Again:  “When Tao is lost, virtue takes its place.  When virtue is lost, benevolence succeeds to it.  When benevolence is lost, justice ensues.  When justice is lost, then we have expediency.”  He does not mean, of course, that these things are bad; but simply that they are the successive stages of best, things left when Tao is lost sight of; none of them in itself a high enough aim.  They are all included in Tao, as the less in the greater.  He describes to you the character of the man of Tao; but your conduct is to be the effect of following Tao; and you do not attain Tao by mere practice of virtue; though you naturally practise virtue, without being aware of it, while following Tao.  It all throws wonderful light on the nature of the Adept; about whom you have said nothing at all when you have accredited him with all the virtues.  Joan was blemishless; but not thereby did she save France;—­she could do that because, as Laotse would have said, being one with Tao, she flowed out into her surroundings, accomplishing absolutely her part in the universal plan.  No compilation of virtues would make a Teacher (such as we know):  it is a case of the total absence of everything that should prevent the natural Divine Part of man from functioning in this world as freely and naturally as the sun shines or the winds blow.  The sun and the stars and the tides and the wind and the rain—­there is that perfect glowing simplicity in them all:  the Original, the Root of all things, Tao. Be like them, says Laotse, impersonal and simple.  “I hold fast to and cherish Three Precious Things,” he says:  “Gentleness, Economy, Humility.”  Why?  So, you would say, do the ethics of the New Testament; such is the preaching of the Christian Churches.  But (in the latter case) for reasons quite unlike Laotse’s.  For we make of them too often virtues to be attained, that shall render us meek and godly, acceptable in the eyes of the Lord, and I know not what else:  riches laid up in heaven; a pamperment of satisfaction; easily to become a cloak for self-righteousness and, if worse can be, worse.  But tut! Laotse will not be bothered with riches here or elsewhere.  With him these precious things are simply absences that come to be when obstructive presences are thrown off.  No sanctimoniousness for the little Old Man in the Royal Library!

He would draw minds away to the silence of the Great Mystery, which is the fountain of laughter, of life, the unmarred; and he would have them abide there in absolute harmony.  Understand him, and you understand what he did for China.  It is from that Inner Thing, that Tao, that all nourishment comes and all greatness.  You must go out with your eyes open to search for it:  watch for Dragons in the sky; for the Laugher, the Golden Person, in the Sun:  watch for Tao, ineffably sparkling and joyous—­and quiet—­ in the trees; listen for it in the winds and in the sea-roar; and have nothing in your own heart but its presence and omnipresence and wonder-working