In their commentaries to the Laozi, Wang Bi and Xiang’er take radically different approaches to the text. Between the two of them, they are liable to upset anyone who wants to get at the original meaning of the text, since they contradict each other at every turn. Westerners are keen to favor the more philosophical understanding of Wang Bi, which appears to take fewer liberties with the text. On the other hand, with his emphasis on maintaining harmony among the six Classicist social relations (p. 81), he is undoubtedly bringing to bear earlier, more conservative conceptions. Xiang’er, however, with his wacky sexual admonishments and his urgings to reject deviancy, comes across as downright proselytizing. Yet his seemingly bizarre ideas relate to older forms of Chinese religion, like ancestor worship. He talks about the afterlife rather than social harmony. At the heart of their differences are how these two commentators understand the Dao and the correct way to follow it. As religious Daoism overtook philosophical Daoism in popularity, the interpretations of ‘deliberate, contrived action’, or wei, and its ever-intriguing counterpart, ‘action without action’ or wuwei, seemed to morph while still remaining at the core of either’s interpretative understanding of the Laozi. How have ideas of wei and wuwei changed from philosophical Daoism a la Wang Bi to the religious Daoism of Xiang’er? Understanding the differences between them can help us better understand the relationship between these two divergent idea systems.

The original Chinese of the Laozi does not make its grammatical subjects and objects explicit. Instead, the interpreter can read vastly different meanings from the same passage. By assuming different subjects, the Xiang’er and Wang Bi commentaries already appear to be from different interpretative traditions. What Xiang’er takes as a command to convert evil people to the ways of the Dao, Wang Bi supposes to be a sanction of rulers who force things rather than encourage them: “‘Those with even less knowledge — terrify them’ / When you observe evil persons… draw near to them and explain to them the admonitions of the Dao, terrifying them with the awesome might of heaven so that they will reform themselves” (Xiang’er, 103), versus “‘The next [highest] is he whom they fear.’ This one is no longer able to lead the people with mercy and benevolence but relies on the power of force.” (Wang Bi, 78). Wang Bi says the still higher ruler should do nothing at all and simply trust people to do the right thing: “If one tries to enhance the condition of the people but violates their authenticity, ill will and conflict will arise” (ibid). Xiang’er understands this trust to be directed to the Dao rather than to people (103), so in his eyes the good are excused for acting against their enemies — which are, of course, the enemies of the Dao.

Wang Bi encourages would-be sages to teach by example instead actively telling people what to do, and lead by influence rather than proselytizing and enforcing laws. “Avoid insisting that you are right, and your rightness will commend itself” (Wang Bi, 89). This is the wuwei practiced by the philosophers’ Dao. Since the Dao is non-discriminating, its followers should be so as well, and not allow their own goodness to separate themselves from others. So it is that “the good man relies on goodness to keep in order those who are not good; he does not rely on goodness to discard those who are not good. This is why men who are not good are included by the good man” (101). Xiang’er, on the other hand, encourages the good to “revile and disgrace” those who would not be reformed (103). But according to Wang Bi, if your virtue distinguishes you, then it is not true virtue; if your following of the Dao causes you to cast others aside as unworthy, then you do not follow the true Dao.

Xiang’er introduces a different version of wuwei: it is not unselfconscious, but simply selfless. In order to submit to the Dao and follow its precepts without faltering, you must act for the Dao rather than for your own personal, worldly benefit. A better reward awaits adherents than can be granted by earthly authorities — immortality. “The spirits of the Dao call that person to return” (Xiang’er, 135). The Dao is seen not as the complete universe, but as a distinct entity within the universe, which nonetheless has powers that transcend all earthly ones. Yet at the same time it is tied to Earth by its attachments and desires, specifically regarding humans’ well-being. “The Dao’s aspiration is to be without body. It wants to nourish the spirits; that is the only reason it has a ‘body.’ Desiring that people model themselves on this, the Dao expresses it” (94). In other words, its attachments prevent its complete transcendence until people cultivate their own bodily spirits and pneumas. Compare this to Wang Bi’s version of the Dao, which is formless and “brings things to completion thanks to its freedom from attachments” (86, emphasis added). Xiang’er’s anthropomorphic Dao manifests its will in the form of the Laozi and other teachings (113) in order to encourage people to perfect themselves through duty and faith.

