“Politics,” says Sir G. C. Lewes, “relate to human action so far as it concerns the public interest of a community, and is not merely private or ethical. Human action, thus defined, consists of—1, the acts and relations of a sovereign government, both with respect to its own subjects and other sovereign governments; 2, the acts and relations of members of the political community, so far as they concern the government, or the community at large, or a considerable portion of it.”[1] Lao-tzŭ’s teachings in politics refer more to the former than to the latter of these two divisions. He does not, however, omit to notice the relations of the different members of the state, as well to the government as to each other; but he relegates this subject to the province of ethics. He considers the people more in their private relations than as bound by legal ties to the performance of certain acts, and the abstaining from certain other acts, towards their fellows. Nor is it from the political stand-point that he contemplates the nature and distribution of wealth, a subject which properly belongs to politics. These and similar matters are all assigned to the private relations of man to the Universal Nature, and so they will come more properly under the head of ethics. Having premised thus much, I now proceed to set forth Lao-tzŭ’s teachings about “the acts and relations of a sovereign government, both with respect to its own subjects and other sovereign governments;” and 1. _Of the institution of the Sovereign_.—It is to the people that he assigns the original appointment of an emperor, and he gives a peculiar reason for the institution. A bad man still has the law of Nature (_Tao_) in him; and he is not to be cast aside as a hopeless case, seeing he may be transformed into a virtuous man. Accordingly emperors and magistrates were appointed, whose duty it was to save, as it were, by precept and example, those who had gone astray.[2] Thus Lao-tzŭ’s idea of the sovereign is so far purely ethical. He does not conceive of him so much as the judge and ruler of the people as their model and instructor. The man whom the people elect, however, is also the elected of Heaven.[3] As in the case of Saul the Israelites anointed him whom the Lord had chosen, so the people raise to the throne him whom Heaven has appointed. Princes exercise government, because they have received that destiny as their share of the Universal Nature.[4] They obtain their _One_—their individualizing nature—in order that they may rule righteously. Sometimes he seems to use the term _Shêng-jĕn_ (聖人) as synonymous with _Wang_ (王), or King.[5] Now the _Shêng-jĕn_ is the man who by his nature is completely virtuous, perfectly in harmony with the ways heaven has ordained. He is in short the stoic _Sapiens_, and whether he actually administer public affairs or not, is still a king. The term _Saint_, by which Julien renders this expression, scarcely conveys its full