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 Augu