By-and-by, another of the four, named Tzŭ Lai, fell ill, and lay gasping for breath, while his family stood weeping around. The fourth friend, Tzŭ Li, went to see him. "Chut!" cried he to the wife and children; "begone! you balk his decomposition." Then, leaning against the door, he said, "Verily, God is great! I wonder what he will make of you now. I wonder whither you will be sent. Do you think he will make you into a rat's liver The Chinese believe that a rat has no liver. or into the shoulders of a snake?" "A son," answered Tzŭ Lai, "must go whithersoever his parents bid him. Nature is no other than a man's parents. The term "Nature" stands here as a rendering of _Yin_ and _Yang_, the Positive and Negative Principles of Chinese cosmogony, from whose interaction the visible universe results. If she bid me die quickly, and I demur, then I am an unfilial son. She can do me no wrong. TAO gives me this form, this toil in manhood, this repose in old age, this rest in death. And surely that which is such a kind arbiter of my life is the best arbiter of my death. "Suppose that the boiling metal in a smelting-pot were to bubble up and say, 'Make of me an Excalibur;' I think the caster would reject that metal as uncanny. And if a sinner like myself were to say to God, 'Make of me a man, make of me a man;' I think he too would reject me as uncanny. The universe is the smelting-pot, and God is the caster. I shall go whithersoever I am sent, to wake unconscious of the past, as a man wakes from a dreamless sleep." Tzŭ Sang Hu, Mêng Tzŭ Fan, and Tzŭ Ch'in Chang, were conversing together, when it was asked, "Who can be, and yet not be? Implying the absence of all consciousness. Who can do, and yet not do? By virtue of inaction. Who can mount to heaven, and roaming through the clouds, pass beyond the limits of space, oblivious of existence, for ever and ever without end?" The three looked at each other and smiled; and as neither had any misgivings, they became friends accordingly. Shortly afterwards Tzŭ Sang Hu died; whereupon Confucius sent Tzŭ Kung One of his chief disciples. to take part in the mourning. But Tzŭ Kung found that one had composed a song which the other was accompanying on the lute, Strictly speaking, a kind of zitha, played with two hammers. as follows:-- Ah! Wilt thou come back to us, Sang Hu? Ah! Wilt thou come back to us, Sang Hu? Thou hast already returned to thy God, While we still remain here as men,--alas! Tzŭ Kung hurried in and said, "How can you sing alongside of a corpse? Is this decorum?" The two men looked at each other and laughed, saying, "What should this man know of decorum indeed?" Not the outward decorum of the body, but the inward decorum of the heart. Tzŭ Kung went back and told Confucius, asking him, "What manner of men are these? Their object is nothingness and a separation from their corporeal frames.