been said that there is nothing like the light of nature.
- Probably an allusion to Lao Tzŭ's "Use the light that is within you to revert to your natural clearness of sight." We should then be able to view things in their true light. See Tao-Tê-Ching ch. lii., and The Remains of Lao Tzŭ, p. 34.
"To take a finger in illustration of a finger not being a finger is not so good as to take something which is not a finger. To take a horse in illustration of a horse not being a horse is not so good as to take something which is not a horse.
"So with the universe and all that in it is. These things are but fingers and horses in this sense. The possible is possible: the impossible is impossible. Tao operates, and given results follow. Things receive names and are what they are. They achieve this by their natural affinity for what they are and their natural antagonism to what they are not. For all things have their own particular constitutions and potentialities. Nothing can exist without these.
- These last few sentences are repeated in ch. xxvii. ad init.
- "We can never know anything but phenomena. Things are what they are, and their consequences will be what they will be."—J. S. Mill.
"Therefore it is that, viewed from the standpoint of Tao, a beam and a pillar are identical.
- The horizontal with the vertical.
So are ugliness and beauty, greatness, wickedness,
