will put you in front; put yourself
in front, and the world will put you behind."

"To the good I would be good; to the not-good I would also be good, in
order to make them good."

All together, with the comparatively few scraps of Lao Tzu's wisdom to
be found in the treatise, we should be hard put to understand the value
of Tao, and still more to find sufficient basis for a philosophical
system, were it not for his disciple, Chuang Tzu, of the fourth century
B.C., who produced a work expanding and illustrating the Way of his
great Master, so rich in thought and so brilliant from a literary point
of view that, although branded since the triumph of Confucianism with
the brand of heterodoxy, it still remains a storehouse of current
quotation and a model of composition for all time.

Let us go back to _Tao_, in which, Chuang Tzu tells us, man is born, as
fishes are born in water; for, as he says in another place, there is
nowhere where _Tao_ is not. But _Tao_ cannot be heard; heard, it is not
_Tao_. It cannot be seen; seen, it is not _Tao_. It cannot be spoken;
spoken, it is not _Tao_. Although it imparts form, it is itself
formless, and cannot therefore have a name, since form precedes name.

The unsubstantiality of _Tao_ is further dwelt upon as follows:--

"Were _Tao_ something which could be presented, there is no man but
would present it to his sovereign or to his parents. Could it be
imparted or given, there is no man but would impart it to his brother
or give it to his child. But this is impossible. For unless there is a
suitable endowment within, _Tao_ will not abide; and unless there is
outward correctness, _Tao_ will not operate."

It would seem therefore that _Tao_ is something which altogether
transcends the physical senses of man and is correspondingly difficult
of attainment. Chuang Tzu comes thus to the rescue:--

"By absence of thought, by absence of cogitation, _Tao_ may be known.
By resting in nothing, by according in nothing, _Tao_ may be approached.
By following nothing, by pursuing nothing, _Tao_ may be attained."

What there was before the universe, was _Tao_. _Tao_ makes things what
they are, but is not itself a thing. Nothing can produce _Tao_; yet
everything has Tao within it, and continues to produce it without end.

"Rest in Inaction," says Chuang Tzu, "and the world will be good of
itself. Cast your slough. Spit forth intelligence. Ignore all
differences. Become one with the Infinite. R