While enjoining humility, Lao protested against war. In his thirty-first chapter he says, “Arms, however beautiful, are instruments of evil omen; hateful, it may be said, to all creatures. They who have the Tao do not like to employ them.” Perhaps in his sixty-ninth chapter he allows defensive war, but he adds, “There is no calamity greater than that of lightly engaging in war. To do that is near losing the gentleness which is so precious. Thus it is that when weapons are (actually) crossed, he who deplores the (situation) conquers.”