said to Mou of Wei, "When young I studied the TAO of the ancient Sages. When I grew up I knew all about the practice of charity and duty to one's neighbour, the identification of like and unlike, the separation of hardness and whiteness, and about making the not-so so, and the impossible possible. I vanquished the wisdom of all the philosophies. I exhausted all the arguments that were brought against me. I thought that I had indeed reached the goal. But now that I have heard Chuang Tzŭ, I am lost in astonishment at his grandeur. I know not whether it is in arguing or in knowledge that I am not equal to him. I can no longer open my mouth. May I ask you to impart to me the secret?" Kung Tzŭ Mou leant over the table and sighed. Then he looked up to heaven, and smiling replied, saying, "Have you never heard of the frog in the old well?--The frog said to the turtle of the eastern sea, 'Happy indeed am I! I hop on to the rail around the well. I rest in the hollow of some broken brick. Swimming, I gather the water under my arms and shut my mouth. I plunge into the mud, burying my feet and toes; and not one of the cockles, crabs, or tadpoles I see around me are my match. [Fancy pitting the happiness of an old well against all the water of Ocean!] Why do you not come, Sir, and pay me a visit?' "Now the turtle of the eastern sea had not got its left leg down ere its right had already stuck fast, so it shrank back and begged to be excused. It then described the sea, saying, 'A thousand _li_ would not measure its breadth, nor a thousand fathoms its depth. In the days of the Great Yü, there were nine years of flood out of ten; but this did not add to its bulk. In the days of T'ang, there were seven years out of eight of drought; but this did not narrow its span. Not to be affected by duration of time, not to be affected by volume of water,--such is the great happiness of the eastern sea.' To be impervious to external influences. "At this the well-frog was considerably astonished, and knew not what to say next. And for one whose knowledge does not reach to the positive-negative domain, Where contraries are identical. to attempt to understand Chuang Tzŭ, is like a mosquito trying to carry a mountain, or an ant to swim a river,--they cannot succeed. And for one whose knowledge does not reach to the abstrusest of the abstruse, but is based only upon such victories as you have enumerated,--is not he like the frog in the well? "Chuang Tzŭ moves in the realms below while soaring to heaven above. For him north and south do not exist; the four points are gone; he is engulphed in the unfathomable. For him east and west do not exist. Beginning with chaos, he has gone back to TAO; and yet you think you are going to examine his doctrines and meet them with argument! This is like looking at the sky through a tube, or pointing at the earth with an awl,--a small result. The area covered by an awl's point being infinitesimal.