VOLUME VI, CHAPTER 4, SECTION 14

VOLUME VI, CHAPTER 4, SECTION 14

In Closing: This Road Comes to Its End, but the Door Is Not Sealed, and On to the New Order for Law

The last two sections had that machine bend back to its proper place, and land back on that root of letting the people live and work in peace. This section walks this road, steadily, to its end. Walked to its end, there are still three things to do. To lay it plain to you, the locks on politics are more than this one, the methods more than these few, and so this chapter closes but its door is not sealed. To point out, quietly, that the door of the next road is already left open. And at the last, to pass over to the fifth chapter, the new order for law, turning from the warm, wide great principles that shone all along this road, onto one precise line after another.

This road comes to its end. This road through politics, told to here, is drawn to a close. Look back over this road, seen at its highest, and its coldest, seeing that lock which for thousands of years has bound politics, at the mercy of no one's will, seeing it bite people in the human world, mouthful by mouthful. And it walked, too, to a place no one in thousands of years has reached, for the first time, resting not on striking people but on undoing the lock and saving people, going to undo that lock. This road, the deepest-seen road, steadily, has been walked to its end.

Look back over the road you walked, and your heart is probably at ease. Coming in, you carried in your heart a fire to bring down corrupt officials, a bellyful of anger pent up. Walking this road down, that fire was not doused, it was led, off that dead road of striking people, which for thousands of years has never gone through, onto the living road of undoing the lock and saving people, on which the thing can truly be done. That anger you came in with, by here, should be eased, should be dissolved.

Think how deep, how far, this road saw. From a higher, more fundamental place, looking down on this matter of politics. You saw that lock which for thousands of years has bound politics and driven dynasty after dynasty to rise and fall. You saw the largest industrial chain on earth, sucking everyone's blood. You saw that the people caught in it were, in fact, pitiable people, locked, being destroyed. These, standing on the ground with a bellyful of anger, you could never have seen. It was seeing this deep that let you see the true face of that lock, and understand, too, why striking people is no use, why the lock has to be undone and the people saved. To see this deep is not for the spectacle, it is to let you see that lock of thousands of years through, clear and plain.

But in your heart, there probably rises another question, the locks on politics, are they only this one, the collusion of officials and business? The methods of undoing them, are they only these few, oversight, reforging, barred for life, resting on that heart, the good people stepping in? Do these few things, done, mean this machine of politics is set right once and for all, never to fault again?

Let me tell you honestly, no. The matters of politics have a thousand threads and a thousand heads. This chapter, what I led you to undo, is that largest, most fundamental, longest-bound lock, the collusion of officials and business, and what was used are a few of the most important, most useful methods. But on this machine of politics, how many locks not touched today, how many finer, subtler methods, there are a great many.

Do not hope that one book, one chapter of words, can say the matter of politics to the full, say it dead, say it once and for all. Politics is the most complex, the most tangled matter under heaven, tied to power, to money, to the human heart, to the days of millions upon millions of people, and how could it be held in a few sections of words? This chapter is to undo that largest, most important lock first, to tread out that most fundamental road first. As for those finer, smaller, more cunning locks, those new tricks not yet thought of today, or not yet surfaced today, they have to be left for later, to go on being undone, a little at a time. This book, from beginning to end, does not say a thing to the full, does not shut the door dead, because the world changes, new locks will surface, and the methods of undoing them have to grow along too.

So, this chapter is not sealed shut. As with every chapter before, this chapter closes, but its door is not sealed. This chapter, written to here, leaves a door drawn to. In time, when a new lock, a new method, is thought of, when the reader, walking this road, treads out a new way, all of it comes in through this door, is added on.

This book is alive, it is set on the web for free, for everyone to read, and it will not, written, die there, it will go on growing. Today this chapter is these sections, and tomorrow, perhaps, one more section, and next year, perhaps, a few more. In any case, free to read, growing on. Do not take this chapter for a book written dead, coffin-lidded. It is alive, a tree still growing, this big today, and putting out new branches tomorrow. What you read today is its shape at this moment, and come again after some days, and it may well have grown a stretch taller. This too is the heart of the writing of this book, it is not a dead thing one person finishes and locks in a drawer, it is a living thing set under the sunlight, for all under heaven to read together, to add to together. You read it, and you may be one who writes it, and the new ways you tread out on this road, the new principles you think of, can all be added in. This book is the writer's, and it is every one of the readers' too.

Then this road walked to its end, the next road, where does it go? In fact, in this chapter, a bridge has quietly been left for you long since. Look back, the first section said, in this world you could never think up a law-enforcement apparatus. This whole chapter, all along, use the pen and not the knife, undoing the lock and saving people, resting on that heart, floored by character, has not once moved coercion.

Then have you thought, why no coercion? Why rest on that heart, on character, and not on coercion to hold down, to fine, to force? Because the end of the law was never to enforce, to hold down, to fine. The end of the law is to lead every person to keep himself in check. This one line is the door of the next road.

