Second, Lao laid down the same rule for the policy of the state as for the life of the individual. He says in his sixty-first chapter , “What makes a state great is its being like a low-lying, down-flowing stream;⁠—it becomes the centre to which tend all (the small states) under heaven.” He then uses an illustration which will produce a smile:⁠—“Take the case of all females. The female always overcomes the male by her stillness. Stillness may be considered (a sort of) abasement.” Resuming his subject, he adds, “Thus it is that a great state, by condescending to small states, gains them for itself; and that small states, by abasing themselves to a great state, win it over to them. In the one case the abasement tends to gaining adherents; in the other case, to procuring favour. The great state only wishes to unite men together and nourish them; a small state only wishes to be received by, and to serves, the other. Each gets what it desires, but the great state must learn to abase itself.”