He travels like the bird, leaving no trace behind. If there be TAO in the empire, he and all things are in harmony. If there be not TAO, he cultivates virtue in retirement. After a thousand years of this weary world, he mounts aloft, and riding upon the white clouds passes into the kingdom of God, whither the three evils do not reach, and where he rests secure in eternity. What is there to put up with in that?" Thereupon the border-warden went off, and Yao followed him; saying, "May I ask----," to which the warden only replied "Begone!" The style of the above episode varies enough from Chuang Tzŭ's standard to make its authorship doubtful. * * * * * When Yao was Emperor, Poh Ch'êng Tzŭ Kao Lao Tzŭ under a previous incarnation. See the Kuang Ch'êng Tzŭ of p. 125. was one of his vassals. But when Yao handed over the empire to Shun, and Shun to the Great Yü, Poh Ch'êng Tzŭ Kao resigned his fief and betook himself to agriculture. The Great Yü going to visit him, found him working in the fields; whereupon he approached humbly, saying, "When Yao was emperor, you, Sir, were a vassal; but when Yao handed over the empire to Shun, and Shun to me, you resigned your fief and betook yourself to agriculture. May I enquire the reason of this?" "When Yao ruled the empire," said Tzŭ Kao, "the people exerted themselves without reward and behaved themselves without punishment. But now you reward and punish them, and yet they are not good. From this point virtue will decline, the reign of force will begin, and the troubles of after ages will date their rise. Away with you! Do not interrupt my work." And he quietly went on ploughing as before. The above episode is unmistakably spurious. At the beginning of the beginning, even Nothing did not exist. Then came the period of the Nameless. "The Nameless," says the _Tao-Tê-Ching_, ch. i, "was the beginning of heaven and earth." See also ch. ii, _ante_. When ONE came into existence, there was ONE, but it was formless. When things got that by which they came into existence, it was called their _virtue_. _Sc._ that, by virtue of which they are what they are. See p. 45. That which was formless, but divided, _I.e._ allotted. though without interstice, Unbroken in continuity. was called _destiny_. Then came the movement which gave life, and things produced in accordance with the principles of life had what is called _form_. When form encloses the spiritual part, each with its own characteristics, that is its _nature_. By cultivating this nature, we are carried back to virtue; and if this is perfected, we become as all things were in the beginning. We become unconditioned, and the unconditioned is great. As birds join their beaks in chirping, Unconsciously. and beaks to chirp must be joined,--to be thus joined with the universe without being more conscious of it than an idiot, this is _divine virtue_, this is accordance with the eternal fitness of things.