And it is worse yet in the case of the writings of the ancients:
Duke Hwan, seated above in his hall, was (once) reading a book, and the wheelwright Phien was making a wheel below it. Laying aside his hammer and chisel, Phien went up the steps, and said, “I venture to ask your Grace what words you are reading?” The duke said, “The words of the sages.” “Are those sages alive?” Phien continued. “They are dead,” was the reply. “Then,” said the other, “what you, my Ruler, are reading are only the dregs and sediments of those old men.” The duke said, “How should you, a wheelwright, have anything to say about the book which I am reading? If you can explain yourself, very well; if you cannot, you shall die!” The wheelwright said, “Your servant will look at the thing from the point of view of his own art. In making a wheel, if I proceed gently, that is pleasant enough, but the workmanship is not strong; if I proceed violently, that is toilsome and the joinings do not fit. If the movements of my hand are neither (too) gentle nor (too) violent, the idea in my mind is realised. But I cannot tell (how to do this) by word of mouth;—there is a knack in it. I cannot teach the knack to my son, nor can my son learn it from me. Thus it is that I am in my seventieth year, and am (still) making wheels in my old age. But these ancients, and what it was not possible for them to convey, are dead and gone:—so then what you, my Ruler, are reading is but their dregs and sediments!”[1]
Kwang-tze does not even believe that knowledge leads to moral improvements: on the contrary, knowledge and law seem to him the causes of the greatest ills:
- ↑ Vol. XXXIX, pp. 343–44.
