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 gentleness and love, not by vindictiveness and anger. So should it be with the holy man who takes him for his model. Assuredly we are not to understand those passages which enjoin quiescence so earnestly upon him as a meaning that he is to lead a life of absolute indolence. Like Taò, he is to guide his fellow-creatures rather by the beauty of his conduct than by positive commands laid imperatively upon them. Let him but be a shining example; they will be drawn towards him. The activity from which a wise ruler is to abstain is the vexatious multiplication of laws and edicts, which do harm rather than good. But neither ruler nor philosopher is told to do nothing; for benevolence, love, and the requital of good for evil, to say nothing of other positive virtues, are most strictly enjoined on all. Laò-tsé himself no doubt lived, and loved, a retired contemplative life. This is the kind of existence which he evidently considered the most perfect and the most godlike. He counsels his followers to be wholly unambitious, and to abstain from all active pursuit of political honor. Such counsel might possibly be well adapted to the time in which he lived. But none the less does he lay down rules for the guidance of kings, statesmen, and warriors, in their several spheres. Nor is the book wanting in pithy apothegms applicable to all, and remarkable alike for the wisdom of their substance and the neatness of their form. Whether, in short, we look to the simplicity and grandeur of its speculative doctrine, or to the unimpeachable excellence of its moral teaching, we shall find few among the great productions of the human mind that evince, from beginning to end, so lofty a spirit and so pure a strain.