"I did not know that there was also this man. I have heard the Master say that the test of a scheme is its practicability, and that success must be certain. The minimum of effort with the maximum of success,--such is the way of the Sage. The absurdity of attributing such doctrines to Confucius will be apparent to every student of the Sage's remains. "Not so this manner of man. Aiming at TAO, he perfects his virtue. By perfecting his virtue he perfects his body, and by perfecting his body he perfects his spiritual part. And the perfection of the spiritual part is the TAO of the Sage. Coming into life he is as one of the people, knowing not whither he is bound. How complete is his purity? Success, profit, skill,--these have no place in his heart. Such a man, if he does not will it, he does not stir; if he does not wish it, he does not act. If all the world praises him, he does not heed. If all the world blames him, he does not repine. Reminding us of the philosopher Yung of ch. i. The praise and the blame of the world neither advantage him nor otherwise. He may be called a man of perfect virtue. As for me, I am but a mere creature of impulse." So he went back to Lu to tell Confucius. But Confucius said, "That fellow pretends to a knowledge of the science of the ante-mundane. He knows something, but not much. His government is of the internal, not of the external. What is there wonderful in a man by clearness of intelligence becoming pure, by inaction reverting to his original integrity, and with his nature and his spiritual part wrapped up in a body, passing through this common world of ours? Besides, to you and to me the science of the ante-mundane is not worth knowing." It is only the present which concerns man. This last is an utterance which might well have fallen from the lips of Confucius. But the whole episode is clearly an interpolation of later times. * * * * * As Chun Mang was starting eastwards to the ocean, he fell in with Yüan Fêng on the shore of the eastern sea. These names are probably allegorical, but it is difficult to say in exactly what sense. "Whither bound?" cried the latter. "I am going to the ocean," replied Chun Mang. "What are you going to do there?" asked Yüan Fêng. "The ocean," said Chun Mang, "is a thing you cannot fill by pouring in, nor empty by taking out. I am simply on a trip." You cannot _do_ anything to the infinite. "But surely you have intentions with regard to the straight-browed people?... Come, tell me how the Sage governs." The straight-browed, _lit._ horizontal-eyed, people, are said by one commentator to have been "savages."