 The Huainanzi has a difficult balancing act to maintain here, however. While it accepts the Daoist view outlined above concerning the efficacy of following nature and the corrosive nature of specifically human activity, artifice, and tools such as ritual, moral norms, and righteousness (Huainanzi 2.3), it also endorses the Confucian view of the value and necessity of ritual and other such human inventions. This is partially explained by the account of human development given in Chapter 2. The ancients, according to the text, were able to act in accordance with nature, and thus did not require the artifice of ritual, humanity, and righteousness. In later ages, there was a decline such that ritual and the tools of humanity became necessary. The key to using these artifacts well is to use them consistently with the dao.