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CAP. XII.]
The Universe
143
"the people exerted themselves without reward and behaved themselves without punishment. But now you reward and punish them, and yet they are not good. From this point virtue will decline, the reign of force will begin, and the troubles of after ages will date their rise. Away with you! Do not interrupt my work." And he quietly went on ploughing as before.
- The above episode is unmistakably spurious.
At the beginning of the beginning, even Nothing did not exist. Then came the period of the Nameless.
- "The Nameless," says the Tao-Tê-Ching, ch. i, "was the beginning of heaven and earth." See also ch. ii, ante.
When One came into existence, there was One, but it was formless. When things got that by which they came into existence, it was called their virtue.
- Sc. that, by virtue of which they are what they are. See p. 45.
That which was formless, but divided.
- I.e. allotted.
though without interstice,
- Unbroken in continuity.
was called destiny.
Then came the movement which gave life, and
