known. Possibly, however, Chuang-tzŭ may have invented the whole story, to give him the opportunity of setting forth what, according to his ideal of it, the life of a Taoist master should be, and how even Laozi himself fall short of it.
Second, Chʽien’s account of Chuang-tzŭ is still more brief. He was a native, he tells us, of the territory of Mêng , which belonged to the kingdom of Liang or Wei , and held an office, he does not say what, in the city of Chʽi-yüan . Chuang was thus of the same part of China as Laozi, and probably grew up familiar with all his speculations and lessons. He lived during the reigns of kings Hui of Liang , Hsüan of Chʽi , and Wei of Chʽu . We cannot be wrong therefore in assigning his period to the latter half of the third, and earlier part of the fourth century BC . He was thus a contemporary of Mencius. They visited at the same courts, and yet neither ever mentions the other. They were the two ablest debaters of their day, and fond of exposing what they deemed heresy. But it would only