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

Now if words were like the chirpings of very young birds that come upon the ear, there would be no difference between them as regards truth or falsehood, right or wrong; but there is some obscuring influence, through which the different views of the Literati and Mohists are produced, with their confusion and uncertainty. All this is because {p. 277} the parties do not use their knowledge well. In their controversies each looks at the other's view only from his own standpoint, and throwing on the subject from that the light of Heaven, thus emptily replying to one another without end. And is this purposely intended to make a violent end of their disputations? (It is not so), for the Tâo is originally one. High and low, beautiful and ugly, ordinary and strange, success and overthrow, have nothing to do with it. The intelligent know this; those who weary their minds in trying to bring about a unity do not know it. At this point the sages throw on the subject the light of Heaven, also wishing to rest in Heaven, and so they come to a natural union:--this is how they use their knowledge well. And what are we to consider the highest reach of knowledge (see par. 5)? The ancients thought it necessary to place this in the time before anything began to be. A second class would have it that there had (always) been (some) things; and a third class held that between those things (and men) there had been a relativity. Thus it was that gradually there came differences of opinion, in affirmations and denials; and when these once arose, there could not but be the experiences of success and failure.