"Form, and virtue, and charity, and duty to one's neighbour, these are the accidentals of the spiritual. Except he be a perfect man, who shall determine their place? The world of the perfect man, is not that vast? And yet it is not able to involve him in trouble. All struggle for power, but he does not join. Though discovering nothing false, he is not tempted astray. In spite of the utmost genuineness, he still confines himself to essentials. To the root, not to the branch. "He thus places himself outside the universe, beyond all creation, where his soul is free from care. Apprehending TAO, he is in accord with virtue. He leaves charity and duty to one's neighbour alone. He treats ceremonies and music as adventitious. And so the mind of the perfect man is at peace. "Books are what the world values as representing TAO. But books are only words, and the valuable part of words is the thought therein contained. That thought has a certain bias which cannot be conveyed in words, yet the world values words as being the essence of books. But though the world values them, they are not of value; as that sense in which the world values them is not the sense in which they are valuable. "That which can be seen with the eye is form and colour; that which can be heard with the ear is sound and noise. But alas! the people of this generation think that form, and colour, and sound, and noise, are means by which they can come to understand the essence of TAO. This is not so. And as those who know, do not speak, while those who speak do not know, whence should the world derive its knowledge?" The first half of this last sentence has been pitchforked _à propos de bottes_ into ch. lvi of the _Tao-Tê-Ching_. See _The Remains of Lao Tzŭ_, pp. 7 and 38. Duke Huan. The famous ruler of the Ch'i State. Flourished 7th century B.C. was one day reading in his hall, when a wheelwright who was working below, Below the covered dais, termed "hall," which has an open frontage, in full view of which such work might be carried on. flung down his hammer and chisel, and mounting the steps said, "What words may your Highness be studying?" "I am studying the words of the Sages," replied the Duke. "Are the Sages alive?" asked the wheelwright. "No," answered the Duke; "they are dead." "Then the words your Highness is studying," rejoined the wheelwright, "are only the dregs of the ancients." "What do you mean, sirrah!" cried the Duke, "by interfering with what I read? Explain yourself, or you shall die."