All men are partially buried in the grave
of custom, and of some we see only the crown of the head above
ground. Better are the physically dead, for they more lively
rot. Even virtue is no longer such if it be stagnant. A man's
life should be constantly as fresh as this river. It should be
the same channel, but a new water every instant.
"Virtues as rivers pass,
But still remains that virtuous man there was."
Most men have no inclination, no rapids, no cascades, but
marshes, and alligators, and miasma instead. We read that when
in the expedition of Alexander, Onesicritus was sent forward to
meet certain of the Indian sect of Gymnosophists, and he had told
them of those new philosophers of the West, Pythagoras, Socrates,
and Diogenes, and their doctrines, one of them named Dandamis
answered, that "They appeared to him to have been men of genius,
but to have lived with too passive a regard for the laws." The
philosophers of the West are liable to this rebuke still. "They
say that Lieou-hia-hoei, and Chao-lien did not sustain to the end
their resolutions, and that they dishonored their character.
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