"Do not develop your artificial intelligence, but develop that intelligence which is from God. From the latter, results virtue; from the former, cunning. And those who do not shrink from the natural, nor wallow in the artificial,—they are near to perfection."
When Confucius was on his way to the Ch'u State, he came to a forest where he saw a hunchback catching cicadas as though with his hand.
It is still the delight of the Chinese gamin to capture the noisy "scissor-grinder" with the aid of a long bamboo tipped with bird-lime.
"How clever you are!" cried Confucius. "Have you any way of doing this?"
"Way," i.e. road, is the primary meaning of Tao.
"I have a way," replied the hunchback. "In the fifth and sixth moons I practise balancing two balls one on top of the other.
At the top of his pole.
If they do not fall, I do not miss many cicadas. When I can balance three balls, I only miss one in ten; and when five, then it is as though I caught the cicadas with my hand. My body is as motionless as the stump of a tree; my arms like dead branches. Heaven and earth and all creation may be around me, but I am conscious only of my cicada's wings. How should I not succeed?"