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

In paragraph 1 we are presented with the illustration of the phäng. Long was the journey which it would undertake, when it contemplated removing to the South. That it required a wind of 90,000 lî to support it, and even then only rested after a flight of six months, was owing to its own Great size, and also because the Southern Ocean was not to be easily reached by a single effort. What is said, in paragraph 2, about men, when going anywhere, proportioning the provisions which they take {p. 274} with them to the length of the journey has the same meaning. How should such creatures as the cicada and the little dove be able to know this? Knowledge is great or small, because the years of the parties are many or few:--so it is that one is inferior to another. Have they not heard of the ming-ling and tâ-khun, which make their spring and autumn for themselves? And so does the phäng, as we may understand. Its not resting till the end of six months is really not a long time to it. The case of Phäng Zû is not worth being taken into account. This description of the greatness of the phäng is not any fabrication of our author's own, nor any statement peculiar to the Khî Hsieh. The same things are told in the 'Questions of Thang to Kî,' as in paragraph 3. As to the long journey of the phäng and the marsh-quail's laughing at it, that is not different from what the other two little creatures said above;--arising simply from the difference between the great and the small. And what difference is there between this and the case of those who enjoy themselves for a season in the world? Yung-dze of Sung is introduced (and immediately dismissed), as not having planted himself in the right position, and not being Great. Then Lieh-dze is brought forward, and dismissed as not being Great, because he had something to wait for. It is only he who rides on the twofold primal ether of the Yin and Yang, driving along with the six elements through all their changes as they wax and wane, and enjoying himself at the gate of death, that can be pronounced Great. This is what is called the Perfect Man; the Spirit-like Man; and the Sage Man.