In spite of this, the world reverences and cherishes them, thereby greatly increasing the sum of human error. And not as a passing fashion, but with admonitions in words, with humility in prostrations, and with the stimulus of music and song. What then is left for me?
Therefore, for the perfect man who is unavoidably summoned to power over his fellows, there is naught like Inaction.
- It is not according to the spirit of Tao that a man should shirk his mortal responsibilities. On the contrary, Tao teaches him how to meet them.
By means of inaction he will be able to adapt himself to the natural conditions of existence. And so it is that he who respects the State as his own body is fit to support it, and he who loves the State as his own body, is fit to govern it.
- This last sentence is attributed by Huai Nan Tzŭ to Lao Tzŭ, and has been incorporated in the Tao-Tê-Ching, ch. xiii. It is curious that Chuang Tzŭ should say nothing about its authorship, and perhaps even more curious that Kuo Hsiang, his editor and commentator of the fourth century A.D., should say nothing either about the claims of Lao Tzŭ or the Tao-Tê-Ching.
And if I can refrain from injuring my internal economy, and from taxing my powers of sight and hearing, sitting like a corpse while my dragon-power is manifested around, in profound silence while my thunder-voice resounds, the powers of heaven responding to every phase of my will, as
