To the root, to that natural state in which by inaction all things are accomplished. "It is not often," urged the Spirit of the Clouds, "that I meet with your Holiness. I would gladly receive some advice." "Feed then your people," said the Vital Principle, "with your heart. By the influence of your own perfection. Rest in inaction, and the world will be good of itself. Cast your slough. Spit forth intelligence. Ignore all differences. Become one with the infinite. Release your mind. Free your soul. Be vacuous. Be Nothing! "Let all things revert to their original constitution. If they do this, without knowledge, the result will be a simple purity which they will never lose; but knowledge will bring with it a divergence therefrom. Seek not the names nor the relations of things, and all things will flourish of themselves." "Knowledge is the knowing that we cannot know." _Emerson._ "Your Holiness," said the Spirit of the Clouds, as he prostrated himself and took leave, "has informed me with power and filled me with mysteries. What I had long sought, I have now found." * * * * * The men of this world all rejoice in others being like themselves, and object to others not being like themselves. "The man, and still more the woman, who can be accused either of doing 'what nobody does,' or of not doing 'what everybody does,' is the subject of as much depreciatory remark as if he or she had committed some grave moral delinquency." Mill's _Essay on Liberty_, ch. iii. Those who make friends with their likes and do not make friends with their unlikes, are influenced by a desire to differentiate themselves from others. But those who are thus influenced by a desire to differentiate themselves from others,--how will they find it possible to do so? As all have similar ambitions, they will only be on the same footing as the rest. To subordinate oneself to the majority in order to gratify personal ambition, is not so good as to let that majority look each one after his own affairs. Those who desire to govern kingdoms, clutch at the advantages of the Three Princes without seeing the troubles involved. In fact, they trust to luck. But in thus trusting to luck not to destroy the kingdom, their chances of preserving it do not amount to one in ten thousand, while their chances of destroying it are ten thousand to nothing and even more. Such, alas! is the ignorance of rulers. The above somewhat unsatisfactory paragraph condemns those who strive to distinguish themselves from, and set themselves up as _governors_ of, their fellow-men.