I do not know where there is a more pregnant passage than this following,--a better acid (of words) to corrode the desperate metal of selfhood; listen well, for each clause is a volume. "Can one get Tao to possess it for one's own?" asks Chwangtse; and answers himself thus: "Your very body is not your own; how then should Tao be?--If my body is not my own, whose is it, pray?--It is the delegated image of God. Your posterity is not your own; it is the delegated exuviae of God. You move, but know not how; you are at rest, but know not why; you taste, but know not the cause; these are the operations of universal law. How then should you get Tao so as to possess it for your own?" Now then, I want to take one of those clauses, and try to see what Chwangtse really meant by it. "Your individuality is not your own, but the delegated adaptability of God."--There is a certain position in the Scheme of Things Entire,--a point, with a relation of its own to the rest of the Scheme, to the Universe;-- as the red line has a relation of its own to the rest of the spectrum and the ray of light as a whole..... From that point, from that position, there is a work to be done, which can be done from no other. The Lonely Eternal looks out through these eyes, because it must see all things; and there are things no eyes can see but these, no other hands do. This point is an infinitesimal part of the whole; but without its full and proper functioning, the Whole falls short in that much:--because of your or my petty omissions, the Universe limps and goes lame.--Into this position, as into all others impartially, the One Life which is Tao flows, adapting itself through aeons to the relations which that point bears to the Whole: and the result and the process of this adaptation is--your individuality or mine. _You_ are not the point, the position: because it is merely that which you hold and through which you function; it is yours, but not you. What then are _you?_ That which occupies and adapts itself to the point? But that is Tao, the Universal. You can only say it is you, if from _you_ you subtract all _you_-ness. Your individuality, then, is a temporary aspect of Tao in a certain relation to the totality of Tao, the One Thing which is the No Thing:--or it is the "delegated adaptability of God."