nd
King Chnodomar has every reason to think that God is behaving
in a very reasonable manner.--As for the rest of the empire,
whatever may be its population in human bodies, there is a
plentiful lack of human souls to inhabit them; the Roman world
has fallen on evil years, truly, but is by no means unchanged;--
and the one thing you can prophesy with any decent security is
that affairs cannot go on in this way much longer. Rome has
conducted a number of funerals in her day, of this nation and
that conquered and put an end to; not much intuition is required
now, to foresee that the next funeral will be her own.--(Though
indeed, I doubt you should have found half-a-dozen in the Roman
world who could foresee it.)

Now there is a Way, narrow and most difficult to find,--a Way of
conducting the affairs of this life and this world, in balance,
in equilibrium; in that fine I condition through which alone the
life-renewing forces from the vaster worlds within may flow down,
and keep existence here in harmony, and forefend decay. This
was, of course, the essence of Chinese thought, Confucian and
Taoist. You maintained the inner harmony, and the forces of
heaven might use you as their channel. You found Tao (the Way),
and grew never old; you succeeded in all enterprises; walked
through life unruffled,--duty flowing, beautifully accomplished,
at every moment from your hands. You met with no snags or
adjusted yourself always to conditions as they arose, and
over-rode them in quietest triumph.--They said that, possessing Tao,
one might live on many times the common threescore years and ten;
very likely there is some truth in it; it seems as if it were
true at any rate, of the life of nations. China caught glimpses,
and lived on and on; grew old, and reviewed her youth time and
again. But normally, what do we find with these un-Taoist
nations of the West?--They go easily for some period; then it
becomes harder and harder for them to adjust theniselves to
conditions. They become clogged with the detritus of old thought
and action. What is the meaning of the incessant need we see for
reform? Under whatever form of government a nation may be, it
arises perpetually; it carries us around the ring of the-archies
and-cracies, and there is no finality anywhere.--No; there is no
straight line of political progress; but round in a ring you go!
You turn out your kings, because they are tyrannical: which
means that their governmen