you must secure the happiness of the people; thirdly, that by solitary
persistent thought one may penetrate at last to a knowledge of the essence
of things; fourthly, that the object of all government is to make the
people virtuous and contented.

Sec. 5. Lao-tse and Tao-ism.

One of the three religious systems of China is that of the Tao, the other
two being that of Confucius, and that of Buddhism in its Chinese form. The
difficulty in understanding Tao-ism comes from its appearing under three
entirely distinct forms: (1) as a philosophy of the absolute or
unconditioned, in the great work of the Tse-Lao, or old teacher;[16] (2)
as a system of morality of the utilitarian school,[17] which resolves duty
into prudence; and (3) as a system of magic, connected with the belief in
spirits. In the Tao-te-king we have the ideas of Lao himself, which we
will endeavor to state; premising that they are considered very obscure
and difficult even by the Chinese commentators.

The TAO (Sec. 1) is the unnamable, and is the origin of heaven and earth. As
that which can be named, it is the mother of all things. These two are
essentially one. Being and not-being are born from each other (Sec. 2). The
Tao is empty but inexhaustible (Sec. 4), is pure, is profound, and was before
the Gods. It is invisible, not the object of perception, it returns into
not-being (Sec.Sec. 14, 40). It is vague, confused, and obscure (Sec. 25, 21). It
is little and strong, universally present, and all beings return into it
(Sec. 32). It is without desires, great (Sec. 34). All things are born of being,
being is born of not-being (Sec. 40).

From these and similar statements it would appear that the philosophy of
the Tao-te-king is that of absolute being, or the identity of being and
not-being. In this point it anticipated Hegel by twenty-three
centuries.[18] It teaches that the absolute is the source of being and of
not-being. Being is essence, not-being is existence. The first is the
noumenal, the last the phenomenal.'

As being is the source of not-being (Sec. 40), by identifying one's self with
being one attains to all that is not-being, i.e. to all that exists.
Instead, therefore, of aiming at acquiring knowledge, the wise man avoids
it: instead of acting, he refuses to act. He "feeds his mind with a wise
passiveness." (Sec. 16.) "_Not to act_ is the source of all power," is a
thesis continually present to the mind of Lao (Sec.Sec. 3, 23, 38,43,4