The Tao of Emerson (5 page)

’Tis as easy to twist iron anchors,
   and braid cannons, as to braid straw,
To boil granite, as to boil water,
   if you take all steps in order.

By simple living, by an illimitable soul,
   you inspire, you correct, you instruct,
   you raise, you embellish all.
By your own act, you teach the beholder
   how to do the practicable.
According to the depth from which you
   draw your life,
Such is the depth of your manners and presence.

By the permanence of nature,
   minds are trained alike,
And are made intelligible to each other.

Good is a good doctor, but Bad is sometimes a better.

Who knows his manhood’s strength,
Yet still his female feebleness maintains;
As to one channel flow the many drains,
All come to him, yea, all beneath the sky.
Thus he the constant excellence retains
—
The simple child again, free from all stains
.

Who knows how white attracts:
Yet always keeps himself within black’s shade
,
The pattern of humility displayed
,
Displayed in view of all beneath the sky;
He in the unchanging excellence arrayed
,
Endless return to man’s first state has made
.

Who knows how glory shines
,
Yet loves disgrace, nor e’er for it is pale;
Behold his presence in a spacious vale
,
To which men come from all beneath the sky
,
The unchanging excellence completes its tale
The simple infant man in him we hail
.

Men of genius are said to partake of
   the masculine and feminine traits.
As much as a man is a whole,
   so is he also a part.
Speak as you think, be what you are,
Look upon the simple and childish virtues
   of veracity and honesty
   as the root of all that is sublime in character.
A multitude of trifles impede the mind’s eye
   from the great search
   of that fine horizon-line that truth keeps.
The way to knowledge and power
   is not through plenty and superfluity,
But by denial and renunciation
   into solitude and privation.
Let us apply to this subject the same torch
   by which we have looked at all
   the phenomena of the time,
The infinitude, namely, of every man.
Everything teaches that.

If anyone should wish to get the kingdom for himself
,
   and to effect this by what he does
,
I see that he will not succeed
.
The kingdom is a spirit-like thing
,
   and cannot be got by active doing
.
He who would so win it destroys it;
He who would hold it in his grasp loses it
.

The course and nature of things is such that
   
What was in front is now behind;
   
What warmed anon we freezing find
.
   
Strength is of weakness oft the spoil;
   
The store in ruins mocks our toil
.

Hence the sage puts away excessive effort
,
   extravagance, and easy indulgence
.

Nature has self-poise in all her works;
Certain proportions in which oxygen and azote combine,
And not less a harmony in faculties,
   a fitness in the spring and the regulator.

So let man be,
Let him empty his breast of his windy conceits
And show his lordship by manners and deeds
   on the scale of nature.

Nature, hating art and pains,
Balks and baffles plotting brains.
The divine circulations never rest nor linger;
We are encamped in nature, not domesticated.

It is firm water, it is cold flame.

He who would assist a lord of men
   in harmony with the Tao
Will not assert his mastery in the kingdom
   by force of arms
.
Such a course is sure to meet with its proper return
.

Wherever a host is stationed, briars and thorns spring up
.
In the sequence of great armies, there are sure to he had years
.

A skillful commander strikes a decisive Mow and stops
.
He does not dare to assert and complete his mastery
.
He will strike a Mow, hut will he on his guard
   against being vain or boastful or arrogant
   in consequence of it
.
He strikes it as a matter of necessity;
He strikes it, but not from a wish for mastery
.

When things have attained their maturity, they become old
.
This may be said to be not in accordance with the Tao
,
And what is not in accordance with it soon comes to an end
.

War begins to look like an epidemic insanity,
Breaking out here and there like the cholera
   or influenza
Infecting men’s brains.

When seen in the remote past,
   in the infancy of society,
Appears a part of the connection of events
   and in its place, necessary.

War and peace thus resolve themselves
   into a mercury of the state of cultivation.
At certain stages, the man fights,
   if he be of sound body and mind.
At a certain higher stage,
   he makes no offensive demonstration.
His warlike nature is all concerted into
   an active medicinal principle.

Now arms, however beautiful
,
   
are instruments of evil omen,
Hateful, it may be said, to all creatures.
Therefore they who have the Tao do not like to employ them
.

The superior man ordinarily considers the left hand
   the most honorable place
,
But in time of war the right hand
.
Those sharp weapons are instruments of evil omen
,
   and not the instruments of the superior man
—
He uses them only on the compulsion of necessity
.
Calm and repose are what he prizes;
Victory by force of arms is to him undesirable
.
To consider this desirable would be to delight
   in the slaughter of men;
And he who delights in the slaughter of men
   cannot get his will in the kingdom
.

He who has killed multitudes of men
Should weep for them with the bitterest grief
.

