 The domination of Confucianism in Chinese intellectual life has brought with it the wide acceptance of this “friendly” orthodox religious interpretation of Daoism. History does little to settle which line of interpretation is “original” since lines of thought leading in each direction can be found in early classical sources. This difficulty is compounded by the diffidence of the writing styles in both the Daode Jing and the Zhuangzi—which is so marked that it is often tempting to suspect the writers intended to be ambiguous, to invite divergent interpretation as an object lesson in the “inconstancy” of any discourse-based dao. Conceivably, therefore, both trends may have drawn “support” from reading the early texts as expressing ideas compatible with their own. See  Origins of Daoism.