[39] Georgica. Bk. iv., vs. 221–6. The rest of the passage does not apply. Compare also Cicero’s criticism on the Pythagorean doctrine, in the De Nat. Deorum, ch. 1, §11.
[40] Eccles., Ch. iii., vs. 19 and 20.
[41] Aids to Reflection, p. 4.
[42] Force et Matière, p. 93 (French translation).
[43] Biographia Lita., ch. 5; compare also the remarkable words of Hegel. Geschichte, &c., Vol. i., p. 143.
CHAPTER VI.
POLITICS.
We now breathe a freer air—escaped from the trammels of Physics, and at large in the wide spaces of Politics. Here Lao-tzŭ speaks more plainly and fully, and it is easily seen that he is dealing with congenial subjects. To us also his political aphorisms will come with more freshness and delight than the speculations about things much more beyond his ken with which we were last engaged. Yet we must not expect to find in the Tao-tê Ching a treatise on Politics, or a discourse on the best form of government. Lao-tzŭ does not present to us a wax figment of his own imagination—an ideal republic, an Utopia, or a New Atlantis. He looks to his own country as it was then, oppressed and miserable, and he endeavours to recall those in authority to a noble and generous mode of government. His standard of political excellence may be ideal, and some of his maxims may be fanciful, and even bad; still we will find in all a genial human philosophy, which even we of the enlightened nineteenth century cannot utterly despise.
“Politics,” says Sir G. C. Lewes, “relate to human action so far as it concerns the public interest of a community, and is not merely private or ethical. Human action, thus defined, consists of—1, the acts and relations of a sovereign government, both with respect to its own subjects and other sovereign governments; 2, the acts and relations of members of the political community, so far as they concern the government, or the community at large, or a considerable portion of it.”[1] Lao-tzŭ’s teachings in politics refer more to the former than to the latter of these two divisions. He does not, however, omit to notice the relations of the different members of the state, as well to the government as to each other; but he relegates this subject to the province of ethics. He considers the people more in their private relations than as bound by legal ties to the performance of certain acts, and the abstaining from certain other acts, towards their fellows. Nor is it from the political stand-point that he contemplates the nature and distribution of wealth, a subject which properly belongs to politics. These and similar matters are all assigned to the private relations of man to the Universal Nature, and so they will come more properly under the head of ethics.
Having premised thus much, I now proceed to set forth Lao-tzŭ’s teachings about “the acts and relations of a sovereign government, both with respect to its own subjects and other sovereign governments;” and
1. Of the institution of the Sovereign.—It is to the people that he assigns the original appointment of an emperor, and he gives a peculiar reason for the institution. A bad man still has the law of Nature (Tao) in him; and he is not to be cast aside as a hopeless case, seeing he may be transformed into a virtuous man. Accordingly emperors and magistrates were appointed, whose duty it was to save, as it were, by precept and example, those who had gone astray.[2] Thus Lao-tzŭ’s idea of the sovereign is so far purely ethical. He does not conceive of him so much as the judge and ruler of the people as their model and instructor. The man whom the people elect, however, is also the elected of Heaven.[3] As in the case of Saul the Israelites anointed him whom the Lord had chosen, so the people raise to the throne him whom Heaven has appointed. Princes exercise government, because they have received that destiny as their share of the Universal Nature.[4] They obtain their One—their individualizing nature—in order that they may rule righteously. Sometimes he seems to use the term Shêng-jĕn (聖人) as synonymous with Wang (王), or King.[5] Now the Shêng-jĕn is the man who by his nature is completely virtuous, perfectly in harmony with the ways heaven has ordained. He is in short the stoic Sapiens, and whether he actually administer public affairs or not, is still a king. The term Saint, by which Julien renders this expression, scarcely conveys its full meaning; as the Shêng-jĕn is not only holy, but also supremely wise. He is the ideal or typical man, who rules ever and transforms the world; and, failing a better, I shall translate it by the expression godlike man. In ancient times, it was the Shêng-jĕn, or godlike man, who was appointed ruler; and if such were the case now, the world would be in peace and prosperity. The man who is destined to become king will not use violence to obtain the honour.[6] On the contrary he will be humble and yielding; and so, as water wears away the hard opposing rocks, he will finally triumph. In confirmation hereof Lao-tzŭ cites the saying of a godlike man:—“To bear the reproaches of a kingdom is to preside over the sacrifices to the gods of the land and grain (i.e. to be prince), and to bear a kingdom’s misfortunes is to be king of the whole empire”—words true, though seeming paradoxical.[7] Lao-tzŭ, however, has a very high opinion of the position and dignity of the sovereign. There are four great things in the universe, and he is one of them; the remaining three being Nature (Tao), Heaven, and Earth[8] In another place he even puts the king immediately before Heaven.[9]