If you intend to take safe precautions against the thieves who rifle trunks, grope in bags, break open cupboards, you must wind round with straps and cords, fasten with bolts and hasps – this is what conventional opinion calls wisdom. However, if a big enough thief comes he will put the cupboard on his back, hoist up the trunk, sling the bag on his shoulders, and make off, and fear only that the straps, cords, bolts and hasps will not hold. That being so, isn’t the man we were calling wise on the contrary a man who is piling up a store for the sake of a big enough thief?
So let’s try to sort the matter out. Are there any whom conventional opinion calls wise who are not piling up a store for the sake of the great thieves? Are there any whom it calls sages who are not guarding the store for the sake of the great thieves? How would we know that this is so? Formerly in the state of Ch’i one city was within sight of the next, the cries of cocks and dogs in one village could be heard in the next, the water spread with fishnets and the land tilled with hoe or plough was some 2,000 li square. In the manner in which everywhere within its four borders it instituted ancestral shrines and altars to the soil and the grain, or organised provinces, districts, cities, villages, hamlets, when did it ever fail to take the sages as models? However in one morning T’ien Ch’eng killed the lord of Ch’i and stole his state. Nor was it only the state he stole; he stole it complete with all its wise and sagely laws. So T’ien Ch’eng has gone on having the reputation of a thief and bandit, yet the man himself lived as secure as Yao or Shun; small states did not dare to condemn, great states did not dare to punish, and for twelve generations his house possessed the state of Ch’i. Then isn’t it on the contrary that he stole the state of Ch’i complete with all its wise and sagely laws and used them to keep safe his robbing, thieving self?
So when one of Robber Chih’s band asked him ‘Do robbers too have the Way?’, Chih answered
‘Where can you go unless you have the Way? A shrewd guess at where the things are hidden in the house is the intuitiveness of the sage. Being first man in is courage. Being last man out is Duty. Knowing whether or not you can bring it off is wisdom. Giving everyone fair shares is Goodwill. Without the five at his disposal, no one in the world could ever make a great robber.’
Judging by this, without the Way of the sage the good man would not stand, without the Way of the sage Robber Chih would not walk. If the good men in the world are fewer than the bad, the sages have benefited the world less than they have harmed it. With the birth of the sages the great robbers arise. Smash the sages, turn the thieves and bandits loose, and for the first time the world will be in order.
When the river dries up the valley is depopulated,
By the levelling of the hills the deeps are filled.
Once the sages are dead the great robbers will not arise, the world will be at peace and there will be no more trouble.
Until the sages die the great robbers will not stop. Even if we had twice as many sages to bring order to the world, the result would be to double the benefit to Robber Chih. If you institute pecks and bushels to measure things by, he’ll steal them and the pecks and bushels with them. If you institute scales to weigh things by, he’ll steal them and the scales with them. If you institute tallies and seals to guarantee things, he’ll steal them and the tallies and seals with them. If you institute Goodwill and Duty to bend things straight, he’ll steal them and Goodwill and Duty with them. How would we know that this is so? The man who steals a buckle is put to death, the man who steals a state becomes a prince, and at the gates of a prince you’ll see the benevolent and the dutiful. Then isn’t this stealing the Goodwill and Duty, the sagehood and wisdom? So the man who, succeeding as a great robber, wins the throne of a state, and steals Goodwill and Duty, and annexes the pecks and bushels, scales, tallies and seals for his own benefit, even the rewards of high-fronted carriage and cap of office cannot induce, the terror of the executioner’s axe cannot deter. This redoubling of the benefit to Robber Chih which puts him beyond the reach of prohibitions is the fault of the sage. The sage is the sharpest tool of empire, he is not a means of bringing light to the empire.
