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Page:Zhuang Zi - translation Giles 1889.djvu/299

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CAP. XXI.]
T’ien Tzǔ Fang
265


There is no place which he does not illuminate; and those who have eyes and feet depend upon him to use them with success. When he comes forth, that is existence; when he disappears, that is non-existence.

"And every human being has that upon which he depends for death or for life.

Mind, which rises with life and sets at death.

But if I, receiving this mind-informed body, pass without due modification to the end,

So that the mind perishes with the body.

day and night subject to ceaseless wear and tear like a mere thing, unknowing what the end will be, and in spite of this mind-informed body

Which should teach a higher lesson.

conscious only that fate cannot save me from the inevitable grave-yard,—then I am consuming life until at death it is as though you and I had but once linked arms to be finally parted for ever! Is not that indeed a cause for sorrow?

The motive of this involved paragraph is identical with that of Mr. Mallock's famous essay Is Life Worth Living?

"Now you fix your attention upon something in me which, while you look, has already passed away. Yet you seek for it as though it must be still there,—like one who seeks for a horse in a market-place.

In the interim the animal has been sold.