The instinct of self-help is very early unfolded
   in the coarse and merely brute form of war.
To men of a sedate and mature spirit,
   in whom is any knowledge or mental activity,
The detail of battle becomes unsupportably
   tedious and revolting.
Nothing is plainer than that the sympathy
   with war
Is a juvenile and temporary state.
The standing army, the arsenal, the camp
   and the gibbet
Do not appertain to man.
They only serve as an index to show
   where man is now;
What a bad, unorganized temper he has;
What an ugly neighbor he is; how low his hope lies.

Cannot love be, as well as hate?
Cannot peace be, as well as war?

The Tao, considered as unchanging, has no name
.

Though in its primordial simplicity, it may be small
,
The whole world dares not deal with it as a minister
.
If a feudal prince or king could guard and hold it
,
All would spontaneously submit themselves to him
.
Heaven and earth, under its guidance, unite together
   and send down the sweet dew
,
Which, without the directions of men
,
   reaches equally everywhere as of its own accord
.
As soon as it proceeds to action, it has a name
.
When it once has that name
,
Men can know to rest in it
.
When they know to rest in it
,
They can be free from all risk of failure or error
.

The relation of the Tao to all the world
   is like that of the great rivers and seas
   to the streams from the valleys
.

This deep power in which we rest
And whose beatitudes are all accessible to us,
Is not only self-sufficing and perfect
   in every hour;
But the act of seeing and the thing seen,
The seer and the spectacle,
The subject and the object,
   are one.

Nature judges like a God all men that
   come to her.
That power, which does not respect quantity,
Which makes the whole and the particle
   its equal channel,
Delegates its smile to the morning,
And distills its essence into every drop of rain.

He who knows other men is discerning;
He who knows himself is intelligent
.
He who overcomes others is strong;
He who overcomes himself is mighty
.

He who is satisfied with his lot is rich;
He who goes on acting with energy has a firm will
.
He who does not fail in the requirements of his position
,
   continues long;
He who dies and yet does not perish, has longevity
.

He who knows that power is inborn,
That he is weak because he has looked
   for good out of him,
   and elsewhere,
And so perceiving, throws himself
   unhesitatingly on his thoughts,
Instantly rights himself, stands in
   the erect position,
Commands his limbs, works miracles,
Just as a man who stands on his feet
   is stronger than a man who stands on his head.

All-pervading is the great Tao!
It may be found on the left hand
   and on the right
.
All things depend on it for their production
,
Which it gives to them, not one refusing obedience to it
.
When its work is accomplished
,
   it does not claim the name of having done it
.
It clothes all things as with a garment
,
And makes no assumption of being their lord
—
It may be named in the smallest things
.
All things return to their root and disappear
,
And do not know that it is it which presides
   over their doing so
—
It may be named in the greatest things
.

Hence the sage is able in the same way
   to accomplish his great achievements
.
It is through his not making himself great
   that he can accomplish them
.

For wisdom is infused into every form;
The divine circulations never rest or linger.
The dance of the hours goes forward still;
   like an odor of incense, like a strain of music,
   like sleep,
It is inexact and boundless.

This energy comes to the lowly and simple.
It comes to whomever will put off
   what is foreign and proud;
It comes as insight; it comes as serenity
   and grandeur.

To him who holds in his hand the Great Image
   of the Invisible Tao
,
The whole world repairs
.
Men resort to him, and receive no hurt
,
But find rest, peace, and the feeling of ease
.

Music and dainties will make the passing guest
   stop for a time
.
But though the Tao, as it comes from the mouth
,
   seems insipid and has no flavor
,
Though it seems not worth being looked at
   or listened to
,
The use of it is inexhaustible
.

He is great who is what he is from nature,
   and never reminds us of this.
The world is upheld by the veracity of good men.
They make the earth wholesome.

We value total powers and effects,
   as the spirit or quality of the man.
We have another sight, and a new standard,
An insight which disregards what is done for the eye;
An ear which hears not what men say
   but what they do not say.

When one is about to take an inspiration
,
   he is sure to make a previous expiration;
When he is going to weaken another
,
   he will first strengthen him;
When he is going to overthrow another
,
   he will first have raised him up;
When he is going to despoil another
,
   he will first have made gifts to him
—
This is called “hiding the light of his procedure
.

The soft overcomes the hard;
And the weak, the strong
.

Fishes should not be taken from the deep;
Instruments for the profit of a state
   should not be shown to the people
.

Polarity, or action and reaction, we meet
   in every part of nature;
In the inspiration and expiration of
   plants and animals;
A surplusage given to one part
   is paid out of a reduction from another part.
What we gain in power is lost in time.
Every sweet hath its sour;
every evil its good.
For everything you gain, you lose something.

There is always some leveling circumstance
   that puts down the overbearing, the strong.

The Tao in its regular course does nothing
   for the sake of doing it
,
And so there is nothing which it does not do
.

If princes and kings were able to maintain it
,
All things would of themselves
Be transformed by them
.

If this transformation became to me
   an object of desire
,
I would express the desire by the nameless simplicity
.