Recompense injury with kindness.
The wise man's freedom from grievance is because he will not regard grievances as such.
Of such were the pure and simple teachings of Lao Tzŭ. But it is upon the wondrous doctrine of Inaction that his claim to immortality is founded:—
Do nothing, and all things will be done.
I do nothing, and my people become good of their own accord.
Abandon wisdom and discard knowledge, and the people will be benefited an hundredfold.
The weak overcomes the strong, the soft overcomes the hard. All the world knows this; yet none can act up to it.
The softest things in the world override the hardest. That which has no substance enters where there is no fissure. And so I know that there is advantage in Inaction.
Such doctrines as these were, however, not likely to appeal with force to the sympathies of a practical people. In the sixth century B.C., before Lao Tzŭ's death, another Prophet arose. He taught his countrymen that duty to one's neighbour comprises the whole duty of man. Charitableness of heart, justice, sincerity, and fortitude,—sum up the ethics of Confucius. He knew nothing of a God, of a soul, of an unseen world. And he declared that the unknowable had better remain untouched.