Gems of Chinese Literature/Chuang Tzŭ-Inference

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How Yao Wished to Abdicate
Gems of Chinese Literature
translated by Herbert Allen Giles
Inference by Chuang Tzŭ
Independence
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CHUANG TZŬ.

4th century b.c.

[A most original thinker, of whom the Chinese nation might well be proud. Yet his writings are tabooed as heterodox, and are very widely unread, more perhaps on account of the extreme obscurity of the text than because they are under the ban of the Confucianists. What little is known of Chuang Tzŭ's life may be gathered from some of the extracts given. He is generally regarded as an advanced exponent of the doctrines of Lao Tzŭ. So late as the 4th century a.d., the work of Chuang Tzŭ appears to have run to fifty-three chapters. Of these, only thirty-three now remain; and several of them are undoubtedly spurious, while into various other chapters, spurious passages have been inserted.]

1518086Gems of Chinese Literature — InferenceHerbert Allen GilesChuang Tzŭ
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Chuang Tzŭ and Hui Tzŭ had strolled on to the bridge over the Hao, when the former observed, “See how the minnows are darting about! That is the pleasure of fishes.”

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“You not being yourself a fish,” said Hui Tzŭ, “how can you possibly know in what the pleasure of fishes consists?”

“And you not being I,” retorted Chuang Tzŭ, “how can you know that I do not know?”

“That I, not being you, do not know what you know,” replied Hui Tzŭ, “is identical with my argument that you, not being a fish, cannot know in what the pleasure of fishes consists.”

“Let us go back to your original question,” said Chuang Tzŭ. “You ask me how I know in what consists the pleasure of fishes. Your very question shows that you knew I knew. I knew it from my own feelings on this bridge.

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