He was all for getting at the Mean, the Absolute Life, beyond the pairs of opposites;—­which is, indeed, the central Chinese thought, Confucian or Taoist, the raison d’etre of Chinese longevity, and the saving health of China.  But unfortunately he —­Chwangtse—­did not see that his own opposite, Philosopher Mang, was driving him an inch or two away from the Middle Line.  So, with a more brilliant mind (a cant phrase that!) he stands well below Laotse; just as Mencius stands below K’ung Ch’iu.  The spiritual down-breathing had reached a lower plane:  soon the manvantara was to begin, and the Crest-Wave to be among the black-haired People.  For all these Teachers and Half-Teachers were but early swallows and forerunners.  Laotse and Confucius had caught the wind at its rising, on the peaks where they stood very near the Spirit; Chwangtse and Mangtse caught it in the region of the intellect:  the former in his wild valley, the latter on his level prosaic plain.  They are both called more daring thinkers than their predecessors; which is merely to say that in them the Spirit figured more on the intellectual, less on its own plane.  They were lesser men, of course.  Mencius had lost Confucius’ spirituality; Chwangtse, I think, something of the sweet sanifying influence of Laotse’s universal compassion.

Well, now:  three little tales from Chwangtse, to illustrate his wit and daring; and after then, to the grand idea he bequeathed to China.

“Chwangtse one day saw an empty skull, bleached, but still preserving its shape.  Striking it with his riding-whip, he said:  ’Was thou once some ambitious citizen whose inordinate yearnings brought him to this pass?—­some statesman who plunged his country in ruin, and perished in the fray?—­some wretch who left behind him a legacy of shame?—­some beggar who died in the pangs of hunger and cold?  Or didst thou reach this state by the natural course of old age?’

“He took the skull home, and slept that night with it under his head for a pillow, and dreamed.  The skull appeared to him in his dream, and said:  ’You speak well, Sir; but all you say has reference to the life of mortals, and to mortal troubles.  In death there are none of these things.  Would you like to hear about death?’

“Cwangtse, however, was not convinced, and said:  ’Were I to prevail upon God to let your body be born again, and your bones and flesh be renewed, so that you could return to your parents, to your wife and to the friends of your youth—­would you be willing?’

“At this the skull opened its eyes wide and knitted its brows and said:  ’How should I cast aside happiness greater than that of a king, and mingle once again in the toils and troubles of mortality?’”

Here is the famous tale of the Grand Augur and the Pigs:—­

“The Grand Augur, in his ceremonial robes, approached the shambles and thus addressed the Pigs:—­

“‘Why,’ said he, ’should you object to die?  I shall fattan you for three months.  I shall discipline myself for ten days and fast for three.  I shall strew fine grass, and place you bodily upon a carved sacrificial dish.  Does not this satisfy you?