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

It must be from this paragraph that the bearing of the Treatise on the conduct of military operations has been maintained.} 2. The mind is quickened (to activity) by (external) things, and dies through (excessive pursuit of) them. The spring (of the mind's activity) is in the eyes. Heaven has no (special feeling of) kindness, but so it is that the greatest kindness comes from It. {p. 262} The crash of thunder and the blustering wind both come without design.{fr. 2_1} {fn. 2_1. Mr. Balfour translates the first member here by--'The mind is produced from matter and dies with matter; the working faculty is in the eye;' and says that it embodies a bold denial of any future life, or the existence of spirit, apart from matter. The meaning of the Text, however, is only what I have given;--is moral and not metaphysical. The eye is singled out from the three most important apertures of the body in ch. I, par. 5. The rest of the paragraph has its parallelisms in Lâo-dze and Kwang-dze.} 3. Perfect enjoyment is the overflowing satisfaction of the nature. Perfect stillness is the entire disinterestedness of it. When Heaven seems to be most wrapt up in Itself, Its operation is universal in its character.{fr. 3_1} {fn. 3_1. A sequel to the preceding paragraph. Lî Hsî-yüeh observes that the having no feeling of kindness is equivalent to Lâo-dze's 'doing nothing.' See the T. T. K., ch. 35, 'The Tâo does nothing, and so there is nothing which It does not do.'}