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Daoism -> Zhuangzi -> Outer Chapters -> Correcting the Nature -> 3.1

Looking at the subject from this point of view,
we see how the world lost the (proper) course,
and how the course (which it took) only led it further astray.
The world and the Way, when they came together, being (thus) lost to each other,
how could the men of the Way make themselves conspicuous in the world?
and how could the world rise to an appreciation of the Way?
Since the Way had no means to make itself conspicuous in the world,
and the world had no means of rising to an appreciation of the Way,
圣人 though sagely men might not keep among the hills and forests,
their virtue was hidden
- hidden, but not because they themselves sought to hide it.
Those whom the ancients called 'Retired Scholars'
did not conceal their persons, and not allow themselves to be seen;
they did not shut up their words, and refuse to give utterance to them;
they did not hide away their knowledge, and refuse to bring it forth.
The conditions laid on them by the times were very much awry.
天下 If the conditions of the times had allowed them to act in the world on a great scale,
they would have brought back the state of unity without any trace being perceived (of how they did so),
天下 When those conditions shut them up entirely from such action,
they struck their roots deeper (in themselves), were perfectly still and waited.
It was thus that they preserved (the Way in) their own persons.
The ancients who preserved (the Way in) their own persons
did not try by sophistical reasonings to gloss over their knowledge;
天下 they did not seek to embrace (everything in) the world in their knowledge,
nor to comprehend all the virtues in it.
Solitary and trembling they remained where they were, and sought the restoration of their nature.
What had they to do with any further action?
The Way indeed is not to be pursued, nor (all) its characteristics to be known on a small scale.
A little knowledge is injurious to those characteristics;
small doings are injurious to the Way
- hence it is said,
'They simply rectified themselves.'


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