"Then man goes back into the great Scheme, from which all things come and to which all things return." Such is the eternal round, marked by the stages which we call life and death. Many of the names in the above paragraph have not been identified even by Chinese commentators. On all counts then they may safely be left where they are. CHAPTER XIX. THE SECRET OF LIFE. _Argument_:--The soul is from God--Man's body its vehicle--The soul quickening the body is life--Care of the internal and of the external must be simultaneous--In due nourishment of both is TAO. [This chapter is supplementary to chapter iii.] Those who understand the conditions of life devote no attention to things which life cannot accomplish. Those who understand the conditions of destiny devote no attention to things over which knowledge has no control. For the due nourishment of our physical frames, certain things are needful. Yet where such things abound, the physical frame is not always nourished. For the preservation of life it is necessary that there should be no abandonment of the physical frame. Yet where the physical frame is not abandoned, life does not always remain. Life comes, and cannot be declined. It goes, and cannot be stopped. But alas! the world thinks that to nourish the frame is enough to keep life. And if indeed it is not enough, what then is the world to do? Although not enough, it must still be done. It cannot be neglected. For if one is to neglect the physical frame, better far to retire at once from the world. By renouncing the world, one gets rid of the cares of the world. The result is a natural level, which is equivalent to a re-birth. And he who is re-born is near. To TAO. But what inducement is there to renounce the affairs of men, to become indifferent to life?--In the first case, the physical body suffers no wear and tear; in the second, the vitality is left unharmed. And he whose physical frame is perfect and whose vitality is in its original purity,--he is one with God. Mens sana in corpore sano. Heaven and earth are the father and mother of all things. When they unite, the result is shape. When they disperse, the original condition is renewed. As in the case of ordinary mortals. But if body and vitality are both perfect, this state is called _fit for translation_. In the Biblical sense, as applied to Enoch. Such perfection of vitality goes back to the minister of God. "Vitality" is the subtle essence, the immaterial informing principle which, united with matter, exhibits the phenomenon of life. The term has already occurred in ch. xi. * * * * * Lieh Tzŭ asked Kuan Yin, A sage who by some is said to have flourished five or six hundred years before Lieh Tzŭ; by others, to have been an immediate disciple of Lao Tzŭ, and to have been entrusted by him with the publication of the _Tao-Tê-Ching_.