[FN#219] The account is given by Chwang Tsz in his book, vol. xviii., p. 17.

“When they came in, Zze Lu said:  ’Your present condition may be called one of extreme distress!’ Confucius replied:  ’What words are these?  When the superior man has free course with his principles, that is what we call his success; when such course is denied, that is what we call his failure.  Now I hold in my embrace the principles of righteousness and benevolence, and with them meet the evils of a disordered age; where is the proof of my being in extreme distress?  Therefore, looking inwards and examining myself, I have no difficulties about my principles; though I encounter such difficulties (as the present), I do not lose my virtue.  It is when winter’s cold is come, and the hoar-frost and snow are falling, that we know the vegetative power of the pine and cypress.  This distress between Khan and Zhai is fortunate for me.’  He then took back his lute so that it emitted a twanging sound, and began to play and sing.  (At the same time) Zze Lu hurriedly seized a shield and began to dance, while Zze Kung said:  ’I did not know (before) the height of heaven nor the depth of earth!’”

Thus the good are unfailingly rewarded with their own virtue, and the wholesome consequences of their actions on society at large.  And the bad are inevitably recompensed with their own vices, and the injurious effects of their actions on their fellow-beings.  This is the unshaken conviction of humanity, past, present, and future.  It is the pith and marrow of our moral ideal.  It is the crystallization of ethical truths, distilled through long experiences from time immemorial to this day.  We can safely approve Edwin Arnold, as he says: 

“Lo I as hid seed shoots after rainless years,
So good and evil, pains and pleasures, hates
And loves, and all dead deeds come forth again,
Bearing bright leaves, or dark, sweet fruit or sour.”

Longfellow also says: 

“No action, whether foul or fair,
Is ever done, but it leaves somewhere
A record-as a blessing or a curse.”

9.  Retribution[FN#220] in the Past, the Present, and the Future Life.

Then a question suggests itself:  If there be no soul that survives body (as shown in the preceding chapter), who will receive the retributions of our actions in the present life?  To answer this question, we have to restate our conviction that life is one and the same; in other words, the human beings form one life or one self—­that is to say, our ancestors in the past formed man’s past life.  We ourselves now form man’s present life, and our posterity will form the future life.  Beyond all doubt, all actions of man in the past have brought their fruits on the present conditions of man, and all actions of the present man are sure to influence the conditions of the future man.  To put it in another way, we now reap the fruits of what we sowed in our past life (or when we lived as our fathers), and again shall reap the fruits of what we now sow in our future life (or when we shall live as our posterity).