"The government of the perfect Sage," explained Chi Ch'ê, "consists in influencing the hearts of the people so as to cause them to complete their education, to reform their manners, to subdue the rebel mind, and to exert themselves one and all for the common good. This influence operates in accordance with the natural disposition of the people, who are thus unconscious of its operation. He who can so act has no need to humble himself before the teachings of Yao and Shun. He makes the desires of the people coincident with virtue, and their hearts rest therein." When Tzŭ Kung See ch. vi. went south to the Ch'u State on his way back to the Chin State, he passed through Han-yin. There he saw an old man engaged in making a ditch to connect his vegetable garden with a well. He had a pitcher in his hand, with which he was bringing up water and pouring it into the ditch,--great labour with very little result. "If you had a machine here," cried Tzŭ Kung, "in a day you could irrigate a hundred times your present area. The labour required is trifling as compared with the work done. Would you not like to have one?" "What is it?" asked the gardener. "It is a contrivance made of wood," replied Tzŭ Kung, "heavy behind and light in front. It draws up water as you do with your hands, but in a constantly overflowing stream. It is called a well-sweep." Still used all over China. Thereupon the gardener flushed up and said, "I have heard from my teacher that those who have cunning implements are cunning in their dealings, and that those who are cunning in their dealings have cunning in their hearts, and that those who have cunning in their hearts cannot be pure and incorrupt, and that those who are not pure and incorrupt are restless in spirit, and that those who are restless in spirit are not fit vehicles for TAO. It is not that I do not know of these things. I should be ashamed to use them." At this Tzŭ Kung was much abashed, and said nothing. Then the gardener asked him who he was, to which Tzŭ Kung replied that he was a disciple of Confucius. "Are you not one who extends his learning with a view to being a Sage; who talks big in order to put himself above the rest of mankind; who plays in a key to which no one can sing so as to spread his reputation abroad? Rather become unconscious of self and shake off the trammels of the flesh,--and you will be near. But if you cannot govern your own self, what leisure have you for governing the empire? Begone! Do not interrupt my work." Tzŭ Kung changed colour and slunk away, being not at all pleased with this rebuff; and it was not before he had travelled some thirty _li_ that he recovered his usual appearance. "What did the man we met do," asked a disciple, "that you should change colour and not recover for such a long time?" "I used to think there was only one man in all the world," replied Tzŭ Kung. Meaning Confucius.