Page 61 - The Arts of China, By Michael Sullivan Good Book

Map 4 China in the Warring States period.
But this was exceptional. Confucius, the greatest of them, was ill-
used in the state of Lu; for in those chaotic times few rulers saw
any immediate advantage in the Sage's emphasis upon the moral
and social virtues, upon jen ("human-heartedness") or upon the
value of knowledge and self-cultivation. Wanting power at home
and victory over their enemies abroad, they were often more at-
tracted by the Machiavellian doctrines of Lord Shang and the Le-
galists, which were to find their ultimatejustification in the rise of
the totalitarian state of Ch'in.
Against the social commitment of Confucius and his follower
Mencius on the one hand and the amoral doctrines of the Legalists
on the other, the Taoists offered a third solution—a submission
not to society or the state but to the universal principle, Tao. Lao
Tzu taught that discipline and control only distort or repress one's
natural instinct to flow with the stream of existence. In part, this
was a reaction against the rigidity of the other schools, but it was
4'
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