 A number of new themes in early Chinese thought are discussed in the Huainanzi. The methodology of philosophy is a central concern of the text, as discussed in the first two chapters and the final chapter in particular. Using a framework that seems to borrow most from Daoism (Roth 2015: 342), the text aims to create a synthesis of not only other existing intellectual schools, but a variety of other multiplicities. The first two chapters of the text, as well as the final “overview” chapter offer the main structure for the synthesis of the text, which is explored in specifics in the other chapters (Murray 2004). The two main images used are the distinction between root (ben 本) and branches (mo 末), and the appeal to a unifying “pattern” (li 理). The Huainanzi argues that the unification of all things is explained by the origination of all things in “the one” (yi 一), which it associated with dao. Things emerge from dao in particular patterns, following yin and yang change. We gain understanding and mastery over ourselves and nature by following the myriad things (wan wu 萬物) as they develop and change, and their patterns. To do this, we must follow the way of tian 天 (heaven) rather than that of the human. Following earlier views of texts such as the Zhuangzi, the distinction drawn between tian and the human (ren 人) in the Huainanzi is one of wide vs. narrow focus. It seems to parallel a kind of distinction between the natural and the human that takes what is associated with the human to be modifying nature, with nature as the untouched and separate. The nature/human distinction in the Huainanzi is not total—humanity is ultimately seen as originating in the same source as the rest of nature, somehow operating on the stuff of nature—which later chapters (such as ch. 3) understand in terms of the human “completion” (cheng 成) of nature. In chapter one, however, a valuation seems to be made, contrasting the human as the narrow and flawed with the natural as the broad and pure. A key passage in Chapter One reads: