“The genesis of sound lies in the sense of hearing; but That which causes sound is never audible to the ear.  The source of color”—­for ‘source’ we might say, the ’issuing-point’—­“is vision; but That which produces color never manifests to the eye.  The origin of taste lies in the palate; but That which causes taste is never perceived by that sense.  All these pehnomena are functions of the Principle of Inaction—­the inert unchanging Tao.”

One is reminded of a passage in the Talavakara-Upanishad:

“That which does not speak by speech, but by which speech is expressed:  That alone shalt thou know as Brahman, not that which they here adore.

“That which does not think by mind, but by which mind is itself thought:  That alone shalt thou know as Brahman, not that which they here adore.”

And so it continues of each of the sense-functions.

After this, Liehtse for the most wanders from story to story; he taught in parables; and sometimes we have to listen hard to catch the meaning of them, he rarely insists on it, or drives it well home, or brings it down to levels of plain-spokenness at which it should declare itself to a westem mind.  Here, again, is the Chinese characteristic:  the touch is lighter; more is left to the intuition of the reader; the lines are less heavily drawn.  They rely on a kind of intelligence in the readers, akin to the writers’, to see those points at a glance, which we must search for carefully.  Where each word has to be drawn, a little picture taking time and care, you are in no danger of overlavishness; you do not spill and squander your words, “intoxicated,” as they say, “with the exuberance of your verbosity.”  Style was forced on the Chinese; ideograms are a grand preventive against pombundle.—­I shall follow Liehtse’s method, and go from story to story at random; perhaps interpreting a little by the way.

We saw how Confucius insisted on balance:  egging on Jan Yu, who was bashful, and holding back Tse Lu, who had the pluck of two;—­ declaring that Shih was not a better man than Shang, because too far is not better than not far enough.  The whole Chinese idea is that this balance of the faculties is the first and grand essential.  Your lobsided man can make no progress really;—­he must learn balance first.  An outstanding virtue, talent, or aptitude, is a deterrent, unless the rest of the nature is evolved up to it;—­that is why the Greatest Men are rarely the most striking men; why a Napoleon catches the eye much more quickly than a Confucius; something stands out in the one,—­and compels attention; but all is even in the other.  You had much better not have genius, if you are morally weak; or a very strong will, if you are a born fool.  For the morally weak genius will end in moral wreck; and the strong-willed fool—­a plague upon him!  This is the truth, knowledge of which has made China so stable; and ignorance of which has kept