百天读书计划DAY89 Idealization of Nature

Idealization of Nature

Taoism and Confucianism differ because they are the rationalization or theoretical expression of different aspects of the life of the farmers. The farmers are simple in their living and innocent in their thought. Seeing things from their point of view, the Taoists idealized the simplicity of primitive society and condemned civilization. They also idealized the innocence of children and despised knowledge. In the Lao-tzu it is said: Let us have a small country with few inhabitants.... Let the people return to the use of knotted cords [for keeping records]. Let them obtain their food sweet, their clothing beautiful, their homes comfortable, their rustic tasks pleasurable. The neighboring state might be so near at hand that one could hear the cocks crowing in it and dogs barking. But the people would grow old and die without ever having been there." (Ch. 80.) Is this not an idyllic picture of a farmer's country?

The farmers are always in contact with nature, so they admire and love nature. This admiration and love were developed by the Taoists to the fullest extent. They made a sharp distinction between what is of nature and what is of man, the natural and the artificial. According to them, what is of nature is the source of human happiness and what is of man is the root of all human suffering. They were, as the Confucianist Hsün Tzu puts it, "blinded by nature and had no knowledge of man."As the final development of this trend of thinking, the Taoists maintained that the highest achievement in the spiritual cultivation of a sage lies in the identification of himself with the whole of nature, i.e., the universe.