at peace.

All this is of course excessively dangerous, but we must remember that
Chuang Tzu lived more than two thousand years ago, and never had the
opportunity of seeing our unrivalled civilisation. And yet it is
possible that, were he to come back to earth and visit us, he might have
something to say to Mr. Balfour about his coercion and active
misgovernment in Ireland; he might smile at some of our philanthropic
ardours, and shake his head over many of our organised charities; the
School Board might not impress him, nor our race for wealth stir his
admiration; he might wonder at our ideals, and grow sad over what we have
realised. Perhaps it is well that Chuang Tzu cannot return.

Meanwhile, thanks to Mr. Giles and Mr. Quaritch, we have his book to
console us, and certainly it is a most fascinating and delightful volume.
Chuang Tzu is one of the Darwinians before Darwin. He traces man from
the germ, and sees his unity with nature. As an anthropologist he is
excessively interesting, and he describes our primitive arboreal ancestor
living in trees through his terror of animals stronger than himself, and
knowing only one parent, the mother, with all the accuracy of a lecturer
at the Royal Society. Like Plato, he adopts the dialogue as his mode of
expression, 'putting words into other people's mouths,' he tells us, 'in
order to gain breadth of view.' As a story-teller he is charming. The
account of the visit of the respectable Confucius to the great Robber Che
is most vivid and brilliant, and it is impossible not to laugh over the
ultimate discomfiture of the sage, the barrenness of whose moral
platitudes is ruthlessly exposed by the successful brigand. Even in his
metaphysics, Chuang Tzu is intensely humorous. He personifies his
abstractions, and makes them act plays before us. The Spirit of the
Clouds, when passing eastward through the expanse of air, happened to
fall in with the Vital Principle. The latter was slapping his ribs and
hopping about: whereupon the Spirit of the Clouds said, 'Who are you, old
man, and what are you doing?' 'Strolling!' replied the Vital Principle,
without stopping, for all activities are ceaseless. 'I want to _know_
something,' continued the Spirit of the Clouds. 'Ah!' cried the Vital
Principle, in a tone of disapprobation, and a marvellous conversation
follows, that is not unlike the dialogue between the Sphinx and the
Chimera in Flaubert's curious drama. Talking animals,