Savor this whole chapter, and everywhere this one line is hidden. The first section nailed dead that there ought to be no law-enforcement apparatus at all, and all along after, undoing the lock and saving people rested on warming the person back, keeping that heart, and nowhere on coercion propping people up, forcing people, holding people down. Why? Because in this book's heart there is held, all along, a view of the law greatly unlike the world's. The world takes the law for a compulsory tool to hold people down, fine people, force people to keep the rules. This book does not see it so. This book, looking at the law, looks at its leading people onto keeping themselves in check, onto every person knowing it in his own heart, keeping of himself to that people-protecting bottom line. These two views are worlds apart. And this whole chapter not using coercion, resting on character, is a rehearsal of this view, in politics. Come to the next chapter, this view is to be told, properly, from beginning to end, through.

This road, politics, has dissolved that set of coercion of law enforcement, dissolved it into administration and the raising of people. But this forces out a more fundamental question, then the law itself, what in the end is it? It is not a compulsory tool to be enforced, then what is it? How is it to be laid down, to be used, so as to truly lead every person to keep himself in check?

This, this is where the next road takes you, the fifth chapter, the new order for law. You see, this bridge, in this chapter, has been laid all along. This chapter, not using coercion, resting on character, on that heart, everywhere is telling you, the law is not a compulsory tool. Then what in the end is the law? This question, this chapter cannot finish answering, it has to go to the next chapter, to be answered especially.

Let me say a word, too, on how the next road will differ from the chapters before. All this road walked, what was told is stretch after stretch of great principle, of great direction, culture, the economy, politics, and those principles are warm, are wide, like a light cast down, shining on a great stretch of the human heart, a great stretch of the world, telling of a great breadth of feeling, a great direction. Come to the road of law, it is not the same. This matter of the law is most particular about measure, about the line, about where exactly that clear bottom line lies, and a fingerbreadth off will not do. So come to the chapter on law, the way of telling has to change, from that warm, wide great principle, onto one precise line after another, telling this thing, the end of the law is to lead every person to keep himself in check, clear as day, precise as can be.

Think of the difference between these two, and you understand why the way of telling has to change. Great principle, great direction, warm, wide, is best suited to telling those great breadths of feeling, the chapters before telling culture, the economy, politics, wanted exactly this warmth, this width. But the law is not the same. The law tells of one line after another, of this thing may be done, that thing may not, of that people-protecting bottom line, not a hair's breadth off. This kind of thing, particular about measure, about precision, that soft, wide great principle cannot say clearly, it has to be, one line at a time, where the boundary is drawn, told fine and told exact, before it will do. So come to the chapter on law, it is not that the warmth before is no good, it is that this matter of the law needs another way of telling. The warmth all along, come here, has to be matched with a precision.

That is the business of the next road. This road, steadily, draws to its close. Stand steady, look back at the road you walked, and lift your head, and look at the next road. Looking back over this road, in your heart there should stand two things. One, this machine of politics was meant to be only administration, protecting the people, and it has not, and ought not to have, that set of coercion of a law-enforcement apparatus. The other, that lock which for thousands of years has bound politics is a mechanism, at the mercy of no one's will, and to undo it rests not on the people who for thousands of years have all along been struck, but on, for the first time, going to undo that lock, to save those who are locked. Stand these two things up, and this road through politics, you have not walked in vain.

These two are what this road most wants you to hold firm. The first is to take this machine of politics, out of that giant in your heart, standing high above, managing you, fining you, holding the coercion of law enforcement, and wholly swap it for an administrative machine the people hired, protecting the people, using the pen and not the knife, this is setting the true nature of politics upright for you. The second is to teach you to look at corruption with another eye, no longer fixing on those people, one by one, to hate, to strike, but to see clearly that lock turning of itself underneath, that mechanism no one in thousands of years undid, this is pointing out the way of undoing the deadlock for you. One is to see the true nature clearly, one is to find the right method. Hold these two in your heart, and going forward, looking at the matters of politics again, at those corruptions and torments again, you will not, as before, only be able to fume, only be able to shout to bring down, you will see deeper, think farther, know where to put your strength.

At the last, let me set down one line on this chapter. This chapter was written in the year twenty twenty-six. This machine of politics, how many locks not told today, how many methods not said to the full, are all left to that door drawn to, going forward, to be added, slowly. This book is alive, free for everyone to read, and it will go on growing. Tomorrow, perhaps one more section, and next year, perhaps a few more. In any case, free to read, growing on, long and long.

This road, politics, draws to its close. The next road, let me lead you to change the way of telling, from the warm, wide great principles all along, onto one precise line after another, and look at the fifth chapter, the new order for law. Stand steady, catch your breath, draw a deep breath, and the next road is up ahead, waiting for you.

Credit to the ancestors; the mistakes are mine: Tiger Lyon.