Page:Zhuang Zi - translation Giles 1889.djvu/340

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Chuang Tzŭ

He who looks at a house, visits the ancestral hall, and even the latrines. Thus every point is the subjective point of view.

Or else he has not seen the house but only a part. Where then is the subjective point of view of the house, and by analogy, of the man?

"Let us try to formulate this subjective point of view. It originates with life, and, with knowledge as its tutor, drifts into the admission of right and wrong.

In the abstract.

But one's own standard of right is the standard, and others have to adapt themselves to it. Men will die for this. Such people look upon the useful as appertaining to wisdom, the useless as appertaining to folly; upon success in life as honourable, upon failure as dishonourable.

Not knowing the value of the useless, or perceiving that what is so at one time is not so at another.

The subjective point of view is that of the present generation, who like the cicada and the young dove see things only from their own standpoint.

See ch. i.

"If a man treads upon a stranger's toe in the market-place, he apologises on the score of hurry. If an elder brother does this, he is quit with an exclamation of sympathy. And if a parent does so, nothing whatever is done.

The child being part of himself.