"Of those two," replied the Yellow Emperor, "the former was genuinely right, inasmuch as he did not know. The latter was near, inasmuch as he forgot. You and I are wholly wrong, inasmuch as we know."
Tao is attained, not by knowledge, but by absence of knowledge.
When All-in-extremes heard of this, he considered that the Yellow Emperor had spoken well.
"Spoken knowingly" gives the only chance of bringing out what is here a forced play upon words.
The universe is very beautiful, yet it says nothing. The four seasons abide by a fixed law, yet they are not heard. All creation is based upon absolute principles, yet nothing speaks.
And the true Sage, taking his stand upon the beauty of the universe, pierces the principles of created things. Hence the saying that the perfect man does nothing, the true Sage performs nothing, beyond gazing at the universe.
In the hope of attaining, by contemplation, a like spontaneity.
For man's intellect, however keen, face to face with the countless evolutions of things, their death and birth, their squareness and roundness,—can never reach the root. There creation is, and there it has ever been.
But the secret of life is withheld.