Wuwei is directed non-action: action away from the self and towards the Dao. Xiang’er encourages the avoidance of bad behaviors, so that good behaviors will naturally follow. “‘What is hollowed out will become full.’ ['Hollowed out'] means self-effacing and vacant. When one does no evil, in its place is emptiness. That Dao might be compared to water; it delights in filling empty places. When [the Dao] occupies the place where evil was, the pneumas of goodness return to fill you” (Xiang’er, 115). Similarly, he advocates celibacy, saying that “those of higher virtue possess iron wills and are able to stop coupling for the purpose of reproducing” so that “beneficent” spirits will form (84). Usually willful action is called wei, which is admonished in the Laozi. For Xiang’er, wei is the pursuit of conventional rewards, like money, power, and personal security. Wuwei, by contrast, is a different kind of willful action. The Daoist must discard worldly honors and desires, which “carve away at one’s will” (126), and thus become receptive to even more powerful forces. This requires hard work and conscious effort to achieve: “The injunctions of the Dao are extremely difficult. The Transcendent nobility achieve the Dao only by virtue of their wills” (135). But once they do achieve it, the Dao takes a liking to them and “will benevolently seek to receive them” (118), preserving them from an earthly death and granting them eternal life.

The philosophical idea of wuwei is quite different. It is a passive acceptance of the nature of things, as they are, without trying to change them. The philosophical Daoist “should follow the nature of the people and not try to carve them into shapes according to forms external to them” (Wang Bi, 100). According to Wang Bi, the Dao is already fully transcendent and not dependent on human action, and so it is indifferent as to how people behave. “Heaven and Earth allow things to follow their natural bent and neither engage in conscious effort nor start anything, leaving the myriad things to manage themselves. Thus they ‘are not benevolent’” (Wang Bi, 60) and also practice wuwei. The Dao’s absolute universality is what allows it to be in harmony with anything and everything. Since the Dao is part of the world rather than apart from it, wuwei cannot be defined as active striving to be one with the Dao. Rather, the sage “follows the path of the Natural, neither formulating nor implementing, [and] thus things attain perfection without his leaving track or print on them” (100). He does not have “conscious desire” (66) and so he does not control things. He does not push and pull in an attempt to change what is.

The Dao, in its infinite infinity, encompasses even the most willful actions. But the person who is actually practicing wei is frustrated because in his attempt to create good, he creates evil right along with it. Wang Bi emphasizes that things will still happen even when there is no conscious action: “The one who does not act causes action, and he one who does not move causes movement” (98), like the Dao itself. Removing the ego from the equation allows the Dao to take its place — in a way parallel to the way the Dao takes the place of evil within Xiang’er’s Transcendent noble — and things will be harmonious. “With such impartiality, he [the true king] attains the state wherein he has universal peace” (76). For Wang Bi, emptiness is a function of removing the ego instead of removing evil. Wuwei is about not striving, since we have already achieved the Dao.

The Xiang’er and Wang Bi commentaries have completely contradictory notions of the Dao and how to accord with it. Wang Bi, a philosophical Daoist, imagines a Dao from which you cannot escape: “If the myriad things were to abandon it and seek a different master, where would such a master be found? … It becomes one with the very dust but does not compromise its authenticity” (57). Practicing wuwei means behaving like the Dao, and allowing all things to take their natural course. Xiang’er, representing the religious Daoist position, maintains that you should “strictly control yourself by means of the precepts of the Dao; urge yourself on with the [hope of] long life. By these means you will reach the desired state” (80). For him, wuwei is the complete opposite of Wang Bi’s wuwei: his Dao is prescriptive, and it requires conscious effort to not fall off the (not-) horse. Wang Bi’s wei is just this sort of goal-oriented and willful behavior, but for Xiang’er there are good goals and bad goals. Wuwei is seeking the good goals of emptying oneself of evil and attaining transcendence. Both agree that wuwei is the way of the Dao, but what they mean by ‘wuwei’ and ‘Dao’ are completely at odds.

