Book VI.
*20. Chap. I. Fu-hsü [OMITTED] (Wrong Notions about Happiness).
Happiness is not given by Heaven as a reward for good actions,
as the general belief is. The Mêhist theory that the spirits protect
and help the virtuous is controverted by facts. Wang Ch`ung
shows how several cases, adduced as instances of how Heaven recompensed
the virtuous are illusive, and that fate is capricious
and unjust.
*21. Chap. II. Huo-hsü [OMITTED] (Wrong Notions on Unhappiness).
The common belief that Heaven and Earth and the spirits
punish the wicked and visit them with misfortune, is erroneous,
as shown by examples of virtuous men, who were unlucky, and
of wicked, who flourished. All this is the result of chance and
luck, fate and time.
*22. Chap. III. Lung-hsü [OMITTED] (On Dragons).
The dragon is not a spirit, but has a body and lives in pools.
It is not fetched by Heaven during a thunderstorm, as people believe.
The different views about its shape are given:—It is represented
as a snake with a horse's head, as a flying creature, as a reptile
that can be mounted, and like earthworms and ants. In ancient
times dragons were reared and eaten. The dragon rides on the
clouds during the tempest, there being a certain sympathy between
the dragon and clouds. It can expand and contract its body, and
make itself invisible.
*23. Chap. IV. Lei-hsü [OMITTED] (On Thunder and Lightning).
Thunder is not the expression of Heaven's anger. As a spirit
it could not give a sound, nor could it kill a man with its
breath. It does not laugh either. Very often the innocent are
struck by lightning, and monsters like the Empress Lü Hou are
spared. The pictorial representations of thunder as united drums,
or as the thunderer Lei Kung, are misleading. Thunder is fire or
hot air, the solar fluid Yang exploding in its conflict with the Yin
fluid, lightning being the shooting forth of the air. Five arguments
are given, why thunder must be fire.
