present--ourselves. It is in us that God meets with Nature, and
yesterday parts from to-morrow. The Present is the moving
Infinity, the legitimate sphere of the Relative. Relativity seeks
Adjustment; Adjustment is Art. The art of life lies in a constant
readjustment to our surroundings. Taoism accepts the mundane
as it is and, unlike the Confucians or the Buddhists, tries to find
beauty in our world of woe and worry. The Sung allegory of the
Three Vinegar Tasters explains admirably the trend of the three
doctrines. Sakyamuni, Confucius, and Laotse once stood before
a jar of vinegar--the emblem of life--and each dipped in his finger
to taste the brew. The matter-of-fact Confucius found it sour,
the Buddha called it bitter, and Laotse pronounced it sweet.

The Taoists claimed that the comedy of life could be made more
interesting if everyone would preserve the unities. To keep the
proportion of things and give place to others without losing
one's own position was the secret of success in the mundane
drama. We must know the whole play in order to properly act
our parts; the conception of totality must never be lost in that of
the individual. This Laotse illustrates by his favourite metaphor
of the Vacuum. He claimed that only in vacuum lay the truly
essential. The reality of a room, for instance, was to be found
in the vacant space enclosed by the roof and the walls, not in the
roof and walls themselves. The usefulness of a water pitcher
dwelt in the emptiness where water might be put, not in the
form of the pitcher or the material of which it was made.
Vacuum is all potent because all containing. In vacuum alone
motion becomes possible. One who could make of himself a
vacuum into which others might freely enter would become
master of all situations. The whole can always dominate