Once upon a time, I, Chuang Tzŭ, dreamt I was a butterfly, fluttering hither and thither, to all intents and purposes a butterfly. I was conscious only of following my fancies as a butterfly, and was unconscious of my individuality as a man. Suddenly, I awaked, and there I lay, myself again. Now I do not know whether I was then a man dreaming I was a butterfly, or whether I am now a butterfly dreaming I am a man. Between a man and a butterfly there is necessarily a barrier. The transition is called _Metempsychosis_. Showing how one may appear to be either of two. CHAPTER III. NOURISHMENT OF THE SOUL. _Argument_:--Life too short--Wisdom unattainable--Accommodation to circumstances--Liberty paramount--Death a release--The soul immortal. My life has a limit, but my knowledge is without limit. To drive the limited in search of the limitless, is fatal; and the knowledge of those who do this is fatally lost. In striving for others, avoid fame. In striving for self, avoid disgrace. Pursue a middle course. Thus you will keep a sound body, and a sound mind, fulfil your duties, and work out your allotted span. Prince Hui's cook was cutting up a bullock. Every blow of his hand, every heave of his shoulders, every tread of his foot, every thrust of his knee, every _whshh_ of rent flesh, every _chhk_ of the chopper, was in perfect harmony,--rhythmical like the dance of the Mulberry Grove, simultaneous like the chords of the Ching Shou. Commentators are divided in their identifications of these ancient _morceaux_. "Well done!" cried the Prince. "Yours is skill indeed." "Sire," replied the cook; "I have always devoted myself to TAO. It is better than skill. When I first began to cut up bullocks, I saw before me simply _whole_ bullocks. After three years' practice, I saw no more whole animals. Meaning that he saw them, so to speak, in sections. And now I work with my mind and not with my eye. When my senses bid me stop, but my mind urges me on, I fall back upon eternal principles. I follow such openings or cavities as there may be, according to the natural constitution of the animal. I do not attempt to cut through joints: still less through large bones. For a curious parallelism, see Plato's _Phædrus_, 265. "A good cook changes his chopper once a year,--because he cuts. An ordinary cook, once a month,--because he hacks. But I have had this chopper nineteen years, and although I have cut up many thousand bullocks, its edge is as if fresh from the whetstone. For at the joints there are always interstices, and the edge of a chopper being without thickness, it remains only to insert that which is without thickness into such an interstice. These words help to elucidate a much-vexed passage in ch. xliii of the _Tao-Tê-Ching_. See _The Remains of Lao Tzŭ_, p. 30.