"I am no better than other people," replied Sun Shu Ao. "I regard office when it comes as something which may not be declined; when it goes, as something which cannot be kept. To me both the getting and losing are outside my own self; and therefore I feel no chagrin. How am I better than other people? "Besides, I am not conscious of office being either in the hands of others or in my own. If it is in the hands of others, my own personality disappears; if in mine, theirs. And amidst the cares of deliberation and investigation, what leisure has one for troubling about rank?" When Confucius heard this, he said, "The perfect Sages of old!--cunning men could not defeat them; beautiful women could not seduce them; robbers could not steal from them; They were unmoved in the face of danger. Fu Hsi and the Yellow Emperor could not make friends of them. Life and death are great; yet these gave them no pang. That would cause them to sacrifice truth. How much less then rank and power! "The souls of such men pierced through huge mountains as though they had been nothing; descended into the abyss without getting wet; occupied lowly stations without chagrin. They filled the whole universe; and the more they gave to others, the more they had themselves." These last words occur in chapter lxxxi. of the _Tao-Tê-Ching_. It is, to say the least, strange to find them here in the mouth of Confucius without a hint as to their alleged Taoistic source. The explanation is that when this episode was penned, that patchwork treatise which passes under the name of the _Tao-Tê-Ching_ had not been pieced together. * * * * * The Prince of Ch'u was sitting with the Prince of Fan. By and by, one of the officials of Ch'u said, "There were three indications of the destruction of the Fan State." "The destruction of the Fan State," cried the Prince of Fan, "did not suffice to injure my existence. Which was already, by virtue of TAO, beyond the reach of mundane influences. And while the destruction of the Fan State did not suffice to injure my existence, the preservation of the Ch'u State will not be enough to preserve yours. You being without TAO. From this point of view it will be seen that while we Fans have not begun to be destroyed, you Ch'us have not begun to exist." A good specimen of the _Fallacia Amphiboliæ_. CHAPTER XXII. KNOWLEDGE TRAVELS NORTH. _Argument_:--Inaction and TAO--The universe our model--Spontaneity our watchword--Omnipresence and indivisibility of TAO--External activity, internal passivity--Man's knowledge finite--Illustrations. [This chapter is supplementary to chapter vi.] When Knowledge travelled north, across the Black Water, and over the Dark-Steep Mountain, he met Do-nothing Say-nothing and asked of him as follows:--