Zhuangzi · 1889

Zhuangzi (Chuang Tzu), 'Heaven and Earth'

Period
Earlier work, influential in the period
Original title
莊子 · 天地
Language
Classical Chinese
Form
Treatise
Text
Full text
English
No English translation · Herbert A. Giles, Chuang Tzŭ: Mystic, Moralist, and Social Reformer (1889); Gutenberg #59709
Source text
gutenberg.org
Wikidata
Q1074987
Selected
Ben Breen, 2026-09-29; suggested by Claude research agents, 29 Sep 2026
Status
Arguments unverified; quotations chosen by machine, unchecked

  • Q27CONTROL

    Should a useful invention be restricted if its harmful consequences cannot be reliably controlled?

    Yes. refuse a useful device because of its effect on the user. A gardener refuses a well-sweep that would water a hundred times more ground, saying that cunning implements produce cunning hearts unfit for the Tao.

    There he saw an old man engaged in making a ditch to connect his vegetable garden with a well. He had a pitcher in his hand, with which he was bringing up water and pouring it into the ditch,--great labour with very little result. "If you had a machine here," cried Tzŭ Kung, "in a day you could irrigate a hundred times your present area. The labour required is trifling as compared with the work done. Would you not like to have one?" "It is a contrivance made of wood," replied Tzŭ Kung, "heavy behind and light in front. It draws up water as you do with your hands, but in a constantly overflowing stream. It is called a well-sweep." Thereupon the gardener flushed up and said, "I have heard from my teacher that those who have cunning implements are cunning in their dealings, and that those who are cunning in their dealings have cunning in their hearts, and that those who have cunning in their hearts cannot be pure and incorrupt, and that those who are not pure and incorrupt are restless in spirit, and that those who are restless in spirit are not fit vehicles for TAO. It is not that I do not know of these things. I should be ashamed to use them.

    Chapter XII (Giles translation) · Gutenberg #59709; passage read in Giles's Chapter XII. Year given is the translation; original c. 4th–3rd c. BCE.