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70. 1. My words are very easy to know, and very easy to practise; but there is no one in the world who is able to know and able to practise them.
2. There is an originating and all-comprehending
(principle) in my words, and an authoritative law for the things (which I enforce). It is because they do not know these, that men do not know me.
3. They who know me are few, and I am on that account (the more) to be prized. It is thus that the sage wears (a poor garb of) hair cloth, while he carries his (signet of) jade in his bosom.
, 'The Difficulty of being (rightly) Known.' The Tâo comprehends and rules all Lâo-dze's teaching, as the members of a clan were all in the loins of their first father (
), and continue to look up to him; and the people of a state are all under the direction of their ruler; yet the philosopher had to complain of not being known. Lâo-dze's principle and rule or ruler was the Tâo. His utterance here is very important. Compare the words of Confucius in the Analects, XIV, ch. 37, et al.
Par. 2 is twice quoted by Hwâi-nan, though his text is not quite the same in both cases.