This contradiction occurs without either side overtly attacking the other’s point of view, placing in doubt the idea that religious Daoism developed from the earlier philosophical tradition. Instead, given the vast discrepancies between the Wang Bi and the Xiang’er commentaries, it seems more likely that there were two independent discourses that each read the Laozi as a source of wisdom upholding their own prior beliefs. The original text is full of ambiguities and paradoxes as is, and how we sort out those ambiguities and answer those paradoxes reveals something about who we were before we came to the text, even as the very act of interpretation transforms these earlier thoughts into the symbols of the Laozi. Even though the two groups — philosophy and religion — had very different ideas about the Dao and wuwei, the fact that they molded themselves to the same text and adopted some of the same language creates the (perhaps) false impression that they were part of one larger movement from philosophy to religion. These two idea systems are just too incompatible to be understood as denizens of the same symbolic universe. If the true Dao transcends all divisions, then we have not yet found it.

In the Mencius, Heaven is the behind-the-scenes force that defines ethics and provides the impetus for people to behave according to its moral precepts. According to Mencius, people are naturally good. All we have to do is find it within ourselves and express it outwardly, and everything will soon fall into place. Ethics is harmony — it is an expression of the deeper patterns of the universe, and it has real social value for those who draw upon its power. Mencius uses the metaphor of seedlings to describe the cultivation of moral behavior time and again: they are within us at birth and can either grow or wither depending on how we live our lives. He does not simply attribute these seeds to Nature, however. He attributes them to Heaven.

To understand what Heaven has to do with ethics in Mencius, we must first understand what Mencius means by Heaven. He does not mean it as a place or a state we hope to reach, but rather as a set of principles by which the world is governed. It is a force beyond the control of individuals: “When something is brought about though there is nothing that brings it about, then it is Heaven that does it” (V. A. 6). Yet Heaven is not a personified deity, for it speaks through people rather than to them. Mencius quotes the T’ai shih as saying, “Heaven sees with the eyes of its people. Heaven hears with the ears of its people.” (V. A. 5). He uses this to explain how Heaven accepted Shun as Emperor exactly when the people did. Heaven was thus embodied by the masses when they chose a True King to lead them, though this does not mean that Heaven controlled the masses like so many puppets. Heaven is more the force of society than any external divine force. Indeed, the very form of society is “due to Heaven” whether “men of small virtue serve men of great virtue” or “the weak serve the strong” (IV. A. 7).

That being said, Heaven definitely has a bias towards the good. Mencius speaks of the Way of Heaven as a path from which the irreverent deviate (IV. A. 12), and of a proper Destiny that can be dodged by straying from that path (VII. A. 2). The world as set up by Heaven resembles a board game that we can only win by being good. Each of us starts the game with the potential for sagehood — what Mencius calls the four germs (II. A. 6) — but this does not guarantee that we will always follow the Way. We must cultivate our innate morality so that what is second nature can express our original nature. For the great man, “the retention of his heart and the nurturing of his nature are the means by which he serves Heaven” (VII. A. 1).

Yet how can Heaven, as a societal force, be so deeply embedded in the individual? Society is composed of individuals, so the patterns it expresses on the large scale must originate somewhere in the small scale. Mencius says the key to social harmony is personal benevolence, the glue that binds people together. When we put benevolence into action, we follow the Way (VII. B. 16). Benevolence is one of the “honours bestowed by Heaven”, along with honesty and dutifulness, which contribute to stable, trustworthy relationships. As we recognize the kindness and respect of others and reciprocate with those we care about, the “honours of man” naturally follow these honours of Heaven (VI. A. 16). Additionally, since goodness is innate, expressing it outwardly by following the traditional roles and rites of society is being to true to oneself as much as it accords with the Way (IV. A. 12). “That is why a gentleman wishes to find the Way in himself” (IV. B. 14).

