And I venture to state that nothing of that which the world calls wit, is otherwise than serviceable to strong thieves; and that nothing of that which the world calls wisdom is other than a protection to strong thieves. How can this be shown?--In the State of Ch'i a man used to be able to see from one town to the next, and hear the barking and crowing of its dogs and cocks. So near were they. This sentence has been incorporated in ch. LXXX of the _Tao-Tê-Ching_. See _The Remains of Lao Tzŭ_, p. 50. The area covered by the nets of fishermen and fowlers, and pricked by the plough, was a square of two thousand and odd _li_. Of which three go to a mile, roughly. This statement is intended to convey an idea of prosperity. And within its four boundaries not a temple or shrine was dedicated, nor a district or hamlet governed, but in accordance with the rules laid down by the Sages. Yet one morning B.C. 481. T'ien Ch'êng Tzŭ slew the Prince of Ch'i, and stole his kingdom. And not his kingdom only, but the wisdom-tricks which he had got from the Sages as well; so that although T'ien Ch'êng Tzŭ acquired the reputation of a thief, he lived as comfortably as ever did either Yao or Shun. The small States did not venture to blame, nor the great States to punish him; and so for twelve generations his descendants ruled over Ch'i. Commentators have failed to explain away this last sentence. On the strength of an obvious anachronism, some have written off the whole chapter as a forgery; but the general style of argument is against this view. Was not this stealing the State of Ch'i and the wisdom-tricks of the Sages as well in order to secure himself from the consequences of such theft? This amounts to what I have already said, namely that nothing of what the world esteems great wit is otherwise than serviceable to strong thieves, and that nothing of what the world calls great wisdom is other than a protection to strong thieves. Let us take another example. Of old, Lung Fêng was beheaded, Pi Kan was disembowelled, Chang Hung was sliced to death, Tzŭ Hsü was chopped to mince-meat. The first two have been already mentioned in ch. iv. Chang Hung was minister to Prince Ling of the Chou dynasty. Tzŭ Hsü was a name of the famous Wu Yüan, prime minister of the Ch'u State, whose corpse is said to have been sewn up in a sack and thrown into the river near Soochow. All these four were Sages, but their wisdom could not preserve them from death. In fact, it rather hastened their ends. An apprentice to Robber Chê asked him saying, "Is there then TAO in thieving?" "Pray tell me of something in which there is not TAO," Chê replied. "There is the _wisdom_ by which booty is located. The _courage_ to go in first, and the _heroism_ of coming out last. There is the _shrewdness_ of calculating success, and _justice_ in the equal division of the spoil. There has never yet been, a great robber who was not possessed of these five."