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than we have.” Kwang-tze did not believe it, and said, “If I could get the Ruler of our Destiny to restore your body to life with its bones and flesh and skin, and to give you back your father and mother, your wife and children, and all your village acquaintances, would you wish me to do so?” The skull stared fixedly at him, knitted its brows, and said, “How should I cast away the enjoyment of my royal court, and undertake again the toils of life among mankind?”^[1]

Some reader will exclaim, at this point, that Kwang-tze brings us nothing new, that he is just a mixture of Montaigne, Rousseau, and Leopardi, with a Chinese coloring.

Even if this were true, would the fact that he preceded these men by a score of centuries be of no significance? If intellectual contacts between the East and the West had always been as free as they are today, how many men who have seemed to us the discoverers of new worlds of thought would have appeared rather as late comers and copyists! How many truths we should have learned far earlier!

But the kernel of Kwang-tze’s doctrine is new for modern Europe. His Wû-wei, or inaction, is the absolute opposite of our energetic and exhausting manner of life. Our age seems to have as its motto the words of Ibsen: “It makes little difference what one does; the important thing is to be doing. All in all, we may call ourselves a race of doers.” Jesus, an oriental, felt the folly

1. Vol. XL, pp. 6–7.