Lian Yang answered:  “I am only a humble servant, and have really no secret to tell.  I fear the king has led you to expect something mysterious.  As to the tigers:  all I can say is that, like men, when yielded to they are pleased and when opposed they are angry.  Nothing gives way either to pleasure or to anger without a cause; and anger, by reaction, will follow pleasure, and pleasure anger.  I do not excite the tigers’ joy by giving them live creatures to kill, or whole carcasses to tear up.  I neither rouse their anger by opposing them, nor humor them to make them pleased.  I time their periods of hunger and anticipate them.  It is my aim to be neither antagonistic nor compliant; so they look upon me as one of themselves.  Hence they walk about the parks without regretting the tall forests and broad marshes, and rest in the enclosure without yearning for lonely mountain or dark vale.  It is merely using common sense.”

And there Liehtse leaves it in all its simplicity; but I shall venture to put my spoke in, and add that he has really given you a perfect philosophy for the conduct of life:  for the government of that other and inner tiger, the lower nature, especially; it is always that, you will remember, for which the Tiger stands in Chinese symbology;—­and also for education, the government of nations—­everything.  Balance,—­Middle lines,—­Avoidance of Extremes,—­Lines of Least Resistance:—­by whom are we hearing these things inculcated daily?  Did they not teach Raja-Yoga in ancient China?  Have not our school and its principles a Chinese smack about them?  Well; it was these principles made China supremely great; and kept her alive and strong when all her contemporaries had long passed into death; and, I hope, have ingrained something into her soul and hidden being, which will make her rise to wonderful heights again.

You can hear Laotse in them; it is the practical application of Laotse’s doctrine.  But can you not equally hear the voice of Confucius:  “too far is not better than not far enough”?  Western ethical teaching has tended towards inculcating imitation of the soul’s action:  this Chinese teaching takes the Soul for granted; says very little about it; but shows you how to provide the soul with the conditions through and in which it may act.  “Love your enemies;”—­yes; that is fine; it is what the Soul, the Divine Part of us, does;—­but we are not in the least likely to do it while suffering from the reaction from an outburst of emotion; ethics grow rather meaningless to us when, for example, we have toppled over from our balance into pleasure, eaten not wisely but too well, say; and then toppled back into the dumps with an indigestion.  But where the balance is kept you need few ethical injunctions; the soul is there, and may speak; and sees to all that.