doubt, of some mystical considerations. His predecessor, perhaps, had no better reason for his eighty-one; but the names of his chapters were, for the most part, happily chosen, and have been preserved. Wu Chʽêng arranged the two parts in sixty-seven chapters (31 + 36). It is a mistake, however, to suppose, as even Mr. Wylie with all his general accuracy did, that Wu “curtails the ordinary text to some extent.” He does not curtail, but only rearranges according to his fashion, uniting some of Ho-shang Kung’s chapters in one, and sometimes altering the order their clauses.
Ssŭ-ma Chʽien tells us that, as the treatise came from Laozi, it contained more than 5,000 characters; that is, as one critic says, “more than 5,000 and fewer than 6,000.” Ho-shang Kung’s text has 5,350, and one copy 5,590; Wang Pi’s, 5,683, and one copy 5,610. Two other early texts have been counted, giving 5,720 and 5,635 characters respectively. The brevity arises from the terse conciseness of the style, owing mainly to the absence of the embellishment of particles, which forms so striking a peculiarity in the composition of Mencius and Chuang-tzŭ .