the empire was in a state of great unrest. Among the bad men were Chieh and Chê; among the good were Tsêng and Shih. By and by, the Confucianists and the Mihists arose; and then came exultation and anger of rivals, fraud between the simple and the cunning, recrimination between the virtuous and the evil, slander between the honest and the dishonest,--until decadence set in, men fell away from their original virtue, their natures became corrupt, and there was a general rush for knowledge. "The next thing was to coerce by all kinds of physical torture, thus bringing utter confusion into the empire, the blame for which rests upon those who would interfere with the natural goodness of the heart of man. "In consequence, virtuous men sought refuge in mountain caves, while rulers of States sat trembling in their ancestral halls. Then, when dead men lay about pillowed on each others' corpses, when cangued prisoners and condemned criminals jostled each other in crowds,--then the Confucianists and the Mihists, in the midst of gyves and fetters, stood forth to preach! Salvation from the ills of which they and their systems had been the cause. Alas, they know not shame, nor what it is to blush! "Until I can say that the wisdom of Sages is not a fastener of cangues, and that charity and duty to one's neighbour are not bolts for gyves, how should I know that Tsêng and Shih are not the forerunners _Lit._ "sounding arrows," used by bandits as a signal for beginning the attack. of Chieh and Chê? The meaning intended is that _good_ cannot exist without its correlative _evil_. "Therefore I said, 'Abandon wisdom and discard knowledge, and the empire will be at peace.'" These words have been incorporated in ch. xix of the _Tao-Tê-Ching_. The present rendering somewhat modifies the view I expressed on p. 16 of _The Remains of Lao Tzŭ_. The Yellow Emperor sat on the throne for nineteen years, and his laws obtained all over the empire. Hearing that Kuang Ch'êng Tzŭ Said by some commentators to be another name for Lao Tzŭ, but if so, then it must have been Lao Tzŭ as he existed, an incarnation of TAO, before his appearance in the Confucian age. was living on Mount K'ung-t'ung, he went thither to see him, and said, "I am told, Sir, that you are in possession of perfect TAO. May I ask in what perfect TAO consists? I desire to avail myself of the good influence of heaven and earth in order to secure harvests and feed my people. I should also like to control the Two Powers of nature The _Yin_ and the _Yang_. See pp. 82, 120. in order to the protection of all living things. How can I accomplish this?"