The eye of the owl has its proper fitness;

The leg of the heron has its proper limits--

To cut off any of it would distress the fowl.

When the wind passes over the waters

Of river, the volume of them is diminished;

And so it is when the sun passes over them.

But let the wind and the sun keep a watch together,

The river does not begin to feel that they are doing it

Any injury: it still relies on its springs and flows on.

Thus the waters do their part to the river bed

With undeviating exactness; and so does the shade

To the substance; and one thing does it to another. . .

There is danger from the power of vision in the eyes;

There is also dander of hearing in the ears,

And of the inordinate thinking of the mind.

There is danger from the exercise

Of every sort of power of which

Man's constitution is a depository.

When the danger has come to a head,

It cannot be averted, and the calamity

Is perpetuated, and goes on increasing.

The return from this to a state of security

Is the result of a great effort, and success

Can be attained only after a long time of toil.

And yet men strive and consider

Their power of self-determination

As their precious possession: is it not sad?

It is in this way that we have the ruin of states

And the slaughtering of their people without end,

While no one knows how to ask how it comes about.