Because of our natural tendencies toward benevolence, it is both contagious and powerful. Once again, in the game that Heaven has set up, morality is more than just an expression of inner virtue. It is also a very effective force in the world. The game rules favor the benevolent: “The people turn to the benevolent as water flows downwards” (IV. A. 9). The people will follow the lead of benevolent people, for “there has never been a man totally true to himself who fails to move others” (IV. A. 12). This is true for any man, but it is especially true for kings. Heaven’s Mandate is given to the effective ruler, and he loses this seemingly ‘divine’ sanction the moment he fails to bring harmony to his kingdom. A malevolent prince may be able take power, but he can only maintain his rule by brute force. A benevolent prince gains his power from Heaven — which is to say, from the people — and brute force cannot easily take that away. “One who has the Way will have many to support him” (II. B. 1), so although other states “may be big in size… what is there to be afriad of” (III. B. 5)? Heaven’s approval comes in the form of enthusiastic and loyal subjects. Mencius speaks of kings, but even us commoners can appreciate the trust and support of friends that we foster through our own integrity. Ethical behavior gets us ahead in the game of life.

It is easy to see that if everyone were benevolent we would live in a utopia with no conflict or suffering. Benevolence is the seed planted by Heaven, and to bring it to fruition is the extend the power of Heaven — that is, the strength of a well-ordered society. The problem is that people are so often not benevolent, that it is difficult to see how the Way could ever be realized. But Mencius puts so much stress on family and rulership that these must be as fundamental to realizing his ethics as benevolence itself. His ethics concern those in power more often than not, because they are the ones in the best position to change society. “In obscurity a man makes perfect his own person, but in prominence he makes perfect the whole Empire as well” (VII. A. 9). The more relationships he participates in, the more people he can touch with his benevolence. He can lead the Way. A ruler is more than just a moral example, however, for he can also cultivate the seeds of Heaven among his people by removing the weeds of bad influence and strife. For example, he can reform (or fire) faulty feudal lords (V. B. 4) and provide plenty of food to the masses (VII. A. 23). This way people will not be distracted from their benevolent natures.

Since benevolence is indeed our true nature, and because integrity involves coordinating our habits of thought and action with this inner nature, to be true to ourselves we must be actively benevolent. This necessarily involves relationships — self-perfection cannot be done in isolation. Relationships are two-way streets, so as much as we can influence others, evil friends will help us to do evil and good friends will help us to do good (III. B. 6). That is why benevolent people should associate most closely with the good ones (VII. A. 46). They shouldn’t give up entirely on their evil acquaintances, though, because “if those who are morally well-adjusted and talented abandon those who are not, then scarcely an inch will separate the good from the depraved” (IV. B. 7). But Mencius also says benevolent people are justified in leaving when things get really bad (IV. B. 4). Now the source of benevolence is lost among evil friends and malevolent kings, and it is not clear how the seeds of Heaven, once they are found, could possibly flourish in a disordered society so overgrown with weeds that even the sages abandon it. This takes us back to the other fundamental source of ethical behavior: the family.

There is a most puzzling passage in which Mencius praises Shun for loving his brother Hsiang and his father the Blind Man, even though they keep trying to murder him (V. A. 2). His family members are the antithesis of benevolence and an active threat to a harmonious and well-ordered society, yet Shun does not try to escape from his familial relationships. In fact, he is pleased when Hsiang “came [to him] as a loving brother”, though all the while Hsiang was plotting against him. The seeds of our benevolence lie in our innate love for our kin. If we abandon our families, we abandon the roots of moral virtue. For Mencius, like Confucius before him, the relationships between parents and children, and younger siblings and older siblings, are the most fundamental relationships from which all others are based.

In the end, Shun is able both to love his brother and support his subjects. When he becomes Emperor, Shun gives Hsiang the land of Yu Pi, but then puts his own officials in charge of the actual government. “Hsiang was certainly not permitted to ill-use the people” (V. A. 3). Being a True King, Shun is probably better at this sort of compromise than other people, but Mencius makes it clear where our priorities should lie. If our heart is in order, then our family relationships will be in order, and only in then can our more peripheral relationships be made right (IV. A. 12). Indeed, when Shun finally pleases his father by being a dutiful son, the whole Empire “was transformed” (IV. A. 28). Using our Heaven-given hearts to focus on truly important matters, while not getting distracted by the less important concerns presented by our external senses, we, too, can achieve greatness (VI. A. 14).

