GREEK AND CHINESE THOUGHT. 175 



juev TO airoTv\tiv TOV (T/COTTOU, \a\eJTOV oa TO 

 i7riTv\ttv (II. vi. 14). But the perfect man becomes 

 a law to himself, {bcnrsp KCIVWV KOL filrpov, because 

 he embodies the principle of harmony and equili- 

 brium. What he does he does because he is 

 perfect, T<J roiouroe elvai. Hence he is not only a 

 law unto himself (otov vo/^oc wv aur<j>), he becomes 

 a standard for others. The movements of the 

 perfect man mark out for ages the true path for 

 all, his actions are a law for others, his words 

 the pattern for others. Those who are far from 

 him look longingly for him, and those who are 

 near are never weary of him ( 50). 



The interesting thing is that, while we can 

 hardly imagine two types of life more unlike than 

 that of the Greek and the Chinaman, the theory 

 of virtue as the life of equilibrium secured by 

 reason is the same in both. The life of the China- 

 man is stilted, artificial, formal, controlled by what 

 looks like a traditional system of positive law, 

 endless, and to us, meaningless conventionalisms 

 of ritual and behaviour, of ceremonies and music ; 

 the life of the Greek is a life of free and 

 happy, almost instinctive, kinship with nature ; 

 the doctrine of virtue as the harmony of nature, 

 that which puts man in tune, as it were, with the 

 external world and his fellow-man the idea of 

 right as the morally beautiful all this seems to 

 be quite natural to the Greek, Yet, behind all 



