by generation? I entreat you to enlighten me on this point." "It is not easy," replied Confucius, "to explain clearly to you a matter of which so little is really known. To obey you, however, I will give you in a few words a _résumé_ of all I know on the subject, and your own penetration will find out the rest. "A portion of the substance of the father and the mother placed in the organ formed for its reception is the cause of our existence and the germ of our being. This germ would, however, remain inert and dead without the help of the two contrary principles of the Yang and the Yin.[3]--These two universal agents of nature, which are in all things and everywhere, act reciprocally on it, developing it, insensibly extending and continuing it, and causing it to assume definite form. [3] "In the order of living beings," says M. G. Pauthier, in the section on China of _L'Univers Pittoresque_, "the Yang and the Yin are the male and female principles; in the order of the elements they are the luminous and the dark principles; in the order of natural substances the strong and the weak principles."