So be rid of the sages, discard the wise, and then the great robbers will stop. Fling away the jades, crush the pearls, and the petty thieves will not arise. Burn the tallies, burst the seals, and the people will be rustic and simple. Split the peck-measures, snap the scales, and the people will not wrangle. Utterly demolish the laws of the sages throughout the world, and for the first time it will be possible to sort out and discuss things with the people.
Pull the Six Pitch-tubes out of sequence, melt down the organ-pipes and snap the zither-strings, stuff up blind Music-master K’uang’s ears, and at last throughout the world men will contain their hearing where it belongs. Obliterate emblems and designs, scatter the Five Hues, gum up Li Chu’s eyes, and at last throughout the world men will contain their eyesight where it belongs. Smash and snap the carpenter’s curve and line, throw away compasses and L-square, shackle Craftsman Ch’ui’s fingers, and at last throughout the world men will be in possession of their skills. Scrape away the tracks of Tseng and Shih, gag the mouths of Yang and Mo, cast away Goodwill and Duty, and at last Power throughout the world will be the same from its profoundest depths.
If men contain their eyesight where it belongs, there will be no more dazzle in the world. If men contain their hearing where it belongs, there will be no more involvements in the world. If men contain their knowledge where it belongs, there will be no more perplexities in the world. If men contain their powers where they belong, there will be no more aberration in the world. Tseng and Shih, Yang and Mo, Music-master K’uang and Craftsman Ch’ui and Li Chu were all men who situated their powers outside themselves, and so dazed and confused the world. These are matters for which laws are useless.
Don’t tell me that you do not know about the age when Power was at its utmost? Formerly, under the Houses of Jung-ch’eng, Ta-t’ing, Po-huang, Chung-yang, Li-lu, Li-hsü, Hsien-yüan, Ho-hsü, Tsun-lu, Chu-jung, Fu-hsi and Shen-nung, throughout that time the people made use of knotted cords,* found their own food sweet enough, their own dress beautiful enough, were happy in their own customs, content in their own abode. Neighbouring countries saw each other in the distance, heard the sounds of each others’ cocks and dogs, but the people grew old and died without ever coming and going. Such is a time of utmost order.
Nowadays things have gone so far that the people lift their heels and crane their necks, tell each other ‘In such-and-such a place there’s a good one’, and pack up provisions and head for him, so that inside the family they desert their parents and outside leave the service of their lords, their footprints go on meeting at the borders of the princes’ states, their wheel-ruts go on mingling a thousand miles from home. This then is the fault of the ruler’s lust for knowledge.
If the ruler does lust after knowledge and lacks the Way, the empire is in utter disorder. How would we know that this is so? If there is too much knowledge of bows, crossbows, bird-snares, stringed arrows, triggered traps, the birds are disordered in the sky. If there is too much knowledge of hooks, baits, nets and basket-traps, the fish are disordered in the water. When there is too much knowledge of pitfalls, springes, snares, traps, gins, the animals are disordered in the woodlands. When we have too much of the vagaries of cunning and deception, of wrenching apart ‘the hard and the white’ and jumbling together ‘the same and the different’, the vulgar are perplexed by disputation. Therefore, if the world is benighted in utter confusion, the blame rests on the lusters after knowledge.
Thus everyone in the world has enough sense to inquire into what he does not know, yet we do not have the sense to inquire into what we already do know. Everyone knows how to condemn what he judges to be bad, yet we do not know how to condemn what we have already judged good. This is why we are in utter disorder. So we disturb the brightness of the sun and moon above, dissipate the quintessences in the mountains and rivers below, interrupt the round of the four seasons in between; of the very insects which creep on the ground or flit above it, not one is not losing its nature. How utterly the lust for knowledge has disordered the world! Since as far back as the Three Dynasties this has been happening; they neglect the plain people and delight in bustling sycophants, abandon calm and mildness and Doing Nothing, and delight in noisy ideas. All that noise has thrown the world into disorder.
*The device for record-keeping which preceded the invention of writing. This whole passage is parallel with Lao-tzŭ, 80.