About this passageOne of the few chapters that reads as instruction rather than description, and among the earliest surviving references to breath work in Chinese literature: the phrase Legge renders as "the vital breath" is qi, and the aim given is pliancy rather than force. The questions in the second part are rhetorical in form and practical in use — each one asks whether a thing can be done without the effort that usually attends it. Legge's parentheses are his own, marking words supplied to make the compressed Chinese read as English.
When the intelligent and animal souls are held together in one embrace, they can be kept from separating. When one gives undivided attention to the (vital) breath, and brings it to the utmost degree of pliancy, he can become as a (tender) babe. When he has cleansed away the most mysterious sights (of his imagination), he can become without a flaw.
In loving the people and ruling the state, cannot he proceed without any (purpose of) action? In the opening and shutting of his gates of heaven, cannot he do so as a female bird? While his intelligence reaches in every direction, cannot he (appear to) be without knowledge?
In plainer words
Hold the two halves of yourself together and they stop pulling apart. Put your whole attention on the breath and take it as far toward softness as it will go, until you are as pliant as an infant. Clear away the strange pictures the mind makes and nothing is left to catch on. Can you look after people, and do the work, without forcing any of it? Can you let things open and close of their own accord? Can you know a great deal and not go about as someone who knows?
A restatement in modern English, written for this collection. The passage above is the text; this is one way of putting it.