Knowing enough, knowing when to stop

One asks how much, the other where

Chapter 44 puts "knowing enough, no disgrace" and "knowing when to stop, no danger" in two neighboring lines. They look like one idea but ask different things: knowing enough (知足) asks "how much is enough", knowing when to stop (知止) asks "where to halt".

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Text comparison: the left column gives the costs of excess, the right the results of restraint; the lines come from chapters 44 and 46.

The table sets out lines from chapters 44 and 46: on the left the costs of going too far, on the right the results of keeping measure. On the left stands "great love brings great expense, great hoarding heavy loss", and on the right "knowing enough, no disgrace; knowing when to stop, no danger". To read these chapters, first take the words apart:

Chapter 44: three questions and a bill

Chapter 44 is only a few lines. It asks three questions and then totals a bill:

Name or body: which is dearer? Body or goods: which counts for more? Gain or loss: which does more harm? So great love brings great expense, and great hoarding heavy loss. To know enough is to suffer no disgrace; to know when to stop is to meet no danger; and so one can last long.

Every question sets two things against each other: fame and the self, which is nearer; the self and goods, which counts for more (the word is often taken as "carries more weight"); gain and loss, which does more harm. The text answers none of them one by one and moves straight to the sum: love too much and the cost will be large, hoard too much and the loss will be heavy. To know enough is to avoid disgrace, to know when to stop is to avoid danger, and so one can last.

In this bill "expense" and "loss" are costs, "disgrace" and "danger" are outcomes, and "lasting long" is the benefit the text names.

Where to stop: chapters 9 and 32

Knowing when to stop measures action. Chapter 9 draws it in several pictures:

To hold it and fill it to the brim is worse than stopping; to hammer it to a point cannot be kept for long. When gold and jade fill the hall, no one can guard them; wealth and rank joined with pride leave one's own misfortune behind. When the work is done, withdraw: this is the Way of heaven.

One common reading of the first line is of someone pouring into a cup who keeps going after it is level with the rim, and would do better to stop earlier. The second is traditionally read as hammering something to a point and then honing it further, so that the sharper it gets the more easily it breaks. The first four lines describe going too far; only the last describes measure: "when the work is done, withdraw", where the work comes first and the withdrawal after it.

In chapter 32 knowing when to stop is tied to names:

Once the making begins there are names; and once there are names, one must know where to stop. Knowing where to stop is how one avoids danger.

"Making" means starting to set things up, and "names" is traditionally read as titles, ranks and institutions: once they are established, one must know where to stop. The line reads well beside "knowing when to stop, no danger" in chapter 44: one speaks of what one will know, the other of the outcome.

Chapters 12 and 46: what desire reaches for

What does "desire" reach for? Chapter 12 names it:

The five colors make the eye blind; the five sounds make the ear deaf; the five flavors dull the mouth; racing and hunting make the heart go wild; goods hard to get hinder one's conduct.

The text turns five kinds of "more" into five kinds of harm: eyes dazzled, ears dulled, taste lost, the mind unhinged by chase and hunt, conduct hindered by rare goods. The next line settles on "belly" and "eye": "Therefore the sage acts for the belly and not for the eye; he sets that aside and takes this." "For the belly" is traditionally read as for real needs, "not for the eye" as not chasing what dazzles; here is a standard for "enough".

Chapter 46 moves from the person to the world:

When the world has the Way, swift horses are sent back to work the fields; when it has not, war horses are born in the countryside. No calamity is greater than not knowing enough; no fault is greater than wanting to get. So the enough of knowing enough is always enough.

The first two lines speak of the world: when it has the Way, fast horses are sent back to tend the fields (the word here means tending and manuring land), and when it has not, war horses are bred in the countryside. Only then do "calamity" and "fault" come. Reading the passage inside one person's life is a later borrowing. The last line repeats the word: the first "enough" is recognizing it, the second is what suffices; recognize what is enough, and it will always be enough.

Moderation, stopping and passive self-restraint

By now it is easy to blur three things into one: moderation, stopping and passive self-restraint. Chapter 33 gives a side witness:

One who knows others is wise; one who knows himself is clear-sighted. One who overcomes others has strength; one who overcomes himself is strong. One who knows enough is rich. One who presses on has purpose. One who does not lose his place endures. One who dies and does not perish is long-lived.

The chapter runs in pairs: knowing others and knowing oneself, overcoming others and overcoming oneself. "One who overcomes himself is strong" speaks of mastering oneself, which already takes effort, and the line after "one who knows enough is rich" is "one who presses on has purpose": people who go forward with effort have purpose. The text does not write knowing enough as standing still. Place the lines in three columns and the differences show:

Moderation is measure in quantity, stopping is measure in place, and both stay within the sphere of doing. Passive restraint would mean giving up the work, and for that there is no matching line in the text, only "one who presses on has purpose" and "when the work is done, withdraw". To read limits through the image of water, see softness and non-contention; for how not forcing shows up in action, read wu wei; for how the Way and De themselves are read, see the Way and De.

1. 1

   How much, or where?

   See whether the line asks "is it enough" or "where to halt". The first is knowing enough; the second is knowing when to stop.

2. 2

   Does "presses on" follow?

   Read the neighboring lines. In chapter 33 the line after knowing enough is "one who presses on has purpose".

3. 3

   A person, or a state?

   Chapters 32 and 46 have lords and the world in the background. Setting them in one person's life is a borrowing, and should say so.