20 THE OPERATIONS AND MANIFESTATIONS 



of this kind would not raise dust in galloping, nor leave a 

 trace of its steps behind it. My son's qualities are secondary. 

 He may recognise a good horse, but not the unique one. I 

 have an assistant, however, who helps me in feeding and 

 grooming the horses, who is in no whit inferior to myself: 

 his name is Chiu Fang Yin. Please interview him." The 

 Duke commissioned this person to buy a horse. He returned 

 in three months with the information, that he had got a 

 horse, in Sha Ch'iu. Duke Mu asked him what kind of a 

 horse it was and he replied that it was a stallion of yellow 

 colour. Men were sent for it and when it came it was found 

 to be a black mare. The Duke called Pei Yoh and said 

 what a mess the man whom he had recommended had made 

 of things. He neither knew the colour of the hair, nor the 

 quality of the animal : neither was he aware of whether 

 it was a stallion or a mare. "What kind of a horse fancier 

 'could such an individual be!" Pei Yoh breathed deeply 

 •and heaved a sigh saying, "Is it a bad as that!" This man 

 is a thousand times superior to me as a connoisseur of 

 horses. "What Yin sees in a horse is its natural endow- 

 ments and not merely the outward accidents. In seeking 

 its vitality he doesn't think of the flesh and bone (rough 

 elements) : he looks for the intrinsic merits without regarding 

 the extrinsic form. He searches for the essentials and has 

 no eyes for the non-essentials. He sees what he wants to 

 see and pays no attention to what he doesn't want to see. 

 Such points as he observes are above the mere form of the 

 horse." When the horse was led in it proved to be truly 

 a horse of a thousand li. 1 This illumines the saying of 

 Lao Tzu : . 



THE TRULY STRAIGHT LOOKS CROOKED THE 

 TRULY SKILFUL APPEARS UNSKILFUL. 



(26) The maxim that necessity knows no law is alien 

 to the true art of government. — Wu Ch'i filled the office 

 of Prime Minister of Ts'u. Going to Wei he told Ch'u 

 I Jo that the King had overlooked his demerits and 

 made him Prime Minister, so he asked Ch'u to please 

 give an opinion on his qualities as a man. Ch'u Tzu 

 asked in turn what his real aims were, to which Wu 

 Ch'i replied that his policy was to lower the power 

 of the nobles, equalize the scale of salaries by lowering 

 some, and increasing that of those who had too little: to 

 make the armaments of the nation perfect and by constant 

 struggle gain a dominant place in the empire. Ch'u Tzu 

 responding said, "the ancients governed best by not making 

 any changes in past methods, and not altering the usual 



l A phrase for a super-excellent horse. 



