The Simple Way (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1905 Excerpt: ...and faced by the Manifest. That which unites them is the immaterial breath. Orphanage, isolation, and a chariot without wheels are shunned by the people; but kings and great men appropriate these names to themselves. For things are increased by being deprived; and being added to they are diminished. THE CHANGES OF TAO 97 That which people teach by their actions I make use of to instruct them. Those who are violent and headstrong, for example, do not die a natural death. They teach a good lesson, and so I make use of them. The Theogony of Taoism is simplicity itself, and by that virtue is characteristic of the whole doctrine. The One (Tao) jfi emaned the Two (Heaven and Earth), and these two emaned the Three (Heaven, Earth, and Humanity). t By Heaven we understand all that is spiritual in its nature, and by Earth all that is material. Man, compounded of heavenly and earthly natures, is at once a spiritual involution and a natural evolution--spiritual as to his soul, and natural as to his body. This is the ancient doctrine which preceded the Shintoism of the twelfth century B.C., and it appears to have been the sole religion of China under the successive rulers of the Patriarchal dynasty--Fuh-hi, Shin-nung, Hwang-ti, Shaouhaou, Chuen-hia, Ti-ko, Che, Yaou, and Shun. It remained in more or less of its natural purity through the succeeding dynasties of Hia and Shang, and was consistently taught as part of the ancient doctrine by the founders of the Chow dynasty, Wan-wang and Wu-wang. It was not until the times immediately prior to the birth of Laotze that a marked spiritual decadence was observable in China; and of this more will be said in the concluding part of the present work. "That which unites them," says Laotze, speaking of the Three Emanations...