Annotations to Canon II:—
Once a man of Sung asked permission to engrave a female
ape on the edge of a bramble thorn for the King of Yen.
According to him, the King must remain purified for three
months before he could see it. The King, accordingly,
supported him with the emolument[44]
of three chariots.[45]
Thereupon the smith who attended on the King said[46]
to him:
"Thy servant has heard, `No lord of men can remain
purified for ten days without having a drinking feast in the
meantime.' Now that the Sung man knows the inability of
Your Majesty to remain purified long enough in order to see
a useless object, he purposely set three months as the period
of purification. As a rule, the instruments of engravers and
carvers must always be smaller than their objects. Being a
smith himself, thy servant finds no way to make him any
instrument for carving. It is an unattainable object. May Your
Majesty deliberate on the matter!" Accordingly, the King
arrested and questioned the man of Sung, found out his falsehood,
and put him to death. The smith again said to the King,
"If the state has no weights and measures to regulate things,
itinerants would present mostly such absurd discussions as
the Bramble Thorn Story."
According to a different source: Once the King of Yen
was recruiting skilful artists, when a man of Wei asked permission
to engrave a female ape on the edge of a bramble
thorn. Delighted, the King of Yen supported him with the
emolument of five chariots. Then the King asked "May I,
the King, for trial see the ape on the bramble thorn engraved
by my honourable guest?" "If the lord of men wants to
see it," replied the guest, "he must be absent from his harem
and abstain from wine and meat for half a year. Then, when
the rain clears up and the sun shines again, he will be able to
see the female ape in a dark shady place." In consequence,
the King of Yen purposely supported the man of Wei but
could not see his female ape. In the meantime a smith famous
for making kitchen utensils in Chêng said to the King of
Yen: "Thy servant is a carver. Every tiny object to be
carved must have a carving knife, and the carving instrument
is always larger than the object to be carved. Now that
the edge of the bramble thorn is too small even for the tip
of an awl, it must be extraordinarily difficult to handle the
edge of the bramble thorn. Suppose Your Majesty try to see
the awl of the guest. Then either his ability or inability will
be known." "Good," the King said, and then asked the man
of Wei, "What kind of an instrument does my honour-able
guest use in carving the female ape on the bramble
thorn?"
[47]
"An awl," "I want to see
[48]
it," said the King.
"May thy servant go back to his lodging place and get it?" So saying, the guest ran away.
Ni Yüeh[49]
was a skilful dialectician among the Sungs.
Maintaining the argument that "the white horse is not the
horse,"[50]
he overcame the debaters beneath the Grain[51]
Gate
of the capital of Ch`i. Once when he rode a white horse and
came to a pass, he had to pay the horse-tax for the white horse.
Thus, on playing with empty terms, he could triumph over
the whole country, but on investigating facts and examining
features he could not deceive anybody.
Indeed, suppose you sharpen an arrow, draw the bow, and
shoot the arrow, then though you close your eyes and shoot
at random, the pointed head of the arrow is bound to hit the
tip of an autumn spikelet. However, unless you can hit the
same spot again, you cannot be called a skilful archer. For
you have no constant aim and mark. Now if the target were
five inches in diameter and the arrow were shot from a distance
of one hundred steps,[52]
then nobody other than Yi and
Fêng Mêng could with certainty hit[53]
the mark every time.
For there would then be a constant aim and mark. Therefore,
in the presence of a constant aim and mark the straight hit
by Hou Yi and Fêng Mêng at a target five inches in diameter
is regarded as skilful; whereas in the absence of a constant
aim and mark the wild hit at the tip of an autumn spikelet is
regarded as awkward. For the same reason, if the sovereign
has no fixed standard and makes responses to any speaker,
then the itinerants will talk too much nonsense; whereas if
he establishes a fixed standard and holds any speaker to it,
then even intelligent men will be afraid of making mistakes
and dare not speak at random.[54]
Now, the lord of men, in
listening to suggestions, does not consider them under a
fixed standard but simply approves[55]
of their eloquence, does
not measure them with their meritorious services but plainly
honours their virtuous deeds, and does not take any concern
in a constant aim amd mark.
[56]
This is the reason why the lord
of men is always deceived and the itinerants are for ever
supported.
Once a traveller taught the King of Yen the way to
immortality. The King then sent men to learn it. Before
the men sent to learn completed their study, the traveller
died. Enraged thereby, the King chastized the students.
Thus, the King did not know that he himself had been
deceived by the traveller, but censured the students for their
tardiness. Indeed, to believe in an unattainable thing and
chastize innocent subjects is the calamity of thoughtlessness.
Moreover, what a man cares for is nothing other than
his own self. If he could not make himself immortal, how
could he make the King live for ever?
Once there were men of Chêng contending for seniority
in age. One man said, "My age is the same as Yao's."
Another man said, "I am as old as the elder brother of the
Yellow Emperor." They brought the dispute to the court,
but the judge could not make any decision. Finally he ruled
that the one who was the last to stop arguing won the case.
Once a traveller, who painted the whip for the Ruler of
Chou, spent three years to complete it. When the Ruler saw
it, it looked exactly like a plainly varnished whip. Thereby
the Ruler of Chou was enraged. Then the painter of the
whip said, "Build a wall twenty feet[57]
high and a window
eight feet long. Place the whip upon it at sunrise and then
look at it." The Ruler of Chou, accordingly, looked at the
features of the whip in the way he had been instructed and
found them all turning into dragons, serpents, birds, beasts,
carriages, and horses, and the forms of myriad other things
all present. Thereat he was greatly pleased. The work done
to this whip certainly was delicate and difficult. Yet its
utility was the same as that of any plainly varnished whip.
