e so dreadful that the Government of the day
had to bring in Coercion, and as a consequence of this 'virtuous men
sought refuge in mountain caves, while rulers of state sat trembling in
ancestral halls.' Then, when everything was in a state of perfect chaos,
the Social Reformers got up on platforms, and preached salvation from the
ills that they and their system had caused. The poor Social Reformers!
'They know not shame, nor what it is to blush,' is the verdict of Chuang
Tzuu upon them.

The economic question, also, is discussed by this almond-eyed sage at
great length, and he writes about the curse of capital as eloquently as
Mr. Hyndman. The accumulation of wealth is to him the origin of evil. It
makes the strong violent, and the weak dishonest. It creates the petty
thief, and puts him in a bamboo cage. It creates the big thief, and sets
him on a throne of white jade. It is the father of competition, and
competition is the waste, as well as the destruction, of energy. The
order of nature is rest, repetition, and peace. Weariness and war are
the results of an artificial society based upon capital; and the richer
this society gets, the more thoroughly bankrupt it really is, for it has
neither sufficient rewards for the good nor sufficient punishments for
the wicked. There is also this to be remembered--that the prizes of the
world degrade a man as much as the world's punishments. The age is
rotten with its worship of success. As for education, true wisdom can
neither be learnt nor taught. It is a spiritual state, to which he who
lives in harmony with nature attains. Knowledge is shallow if we compare
it with the extent of the unknown, and only the unknowable is of value.
Society produces rogues, and education makes one rogue cleverer than
another. That is the only result of School Boards. Besides, of what
possible philosophic importance can education be, when it serves simply
to make each man differ from his neighbour? We arrive ultimately at a
chaos of opinions, doubt everything, and fall into the vulgar habit of
arguing; and it is only the intellectually lost who ever argue. Look at
Hui Tzu. 'He was a man of many ideas. His works would fill five carts.
But his doctrines were paradoxical.' He said that there were feathers in
an egg, because there were feathers on a chicken; that a dog could be a
sheep, because all names were arbitrary; that there was a moment when a
swiftly-flying arrow was neither