Chapter 3

THREE

If the perfect Sage would have his people give up their rivalries, he should not praise the competent ones. If he would have his people keep away from robbery and theft, he should not value precious things himself. If he would keep his mind undisturbed he should not look at desirable things. Thus the administration of the perfect Sage is designed to remove the desires of his people. He supplies them only with suitable nourishment and lessens their individual ideas by strengthening the common physical health. He ever

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tries to keep his people in ignorance and desirelessness so as to prevent the brainy ones from undertaking trouble-making activities. So long as he governs his people by the principle of wu-wei (non-assertion, or non-compulsion), things naturally arrange themselves into social order.