Page:Four and Twenty Minds.djvu/304

288 century is the ideal of Tâoism—not in the beggar’s sense of not working, but in the sense of not changing that which nature establishes and impels. Such inaction is regarded by the Tâoists as the indispensable means of ascending to the state of primal spontaneity:

It is with life as it is with implements. Thus spake the cook of King Hui:

Kwang-tze does not exalt deathlessness as do the orthodox Tâoists. He knows how little worth