language of his day was inadequate; and what he wanted to express
belonged to the emotional, not the intellectual, side of the human
character, so that any perfectly clear expression of it in words was
entirely impossible. It must be borne in mind that the Chinese language
lacks definite word categories like substantive, adjective, adverb, or
verb; any word can be used now in one category and now in another, with
a few exceptions; thus the understanding of a combination like "white
horse" formed a difficult logical problem for the thinker of the fourth
century B.C.: did it mean "white" plus "horse"? Or was "white horse" no
longer a horse at all but something quite different?

Confucius's way of bringing human life into harmony with the life of the
universe was to be a process of assimilating Man as a social being, Man
in his social environment, to Nature, and of so maintaining his activity
within the bounds of the community. Lao Tz[)u] pursues another path, the
path for those who feel disappointed with life in the community. A
Taoist, as a follower of Lao Tz[)u] is called, withdraws from all social
life, and carries out none of the rites and ceremonies which a man of
the upper class should observe throughout the day. He lives in
self-imposed seclusion, in an elaborate primitivity which is often
described in moving terms that are almost convincing of actual
"primitivity". Far from the city, surrounded by Nature, the Taoist lives
his own life, together with a few friends and his servants, entirely
according to his nature. His own nature, like everything else,
represents for him a part of the Tao, and the task of the individual
consists in the most complete adherence to the Tao that is conceivable,
as far as possible performing no act that runs counter to the Tao. This
is the main element of Lao Tz[)u]'s doctrine, the doctrine of _wu-wei_,
"passive achievement".

Lao Tz[)u] seems to have thought that this doctrine could be applied to
the life of the state. He assumed that an ideal life in society was
possible if everyone followed his own nature entirely and no artificial
restrictions were imposed. Thus he writes: "The more the people are
forbidden to do this and that, the poorer will they be. The more sharp
weapons the people possess, the more will darkness and bewilderment
spread through the land. The more craft and cunning men have, the more
useless and pernicious contraptions will they invent. The more laws and
edicts