Heaven is the course through which goodness flows. It is not a divine agency, though it is beyond human control. It is that which gives people the potential to be good, the seeds of benevolence that grow naturally toward kin and other morally virtuous people. It is the rules of life’s game, responsible for the real rewards that ethical behavior can bring in terms of self-fulfillment, supportive relationships, and kingly power. It is also the force of an ethical society to bring peace and unity to the Empire. Heaven can also bring destruction to those who do not follow the prescribed path, and its punishment does not come in the afterlife. Mencius saw the turmoil of his times as being caused by people rejecting their inner goodness. He saw the principles by which ethical and unethical behavior create emergent patterns of harmony and chaos in the larger society, and he called those principles Heaven.

In the time before fiction, there was only history. There was one world, and it served to contain both fact and fantasy, in short anything one wished to put there. While some historians, like Bede or Gildas, may have endeavored to describe real events, Geoffrey of Monmouth used history to re-imagine Welsh folklore. In the format of a history, he could be sure his writing would be taken seriously by his literati audience. Indeed, his creativity captured their imaginations, and it became a popular hobby to interpret Merlin’s prophecies from Book Seven. Geoffrey moved in elite Norman circles, but he grew up in Wales and knew Welsh legends, at least enough to adapt them to a new form. But he lived in Norman world.

Though he claims legitimacy by writing them as history, and a translation of an older historical work at that, there are hints that he doing something more overtly creative. Battles are fully narrated, with details of strategy and emotion. Arthur’s troops “arranged themselves into twelve wedge-shaped battalions of infantry” (192), and later in the fight “Bedivere’s nephew Hirelglas, grieving beyond measure at this uncle’s death, gathered three hundred of his men to him and, like a boar amid a pack of hounds, led a mounted charge straight into enemy lines” (193). This poetic language evokes the genre of epic more than bland fact-based history. The Britons are great heros of the past, not real threats to the present.

They are also presented as torch-bearers of the Christian faith, and it is Christianity that must eventually triumph over the invaders rather than the Welsh themselves. An angel tells Cadwallader “that the British people would regain the island through their great faith in days to come” (216). The fortunes of the Britons rise and fall with their faith, and as people turned to fornication and sin, Cadwallo explains in a speech, “they accepted Satan rather than the Angel of Light. Their kings were anointed not on account of God but because they were crueler than the others… God truly wanted to exact vengeance upon them, and he suffered foreign peoples to come and drive the Brtions from the lands of their ancestors” (209). Even King Arthur’s greatness is linked to Christianity. The Welsh Arthur was no more Christian than anyone, but Geoffrey’s Arthur builds churches wherever he goes, holds a shield depicting the Virgin Mary, and evokes the image of Christ for his soldiers (166). His actions lead to peace and prosperity, epitomized by Norman values of chivalry (176). But in battle faith leads to victory, great faith to great victory, and Arthur’s faith to the greatest victory of all — he conquers his way to very gates of Rome (196).

In fact, Christianity is the basis for most of the morality in Geoffrey’s work. Vortigern’s love for a pagan is the result of Satan (122), and it leads to the Saxons invading Britain. By contrast, Uther Pendragon’s love of Igerna, a married woman, is sanctioned because she is Christian — there is no indication that this love is problematic, and Uther attacks her husband Gorlois, a nobleman of his court, and rapes Igerna without plot-related or authorial condemnation. In fact, this is celebrated as the night Arthur was conceived (159). Meanwhile, the Welsh Mabinogi presents a very different ideal, where rape or even unrequited interest are severely punished. When Gilfaethwy rapes Goewin, Math marries her and turns Gilfaethwy into cross-gendered animals, and Rhiannon’s unwelcome suitor Gwawl gets tricked into a bag and beaten like a piñata.

Geoffrey is writing for a Norman audience, and he is not proselytizing Welsh virtues to them. Nor is he anti-Welsh, for he depicts the British as the heroes of the story, paragons of faith and fighting, the highest Norman virtues. The epic overtones and appeals to his audience’s aesthetics suggest that Geoffrey is not trying to promote a political agenda through the lens of historical fact — rather, he is telling a story through the lens of historical narrative.