The school of Laozi fixing themselves in an unknown region beyond antiquity—a prehistoric time between “the grand beginning of all things” out of nothing, and the unknown commencement of societies of men—has made no advance but rather retrograded, and is represented by the still more degenerated Taoism of the present day.
There is a short parabolic story of Chuang-tzŭ, intended to represent the antagonism between Taoism and knowledge, which has always struck me as curious. The last paragraph of his seventh book is this:—“The ruler (or god Ti ) of the southern ocean was Shu (that is, Heedless); the ruler of the northern ocean was Hu (that is, Hasty); and the ruler of the centre was Hun-tun (that is, Chaos). Shu and Hu were continually meeting in the land of Hun-tun, who treated them very well. They consulted together how they might repay his kindness, and said, ‘Men have all seven orifices for the purposes of seeing, hearing, eating, and breathing while this (poor) ruler along has not one. Let us try and make them for him.’ Accordingly they dug one orifice in him every day; and at the end of seven days Chaos died.”