Everyone has a place to fill in the universal scheme; he has a function to perform, that none else can perform; a _just what he can do,_--which commonly he falls far short of doing. When he does it, fully and perfectly, then he is on the road of progress; that road opens up to him; and presently, still exercising the fulness of his being, he becomes a completeness, like Heaven and Earth; their 'equal,' in the Chinese phrase; or as we say, a Perfect Man or Adept. Does anyone know what place in history he is to fill? I cannot tell; I suppose an Adept, incarnated, would be too busy filling it to have time or will to question. But here perhaps we have the nearest thing possible to a standard for measuring them; and here the virtue of Taoism, and one greatest lesson we may learn from it. Are we to judge by the impressiveness of the personality? No; the Man of Tao is not a personality at all. He makes one to use, but is not identified with it; his personality will not be great or small, or enchanting or repellent, but simply adapted to the needs.--Is it the depth and fulness of the philosophv he gives out? No; it may be wiser and also more difficult to keep silent on main points, than to proclaim them broadcast; and for this end he may elect even not to know (with conscious brain-mind) too much;--not to have the deep things within his normal consciousness. But he comes into the world to meet a situation; to give the course of history a twist in a desired direction; and the sign and measure of his greatness is, it seems to me, his ability to meet the situation at all points, and to do just what is necessary for the giving of the twist,--no more and no less. And then, of course, it takes a thousand years or so before you can judge. One is not speaking of common statesmen, who effect quick changes that are no changes at all, but of the Men who shepherd the Host of Souls. I like to imagine, before the birth of Such a One, a consultation of the Gods upon the Mountain of Heaven. A synod of the kind (for China) would have taken place in the sixth century B. C., no doubt; because in those days certainly there was a "decline of virtue and an insurrection of vice and injustice in the world." Transport yourselves then, say in the year 552, to the peaks of Tien Shan of Kuen Lun, or high Tai-hsing, or the grand South Mountain; and see the Pantheon assembled.