Once upon a time there was a traveller drawing for the
King of Ch`i. "What is the hardest thing to draw?" asked
the King. "Dogs and horses are the hardest." "Then what
is the easiest?" "Devils and demons are the easiest. Indeed,
dogs and horses are what people know and see at dawn and
dusk in front of them. To draw them no distortion is permissible.
Therefore they are the hardest. On the contrary, devils
and demons have no shapes and are not seen in front of anybody,
therefore it is easy to draw them."
In Ch`i there was a retired scholar named T`ien Chung.
Once a man of Sung named Ch`ü Ku saw him and said: "Ku[58]
has heard about the principle of the respected master not to
depend upon people for his food supplies. Now, Ku has a
way of planting the gourd, whose fruits are as hard as stones
and are solid but not hollow inside. Therefore, he is presenting
them to the master." Then Chung said: "Indeed, gourds
are valuable because they can serve as vessels. Now that they
are solid and not hollow, they cannot[59]
serve up anything. If
they are as hard as stones,[60]
they cannot be split for emptying
out.[61]
I have no use for these gourds." "If so, Ku will throw
them away." Now that T`ien Chun not depending upon
people for food supplies was also of no use to the country of
people, he was like the hard gourds.
Yü Ch`ing was building a house, and said to the carpenter,
"This house will be too high." Then the carpenter said:
"This is a new house, its plaster being wet and its beams
supporting the eaves still unseasoned. Indeed the wet plaster
is heavy and the unseasoned beams are curved. With curved
beams supporting wet plaster, the house ought to become low
enough." "That will not be so," said Yü Ch`ing. "After a
number of days, the plaster will be dry and the beams will be
seasoned. When dry, the plaster will be light; when seasoned,
the beams will be straight. With straight beams supporting
dry plaster, the house will be still higher." Thereby the
carpenter gave in and did the building in the way Yü Ch`ing
wanted, but the house collapsed.
According to a different source: Yü Ch`ing was going to
build a house, when the carpenter said: "The wood is
unseasoned and the plaster is wet. Indeed, when unseasoned,
the wood is curved; when wet, the plaster is heavy. With
curved wood supporting heavy plaster, the house, though it
may be completed now, will certainly collapse as time goes on."
In response to this Yü Ch`ing said: "When dry, the wood
will become straight; when dry the plaster will become light.
Suppose the wood and the plaster are really dry now. Then
they will become lighter and straighter day by day and will
never collapse even after a long period of time." Thereby
the carpenter gave in and did the building in the way Yü
Ch`ing wanted. In the meantime following the completion,
the house actually collapsed.
Fan Chü[62]
said: "The bow breaks always towards the
end and never at the beginning. To be sure, the bow-maker
first draws the bow, leaves it in the stand for thirty days,[63]
then
puts the string on it, and after one day shoots arrows with
it. Thereby he makes it tender at the beginning and tough
towards the ending. How can the bow not break? Chü's
way of making bows is not the same—namely, to leave the
bow in the stand for one day, then put the string on it, and
after thirty days shoot arrows with it. Thereby I make it
tough at the beginning and tender towards the ending."
At his wits' end, the bow-maker made bows in the way Fan
Chü wanted. The bows broke to pieces.
The sayings of Fan Chü and Yü Ch`ing are all eloquent in
structure and excellent in diction to the realities of things.
Yet the lord of men is always delighted at such sayings and
never suppresses them. This is the cause of his failure.
Indeed, not to seek for the merits in attaining order and
strength but to covet the voices in making eloquent speeches
and beautiful compositions, is to reject the experts in statecraft
and trust to such laymen as would break houses and
bows. Therefore, the lord of men in administering state
affairs is always not as skilful as the carpenter in building
houses and the craftsman in making bows. However, the
experts are driven to their wits' end by Fan Chü and Yü
Ch`ing. Because[64]
of the futility of[65]
empty phrases the latter
triumph. Because of the immutability of
[66]
practical things
the former are driven at bay. The lord of men makes much
of useless eloquent speeches and makes light of immutable
propositions. This is the cause of disorder. In the present
world there are always men who would imitate Fan Chü
and Yü Ch`ing, but the lord of men is uncreasingly delighted
with them. This is to revere such types of men as the
house- and bow-makers and look at the technical experts as
carpenters or craftsmen. As the carpenter and the craftsman
[67]
could not exert their technical skill, the house collapsed and
the bow broke. Likewise, as the experts in statecraft cannot
carry out their policy, the state is disorderly and the sovereign
is jeopardized.
To be sure, children, when they play together, take soft
earth as cooked rice, muddy water as soup, and wood
shavings as slices of meat. However, at dusk they would go
home for supper because dust rice and mud soup can be
played with but cannot be eaten. Indeed, tributes to the legacy
of remote antiquity, are appreciative and eloquent but superficial;
and admiration of the early kings for their benevolence
and righteousness, cannot rectify the course of the state.
Therefore, they can be played with but cannot be used as
instruments of government, either. Indeed, those who have
longed after benevolence and righteousness and become
weak and disorderly are the Three Chins. The one who has
never longed but has become orderly and strong is Ch`in.
However, she has not yet become an empire because her
government is not yet perfect.
