"Take any worthless fellow who laughs at mankind for holding virtue in esteem, any unprincipled vagabond who reviles the great Sages of the world, and subject him to torture. In his agony he will sacrifice positive and negative alike. If he can but get free, he will trouble no more about knowledge and forethought. Past and future will cease to exist for him, in his then neutral condition. "Move when pushed, come when dragged. Be like a whirling gale, like a feather in the wind, like a mill-stone going round. The mill-stone as an existence is perfectly harmless. In motion or at rest it does no more than is required, and cannot therefore incur blame. "Why? Because it is simply an inanimate thing. It has no anxieties about itself. It is never entangled in the trammels of knowledge. In motion or at rest it is always governed by fixed laws, and therefore it never becomes open to praise. Hence it has been said, 'Be as though an inanimate thing, and there will be no use for Sages.' "For a clod cannot be without TAO,"--at which some full-blooded young buck covered the argument with ridicule by crying out, "Shên Tao's TAO is not for the living, but for the dead!" It was the same with T'ien P'ien. He studied under P'êng Mêng; with the result that he learnt nothing. TAO cannot be learnt. P'êng Mêng's tutor said, "Those of old who knew TAO, reached the point where positive and negative ceased to exist. That was all." Now the bent of these men is one of opposition, which it is difficult to discuss. They act in every way differently from other people, but cannot escape the imputation of purpose. Which takes the place of spontaneity. What they call Tao is not TAO; and what they predicate affirmatively cannot escape being negative. The fact is that P'êng Mêng, T'ien P'ien, and Shên Tao, did not know TAO. Nevertheless they all had a certain acquaintance with it. To make the root the essential, to regard objective existences as accidental, to look upon accumulation as deficiency, and to meekly accept the dispositions of Providence,--herein lay the TAO of the ancients. Kuan Yin and Lao Tzŭ became enthusiastic followers of TAO. For Kuan Yin, see p. 230. They based their system upon nothingness, with ONE as their criterion. Their outward expression was gentleness and humility. Their inward belief was in unreality and avoidance of injury to all things. Kuan Yin said, "Adopt no absolute position. Let externals take care of themselves. In motion, be like water. At rest, like a mirror. Receptive, but not permanently so. Respond, like the echo. Only when called upon. Be subtle, as though non-existent. Be still, as though pure. Regard uniformity as peace. Look on gain as loss. Do not precede others. Follow them." Lao Tzŭ said, "He who conscious of being strong, is content to be weak,--he shall be a cynosure of men.