VOLUME III, SEMESTER 3, CHAPTER 32, SECTION 1

VOLUME III, SEMESTER 3, CHAPTER 32, SECTION 1

A cell, a tree, a pride of lions

The chapters all along spoke of labor that can be weighed, and can flow. This chapter walks into another heaven and earth: the labor that cannot be weighed out. There is an old way of telling, that distribution by labor is the rule of life itself, that the cell, the great tree, the pride of lions, all distribute by labor. This telling has its half that is right, and its half to be careful of. This section first brings these three things up to look at, to see clear where it is right, and where it should be held in.

One, first look at a cell

First look at one cell in your body. In your body are tens of trillions of cells, each at its own work. The muscle cell minds the spending of force, the nerve cell minds the passing of word, the cell in the stomach minds the breaking of food. Every cell draws from the blood its own share of nourishment, its own share of oxygen.

The telling thing is, the one that draws more is often the one that works more. When you run hard, the muscle cells in the leg spend force the fiercest, and the blood sends there the more oxygen, the more nourishment. When you use the head, the flow of blood in the head runs full. Wherever the work is hardest, the nourishment flows a little more there. At a first glance, this truly looks like distribution by labor: the one that works more gets more, the one that works less gets less. That old telling came from here, saying, look, even a cell knows the by labor.

This watching has its right place: where the work is more, the resource truly flows there. Inside the living body, there is truly a working that sends the nourishment toward the most needful, the most hard driving place. This half is true, and it is very fair. First own this half.

Two, now look at a tree, a pride of lions

Follow it on down, and a great tree looks like it too. The leaves on the sunward face of the tree take the sun, do the work of the light more, and the tree sends those boughs the more water, the more nourishment, and those boughs grow full. The boughs in the shade, that cannot do the work, draw the less, and slowly wither. See, again like the by labor: the boughs that work more get more, the boughs that cannot work are cast off.

Now look at a pride of lions. A lioness drives the quarry down with all her force, spends the most force. But here it begins to turn off the taste. The one that truly eats first, eats the best piece, is often not the lioness who spent the most force, it is the male who scarcely lifted a paw. What he goes by is not the spending of force, it is his position in this pride, his being strong, that standing of his that guards this whole group. See, come to the pride of lions, that more labor more gain has already begun to run off shape. The one who spent the most force does not eat first, the one who scarcely spent force eats first.

So these three things, the cell, the great tree, the pride of lions, watched down the line, are not more and more like the by labor, they are less and less like it. At the cell it is the most like, at the tree it is half like, and at the pride of lions it is already plainly by position, by strong and weak, that things are divided, not by labor.

Three, this likeness, where it is right, and where it must be held in

Now hold this matter in. That old telling says distribution by labor is the rule of life. Where is it right, and where wrong.

The half that is right is: inside the living body there is truly a working that sends the resource toward the hard driving, toward the needful place. This is true. It reminds us that this reasoning of the by labor is no thing man thought up out of the void and forced onto the world, it has, on the living thing, a shadow, a root. Own this layer.

But the half to be careful of is more needful. The first thing, the cell, and the great tree, have no heart, they do not scheme, do not shirk, do not cheat or grab for one more mouthful of nourishment. Man does. Man has his private heart, his private wants, and you take the cell’s working, that automatic, unselfish sending, and lay it straight onto man, and say man too should so naturally go by labor, and you have thought man too simple. The second thing, look at the pride of lions and you know: the higher, the more complex the life, the less its dividing is by labor alone, the more it is mixed with position, with strong and weak, with standing. Man is far more complex than the lion.

So this likeness can be used only to say the by labor has its natural root, it cannot be used to prove the by labor is the way of heaven and earth, that it comes off of itself. Let it loose that far, and it is wrong. It is a lead in, not a proof. Hold this measure in.

Four, heaven and earth are not kind, they take the ten thousand things for straw dogs

Come to here, and Laozi must be called. Because to carry the rule of life straight over as the moral standard of the human world, Laozi long ago gave warning, there is a great pit in here. Laozi says: heaven and earth are not kind, they take the ten thousand things for straw dogs. So runs the line in the Daodejing.

Put it plain. The straw dog is the dog of straw the ancients bound for the sacrifice, and cast off when used. Heaven and earth are not kind, they take the ten thousand things for straw dogs, is to say heaven and earth have not that human favor and mercy, and they treat the ten thousand things as they treat a dog of straw, all alike, and alike unmoved in feeling.

Taste the weight of this line of Laozi’s. Heaven and earth, nature, that rule of life, does not speak that human kind. The sunward bough grows full, the shaded bough withers dead, and heaven and earth will not pity that withered branch. The lioness who spent force did not eat first, and heaven and earth mind not whether this is fair. That by labor of nature is cold, is without feeling, is wither when it should wither, cull when it should cull.

But man is not so. Man has kind, man will feel it wrong for the one who spent force and got nothing, man will see to the old man who can no longer work. Just because man has this kind that heaven and earth have not, the dividing of the human world cannot, and should not, wholly copy that way of nature. Take that rule of heaven and earth being not kind, and hold it the morality man should keep, and you have thrown away the most precious little kind of the human world. This is exactly the deepest pit of that likeness.

Five, what this section set, crossing to the next

Good. This section brought up the three things, the cell, the great tree, the pride of lions, and held in that old telling that the by labor is the rule of life.

Seen clear: these three, watched down the line, are not more and more like the by labor, they are less and less like it. At the cell it is the most like, at the tree half like, and at the pride of lions plainly by position, by strong and weak. The half of this likeness that is right is that the by labor has its natural root, and the half to be careful of is that the cell has no heart and man has a private one, and the more complex the life the less it divides by labor alone, so it is a lead in, not a proof. And through Laozi’s line that heaven and earth are not kind, we broke open the deepest pit: that by labor of nature is cold, without kind, and the dividing of the human world must exactly not throw away that kind which heaven and earth have not.

The position this section set is: the by labor has a natural root, but the by labor of the human world cannot copy nature, because man has a private heart, and a kind heart too.

So, just because man has a kind heart, the human world has a great stretch of things that the rule of the by labor cannot weigh at all. A child of three, an old man of eighty who can no longer work, put out labor of near zero, yet have food to eat all the same, have someone to hold them dear. By which reasoning is this. The next section walks near these labors with no price, and these men the by labor cannot weigh.

Credit to the ancestors; the mistakes are mine: Tiger Lyon.

Section 2, A child of three, an old man of eighty, and the labors with no price