By Nature (Tao) the passions and other impediments to virtue are lessened more and more until man attains to that state of perfection in which he acts naturally and so can do all things.[22] The virtue of humility is one of which Lao-tzŭ speaks very highly. Water is always with him the type of what is humble; and the godlike man, like it, occupies a low position, which others abhor but in which he can profit all around him.[23] “The supremely virtuous is like water,” are words taken from the Tao-tê Ching, and frequently inscribed on rocks and other objects. Such a man does not claim precedence or merit, nor does he strive with any one.[24] He never arrogates honour or preferment, yet they come to him;[25] and he is yielding and modest, yet always prevails in the end. When success is obtained, and his desire accomplished, he modestly retires. Pride, on the other hand, and vaulting ambition, always fail to attain the wished-for consummation.[26] So also the man who is violent and headstrong generally comes to a bad end.[27] Some of the commentators, however, seem to take this humility in a bad sense, and they would make us believe that the quality as recommended by Lao-tzŭ is not virtue but rather a vice, as partaking of the nature of a trick or artifice. The historical instance which they most frequently quote as illustrating the success of this humility is the career of the famous Chang Tzŭ-fang (張子房), a sort of political Uriah Heep. To continence also Lao-tzŭ assigns a high place. The total exemption from the power of the passions and desire is a moral pre-eminence to which man should seek to attain— “For not to desire or admire, if a man could learn it, were more Than to walk all day like the Sultan of old in a garden of spice.”