Chuang Tzu: Mystic, Moralist, and Social Reformer

mud rather than be a slave to the ruler of a State. I will never take office. In this way, I shall remain free to follow my own inclinations." 1

To help the reader better understand the writings of Chuang Tzu and appreciate his goals and objectives, it is necessary to go back a few hundred years further.

In the seventh century B.C. Before the Common Era, there lived a man now commonly known as Lao Tzu. He was the great prophet of his age. He taught men to return good for evil and to look forward to a higher life. He claimed to have found the key original: "clue" to all things, both human and divine.

He seems to have insisted that his system could not be expressed in words. At any rate, he declared that those who spoke did not know, while those who knew did not speak.

However, to adapt his ideas to the limitations of human life original: "conditions of mortality", he called this key TAO, or THE WAY. He explained that the word was to be understood metaphorically, and not in the literal sense of a road or path upon which people walk.

The following are sentences selected from the unquestionably genuine remains of Lao Tzu, which can be found scattered throughout early Chinese literature:

All the world knows that the goodness of "doing good" is not true goodness.

When you have achieved something of merit, do not take credit for it. On the other hand, if you do not take credit for yourself, that merit shall never be taken from you.

Too many words exhaust the intellect. It is better to keep to the middle path original: "preserve a mean".

1 See p. 434.