"Your clearness of yesterday," answered Confucius, "was because my answer appealed direct to your natural intelligence. Your confusion of to-day results from the intrusion of something other than the natural intelligence.
- You have passed from "simple apprehension" to "judgment."
There is no past, no present, no beginning, no end.
- To-day will be the yesterday of to-morrow.
To have posterity before one has posterity,—is that possible?"
Jen Ch'iu made no answer, and Confucius continued, "That will do. Do not reply. If life did not give birth to death, and if death did not put an end to life, surely life and death would be no longer correlates, but would each exist independently. What there was before the universe, was Tao. Tao makes things what they are, but is not itself a thing. Nothing can produce Tao; yet everything has Tao within it, and continues to produce it without end.
- In its offspring.
And the endless love of the Sage for his fellow-man is based upon the same principle."
Yen Yüan asked Confucius, saying, "Master, I have heard you declare that there may be no eagerness to conform, no effort to adapt. If so, pray how are we to get along?"
- Reach that condition which is only attained by adaptation to environment.
