《南華真經義海纂微》Vol. 26

On land, horses eat grass and drink water; when pleased they rub necks together, and when angry they kick each other with their backs turned. What horses understand amounts to no more than this. Later, people fitted them with crossbars and yokes, and used yueti (ornaments on the forehead) to align and restrain them. Then horses began to hold their heads high and look about, to shy from bondage, even to struggle violently, bite the bit, and secretly slip the reins. Thus what had been their natural capacity grew into the skill of throwing off harness and control—and that is the fault of Bo Le (the horse trainer).

In the age of Hecixu (a legendary ancient ruler), people dwelt at home without knowing what they ought to do, and went out without knowing where they ought to go. After eating their fill they wandered at ease, patting their bellies. The innate powers of the people were originally no more than this. Later the sage instituted ritual and music to correct the conduct of the world, and raised up benevolence and righteousness to settle the hearts of the world. Only then did people begin to pursue knowledge on purpose and chase profit, until the wind of rivalry could not be stilled. This too is the fault of the sage.

Guo Xiang’s commentary: Follow the horse’s authentic awareness and let it move with nature, and it can travel ten thousand li without the herd’s native disposition being lost. Each horse’s nature differs, yet people force them into uniform lines and service—so their strength is spent and their bearing becomes strange. When the people, full after eating, pat their bellies and play, that is their genuinely natural capacity. Once the sage used ritual and music to correct the people and benevolence and righteousness to guide them, they began to love cleverness. The sage’s errors all stem from treating artificial norms as things worth honoring.

Lü Huiqing’s commentary: Horses eat grass and drink water; pleased, they rub together; angry, they kick—what they know is only this. It is like the people of Hecixu’s time: without knowledge, without deliberate action, eating their fill and patting their bellies in play. Fitting horses with crossbars and yokes and aligning them with yueti is like the sage establishing ritual and music and lifting up benevolence and righteousness to correct and pacify the people of the world. When horses begin to avoid restraint, bite the bit, and secretly slip the reins, it is like the people beginning to seek knowledge deliberately and vie for profit until rivalry cannot cease.

“Jie” is the slightest sign; “yin” is bending and blocking; “e” is control and constraint. “Zhi” describes fierce horse nature; “man” describes scattered, ungoverned horse nature. Once the horse knows where the crossbar, yoke, bit, and reins are, it answers with fierceness or cunning—biting the bit and secretly throwing off the reins. That is how equine cleverness advances to the point of escaping the driver. If one wishes horses not to advance to escaping the driver, and human hearts not to advance to chasing cleverness, there is no other way than to restore the authentic nature.

Yidu’s commentary: The nature of horses is to be content with eating when hungry and drinking when thirsty; pleased, they draw near one another; angry, they kick—and they know nothing beyond this. Later crossbars and yokes were added…

Putting bridles on horses and adorning their foreheads with crescent-shaped ornaments is what is called “dressing” or preparing horses.

When people overwork horses’ bodies, the horses learn to glance left and right and watch for a chance to bolt. “Jie” means the helpers on either side who steer the horse; “ni” also refers to those who guard the horses. The point is that because horses are under human control, they learn to guard against their keepers and then develop a cunning mind.

“Yin” means the mind is blocked; “e” means the body cannot stretch freely; “zhi” describes fierceness like a bird of prey striking; “man” describes weakness and enervation. These are all signs of the horse’s anger. Horses bite through the bit and throw off the reins because people have damaged their innate nature, so they turn crafty and flee like thieves. That is precisely the fault of Bole, the famous horse-tamer.

In the age of Huxu Shi, a legendary ruler of high antiquity, people dwelt in peace without knowing what “going out” meant, lived at ease without knowing what “traveling far” meant; sated and full, patting their bellies, the common people were as innocent as infants, with no other designs beyond that.

Bending the body to fit ritual is the dregs of li (ritual): it can only correct outward conduct, not straighten one’s inner disposition. Holding ren and yi (humaneness and righteousness) aloft and pursuing them on purpose is the dregs of ren and yi: it can only comfort people’s hearts for a while, not give them lasting peace. So the people chase cleverness and will not stop—and that too is the sages’ mistake.

Xiangdao commentary: The sages used ren and yi to comfort the hearts of all under heaven, and the people began to doubt; they used li and music to regulate conduct under heaven, and the people began to split apart. Horses eat grass and drink water as people farm to eat and weave to wear; when pleased they rub against one another, when angry they kick and bite, as people live together without forming factions. Piercing the ox’s nose and bridling the horse are both faults of human artifice. Because horses are driven by people they learn deceit and bolt like thieves—is that skillful horse-training? So this chapter keeps criticizing artificiality pushed to the limit. The gist: abandon De (Virtue/Power) and chase ren and yi, and between ruler and minister, father and son, grades and suspicion are hard to avoid; abandon artificial ren and yi and follow the natural Dao (the Way), and birds and beasts can live together with the human crowd. Hence the chapter ends with the age of Huxu Shi.

Bixu commentary: The nature of horses—only Zaofu and Taibing understood it. Some need no whip and the horse still runs ten thousand li in a day. In the hands of Bole and those after him, they add crossbars and collars and crescent ornaments on the brow, yet the horse still bites through the bit and casts off the reins. The nature of the people—only Huxu Shi understood it. He did not impose laws and institutions, and all could follow their nature. In the hands of Yao, Shun, and those after them, people bend to li and music, deliberately pursue ren and yi, and govern with reward and punishment—strife never ceases and the harm grows worse.

