Sacred Books of the East Vol. 40: Taoism Vol. 2

{fn. 1_1. Compare ch. I, par. 2. The mutual contention of the five elements in nature only conduces to the nourishment of all its parts; and so man, as one of the three Powers, consumes only to increase his store, and throws down only to build up. Where the concluding quotation is taken from is not known. Of course any quotation is inconsistent with the idea of the early origin of the Treatise.} 2. Men know the mysteriousness of the Spirit's (action), but they do not know how what is not Spiritual comes to be so. The sun and moon have their definite times, and their exact measures as {p. 261} large and small. The service of the sages hereupon arises, and the spiritual intelligence becomes apparent.{fr. 2_1} {fn. 2_1. Compare par. 10 in the fifth Appendix to the Yî King.} 3. The spring by which the despoilers are moved is invisible and unknown to all under the sky. When the superior man has got it, he strengthens his body by it; when the small man has got it, he makes light of his life.{fr. 3_1} {fn. 3_1. The thing is good in itself, but its effect will be according to the character of its user, and of the use which is made of it.} 3. 1. The blind hear well, and the deaf see well. To derive all that is advantageous from one source is ten times better than the employment of a host; to do this thrice in a day and night is a myriad times better.{fr. 1_1} {fn. 1_1. That the loss of one sense may be in a manner compensated for by the greater cultivation of another,--in the case especially of the two senses specified,--is a fact; but I fail to perceive how this is illustrated by what follows in the rest of the paragraph. The illustration is taken from the seventh of the hexagrams in the Yî, but I have not discovered the nexus of it in the text of that classic or in the Appendixes on the thwan or hsiang of the hexagram.