nse 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, also, have their
place in Chuang Tzu's parables and stories, and through myth and poetry
and fancy his strange philosophy finds musical utterance.

Of course it is sad to be told that it is immoral to be consciously good,
and that doing anything is the worst form of idleness. Thousands of
excellent and really earnest philanthropists would be absolutely thrown
upon the rates if we adopted the view that nobody should be allowed to
meddle in what does not concern him. The doctrine of the uselessness of
all useful things would not merely endanger our commercial supremacy as a
nation, but might bring discredit upon many prosperous and serious-minded
members of the shop-keeping classes. What would become of our popular
preachers, our Exeter Hall orators, our drawing-room evangelists, if we
said to them, in the words of Chuang Tzu, 'Mosquitoes will keep a man
awake all night with their biting, and just in the same way this talk of
charity and duty to one's neighbour drives us nearly crazy. Sirs, strive
to keep the world to its own original simplicity, and, as the wind
bloweth where it listeth, so let Virtue establish itself. Wherefore this
undue energy?' And what would be the fate of governments and
professional politicians if we came to the conclusion that there is no
such thing as governing mankind at all? It is clear that Chuang Tzu is a
very dangerous writer, and the publication of his book in English, two
thousand years after his death, is obviously premature, and may cause a
great deal of pain to many thoroughly respectable and industrious
persons. It may be true that the ideal of self-culture and
self-development, which is the aim of his scheme of life, and the basis
of his scheme of philosophy, is an ideal somewhat needed by an age like
ours, in which most people are so anxious to educate their neighbours
that they have actually no time left in