Bantams cannot hatch the eggs of geese. The fowls of Lu can. Not that there is any difference in the hatching power of chickens. One can and another cannot, because one is naturally fitted for working on a large, the other on a small scale. My talents are of the latter order. I cannot transform you. Why not go south and see Lao Tzŭ?" So Nan Yung took some provisions, and after a seven days' journey arrived at the abode of Lao Tzŭ. "Have you come from Kêng Sang Ch'u?" said the latter. "I have," replied Nan Yung. "But why," said Lao Tzŭ, "bring all these people with you?" Meaning the questions he was going to ask. Nan Yung looked back in alarm, and Lao Tzŭ continued, "Do you not understand what I say?" Nan Yung bent his head abashed, and then looking up, said with a sigh, "I have now forgotten how to answer, in consequence of missing what I came to ask." He was so confused by Lao Tzŭ's question coming before he had had time to state his mission. "What do you mean?" said Lao Tzŭ. "If I do not know," replied Nan Yung, "men call me a fool. If I do know, I injure myself. If I am not charitable, I injure others. If I am, I injure myself. If I do not do my duty to my neighbour, I injure others. If I do it, I injure myself. My trouble lies in not seeing how to escape from these three dilemmas. On the strength of my connection with Kêng Sang, I would venture to ask advice." "When I saw you," said Lao Tzŭ, "I knew in the twinkling of an eye what was the matter with you. And now what you say confirms my view. You are confused, as a child that has lost its parents. You would fathom the sea with a pole. You are astray. You are struggling to get back to your natural self, but cannot find the way. Alas! alas!" Nan Yung begged to be allowed to remain, and set to work to cultivate the good and eliminate the evil within him. At the expiration of ten days, with sorrow in his heart, he again sought Lao Tzŭ. "Have you thoroughly cleansed yourself?" said Lao Tzŭ. "But this grieved look.... There is some evil obstruction yet. "If the disturbances are external, _Sc._ sensual. do not be always combating them, but close the channels to the mind. If the disturbances are internal, do not strive to oppose them, but close all entrance from without. And the mind will recover itself. If the disturbances are both internal and external, then you will not even be able to hold fast to Tao, still less practise it." "If a rustic is sick," said Nan Yung, "and another rustic goes to see him; and if the sick man can say what is the matter with him,--then he is not seriously ill. Yet my search after TAO is like swallowing drugs which only increase the malady. Although really not so very far from TAO (_sc._ health) as evidenced by my being able to describe my complaint, which a man sick of some serious disease is scarcely able to do. I beg therefore merely to ask the art of preserving life."