Therefore, even sages have their faults.

The Yizhai kouyi says: This passage revisits the earlier discussion, and the meaning comes across as all the more striking.

“Necks crossed, backs turned” depicts how they show joy and anger differently; “moon-mark” (yueti) is what people today call the forehead mirror. “Jieni” means a horse standing alone, glaring sideways in anger; “yine” means it bends its neck to resist and refuses restraint; “manyu” describes it charging violently. The horse uses every trick to spit out the bit, secretly slip the reins, and then resist the one who drives it—hence it is said to act like a thief. All these behaviors are what Boyi’s training of horses brings about. Without bit, bridle, and reins, how would there be the horse’s sidelong glare and neck-bent refusal? When common people compete to display cleverness and scramble for profit, it is no different from a horse scheming to spit out the bit and steal free of the reins.

In antiquity, sages took securing and aiding the world as their own task. Fearing that anyone might lose a place to stand, they devised ways to nurture and protect the people. They did not do this to seek anything from the world, but from genuine disposition and right conduct—what they ought to do. This is “superior De does not ‘De’”: those of highest virtue do not make a show of virtue; only those a step lower recognize such virtue and draw near to praise it.

Later ages saw simple honesty dissipate, hearts grow shallow, and cleverness and fraud rise daily. Then sages appeared in response to the times, toiling in haste to pull the people out of flood and fire; they patiently exhorted them until they woke from delusion. In loving the people, the name of benevolence showed; in judging affairs, the efficacy of righteousness showed; in setting ritual and institutions, ritual arose; in promoting harmony and joy, music came forth. These measures too followed what the people valued and shaped institutions to real needs—not yet straying too far.

Yet when governance lasts long, the people grow lax toward the laws; over time, abuses appear. Reform institutions and the laws may turn harsh and severe; when laws are severe, the people offend more easily. This is hard to avoid. Alas—once the seven openings are carved, how can one return to the undivided chaos? This is why the “Horse’s Hooves” chapter uses the horse as comparison, with wide-ranging indirect analogies. At the end it returns to the horse’s nature and true knowing, circling back to the chapter’s theme. It cites the age of Huxu: then the people merely ate their fill and beat their bellies in contentment—enough to show the ease of non-action (wuwei). Thus those above did not disturb the people.

The Nanhua zhenjing cites ancient affairs to illuminate the present, hoping somewhat to restore simple honesty. Sadly, as the age declines, people scramble for profit in rivalry, hard to stop—and in the end blame is laid on the sages. How can the gentleman who sets words to warn the world fail to be deeply alert to this?

When the human heart seeks to remedy the ills of an age, it often has no choice but to adopt contrary measures to set things right. If someone therefore casts Zhuangzi as a world-weary hero who fiercely assails the politics of his day, that goes too far. Those who read Zhuangzi well should probe his central aim and need not cling to every word and phrase.

The old gloss on “jie ni” (介倪) read it as “jia ni” (戛睨)—the pronunciation is odd and the sense hard to follow, so the text is still read according to the original characters. The point is this: when people use their cleverness to control horses, the horses’ native spirit begins to show its edge; the horse starts to scheme how cunningly to bite through the bit and slip the reins. From this we see that the horse originally had no such designs—it was the person who stirred up its artifice.

This chapter’s argument unfolds in four layers. It opens by stating the theme, using the taming of horses as a likeness for governing the people. The language in the Documents (Shangshu) about managing horses matches the principle of governing the people. From start to finish the text minutely depicts the horse’s temperament, rendering joy and anger in full detail—skillful brushwork might not do it better. If that is so, how could the turnings of the human heart escape such fine discernment?

Next the author takes pottery and planting as further cases, deepening the earlier point: in ordering the world, if one acts with deliberate intent and forces the nature of all under heaven, it is inferior to following the ten thousand things and letting them transform on their own. He also evokes the age of utmost virtue, when the people harbored no crafty schemes and few excessive desires; later, when rulers instituted laws and ordinances, people under heaven first began to doubt. This is no different from when Bo Le trained horses by burning, trimming, and carving their bodies, all to obtain the speed of fine steeds. In name it is governance, yet the harm done is greatest.

What counts as the sage’s fault is setting up benevolence, righteousness, ritual, and music to instruct the people, calling and commanding again and again for fear they fall short—without seeing that the lusher the branches and leaves, the weaker the root and trunk; the more visible decrees and traces of rule, the easier wickedness and disease take root. Simple custom thus dissolves, punishments arise, above and below contend, and peace long fails to return. So Zhuangzi uses sharp words to correct this trend and many analogies to awaken the world, so that people may cast off falsity, return to genuineness, and know which way to go. Thus the perfected person is not indifferent to affairs of the age; there remains a heart that cannot bear to watch the world go to ruin.

At the end he cites again the remote antiquity when custom was thick and the people were at ease, illustrating the effect of the emperor’s wuwei (non-action) in ruling. Later sages bound the people with ritual and music and soothed them with benevolence and righteousness; governing to excess, they arrived at a state that could no longer be governed.

Laozi says: “Governing a great state is like cooking a small fish.”

Zhuangzi’s reasoning is exactly this principle.

Compendium of the Sea of Meaning on the True Scripture of Southern Florescence, fascicle 27