Tao Te Ching Chapter 38: Discussing Virtue

The second half of the classic (the 'Te,' or virtue, section) opens with its own thesis: the highest virtue does not display itself as virtue, and for this reason truly possesses it; the lower virtue is always asserting its virtue, and for this reason has none. Real goodness is unselfconscious; goodness performing itself has already become something else. The chapter then charts the long slide: losing the Tao, one falls to virtue; losing virtue, to benevolence; losing benevolence, to righteousness; losing righteousness, to ritual — and ritual, the thinnest of loyalty and trust, is the first step toward disorder, the point where none respond and compliance is forced with bared arms.

Each stage is a smaller, more effortful substitute for the one above it — spontaneity replaced by principle, principle by feeling, feeling by rule, rule by etiquette backed by force. The closing counsel: the great person dwells in the substantial, not the thin; in the fruit, not the flower — leaving that and choosing this. Given a choice between the appearance of goodness and its unadvertised substance, take the fruit.