| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Art of War by Sun Tzu: summarized by him: "Practice benevolence and justice, but on the
other hand make full use of artifice and measures of expediency."
He further declared that all the military triumphs and disasters
of the thousand years which had elapsed since Sun Tzu's death
would, upon examination, be found to uphold and corroborate, in
every particular, the maxims contained in his book. Tu Mu's
somewhat spiteful charge against Ts`ao Kung has already been
considered elsewhere.
6. CH`EN HAO appears to have been a contemporary of Tu Mu.
Ch`ao Kung-wu says that he was impelled to write a new commentary
on Sun Tzu because Ts`ao Kung's on the one hand was too obscure
The Art of War |
The fourth excerpt represents the element of Earth. It speaks of physical influences and the impact of the unseen on the visible world, and is drawn from Meno by Plato: good men, which would have cost him nothing, if virtue could have been
taught? Will you reply that he was a mean man, and had not many friends
among the Athenians and allies? Nay, but he was of a great family, and a
man of influence at Athens and in all Hellas, and, if virtue could have
been taught, he would have found out some Athenian or foreigner who would
have made good men of his sons, if he could not himself spare the time from
cares of state. Once more, I suspect, friend Anytus, that virtue is not a
thing which can be taught?
ANYTUS: Socrates, I think that you are too ready to speak evil of men:
and, if you will take my advice, I would recommend you to be careful.
Perhaps there is no city in which it is not easier to do men harm than to
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