nternal economy in order to find room for artificial
virtues. They exhausted their energies in framing laws, and they were
failures.' Man's heart, our philosopher goes on to say, may be 'forced
down or stirred up,' and in either case the issue is fatal. Yao made the
people too happy, so they were not satisfied. Chieh made them too
wretched, so they grew discontented. Then every one began to argue about
the best way of tinkering up society. 'It is quite clear that something
must be done,' they said to each other, and there was a general rush for
knowledge. The results were so dreadful that the Government of the day
had to bring in Coercion, and as a consequence of this 'virtuous men
sought refuge in mountain caves, while rulers of state sat trembling in
ancestral halls.' Then, when everything was in a state of perfect chaos,
the Social Reformers got up on platforms, and preached salvation from the
ills that they and their system had caused. The poor Social Reformers!
'They know not shame, nor what it is to blush,' is the verdict of Chuang
Tzu upon them.

The economic question, also, is discussed by this almond-eyed sage at
great length, and he writes about the curse of capital as eloquently as
Mr. Hyndman. The accumulation of wealth is to him the origin of evil.
It makes the strong violent, and the weak dishonest. It creates the
petty thief, and puts him in a bamboo cage. It creates the big thief,
and sets him on a throne of white jade. It is the father of competition,
and competition is the waste, as well as the destruction, of energy. The
order of nature is rest, repetition, and peace. Weariness and war are
the results of an artificial society based upon capital; and the richer
this society gets, the more thoroughly bankrupt it really is, for it has
neither sufficient rewards for the good nor sufficient punishments for
the wicked. There is also this to be remembered--that the prizes of the
world degrade a man as much as the world's punishments. The age is
rotten with its worship of success. As for education, true wisdom can
neither be learnt nor taught. It is a spiritual state, to which he who
lives in harmony with nature attains. Knowledge is shallow if we compare
it with the extent of the unknown, and only the unknowable is of value.
Society produces rogues, and education makes one rogue cleverer than
another. That is the only result of School Boards. Besides, of what
possible philosophic importa