Sacred-Texts Taoism

61. THE VIRTUE OF HUMILITY.




1. A great state, one that lowly flows, becomes the empire's union, and the empire's wife.

2. The wife always through quietude conquers her husband, and by quietude renders herself lowly.

3. Thus a great state through lowliness toward small states will conquer the small states, and small states through lowliness toward great states will conquer great states.

4. Therefore some render themselves p. 117 lowly for the purpose of conquering; others are lowly and therefore conquer.

5. A great state desires no more than to unite and feed the people; a small state desires no more than to devote itself to the service of the people; but that both may obtain their wishes, the greater one must stoop.



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Next: 62. Practise Reason

62. PRACTISE REASON.


1. The man of Reason is the ten thousand creatures' refuge, the good man's wealth, the bad man's stay.

2. With beautiful words one can sell. With honest conduct one can do still more with the people.

3. If a man be bad, why should he be thrown away? Therefore, an emperor was elected and three ministers appointed; but better than holding before one's face the jade table [of the ministry] and riding with four horses, is sitting still and propounding the eternal Reason.

4. Why do the ancients prize this Reason? Is it not, say, because when sought p. 118 it is obtained and the sinner thereby can be saved? Therefore it is world-honored.



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Next: 63. Consider Beginnings

63. CONSIDER BEGINNINGS.



1. Assert non-assertion.

Practise non-practice.

Taste the tasteless.

Make great the small.

Make much the little.

2. Requite hatred with virtue.

3. Contemplate a difficulty when it is easy. Manage a great thing when it is small.

4. The world's most difficult undertakings necessarily originate while easy, and the world's greatest undertakings necessarily originate while small.

5. Therefore the holy man to the end does not venture to play the great, and thus he can accomplish his greatness.

6. Rash promises surely lack faith, and many easy things surely involve in many difficulties.

7. Therefore, the holy man regards everything as difficult, and thus to the end encounters no difficulties.



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Next: 64. Mind the Insignificant




p. 119

64. MIND THE INSIGNIFICANT.

1. What is still at rest is easily kept quiet. What has not as yet appeared is easily prevented. What is still feeble is easily broken. What is still scant is easily dispersed.

2. Treat things before they exist. Regulate things before disorder begins. The stout tree has originated from a tiny rootlet. A tower of nine stories is raised by heaping up [bricks of] clay. A thousand miles' journey begins with a foot.

3. He that makes mars. He that grasps loses.

The holy man does not make; therefore he mars not. He does not grasp; therefore he loses not. The people when undertaking an enterprise are always near completion, and yet they fail.

4. Remain careful to the end as in the beginning and you will not fail in your enterprise.

5. Therefore the holy man desires to be desireless, and does not prize articles difficult to obtain. He learns, not to p. 120 be learned, and seeks a home where multitudes of people pass by.

6. He assists the ten thousand things in their natural development, but he does not venture to interfere.



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Next: 65. The Virtue of Simplicity
65. THE VIRTUE OF SIMPLICITY.



1. The ancients who were well versed in Reason did not thereby enlighten the people; they intended thereby to make them simple-hearted.

2. If people are difficult to govern, it is because they are too smart. To govern the country with smartness is the country's curse. To govern the country without smartness is the country's blessing. He who knows these two things is also a model [like the ancients]. Always to know the model is called profound virtue.

3. Spiritual virtue, verily, is profound. Verily, it is far-reaching. Verily, it is to everything reverse. But then it will procure great recognition.



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Next: 66. Putting Oneself Behind

66. PUTTING ONESELF BEHIND.


1. That rivers and oceans can of the hundred valleys be kings is due to their excelling in lowliness. Thus they can of the hundred valleys be the kings.

2. Therefore the holy man, when anxious to be above the people, must in his words keep underneath them. When anxious to lead the people, he must with his person keep behind them.

3. Therefore the holy man dwells above, but the people are not burdened. He is ahead, but the people suffer no harm.

4. Therefore the world rejoices in exalting him and does not tire. Because he strives not, no one in the world will strive with him.



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Next: 67. The Three Treasures
、67. THE THREE TREASURES.


1. All in the world call me great; but I resemble the unlikely. Now a man is great only because he resembles the unlikely. Did he resemble the likely, how lasting, indeed, would his mediocrity be!

2. 1 have three treasures which I p. 122 cherish and prize. The first is called compassion. The second is called economy. The third is called not daring to come to the front in the world.

3. The compassionate can be brave; the economical can be generous; those who dare not come to the front in the world can become perfect as chief vessels.

4. Now, if people discard compassion and are brave; if they discard economy and are generous; if they discard modesty and are ambitious, they will surely die.

5. Now, the compassionate will in attack be victorious, and in defence firm. Heaven when about to save one will with compassion protect him.



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Next: 68. Complying With Heaven
68. COMPLYING WITH HEAVEN.


1. He who excels as a warrior is not warlike. He who excels as a fighter is not wrathful. He who excels in conquering the enemy does not strive. He who excels in employing men is lowly.

2. This is called the virtue of not-striving. This is called utilizing men's p. 123 ability. This is called complying with heaven-since olden times the highest.



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Next: 69. The Function of the Mysterious

69. THE FUNCTION OF THE MYSTERIOUS.



1. A military expert used to say: 'I dare not act as host [who takes the initiative] but act as guest [with reserve]. I dare not advance an inch, but I withdraw a foot."

2. This is called marching without marching, threatening without arms, charging without hostility, seizing without weapons.

3. No greater misfortune than making light of the enemy! When we make light of the enemy, it is almost as though we had lost our treasure--[compassion].

4. Thus, if matched armies encounter one another, the one who does so in sorrow is sure to conquer.



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Next: 70. Difficult to Understand

70. DIFFICULT TO UNDERSTAND.



1. My words are very easy to understand and very easy to practise, but in the world no one can understand, no one can practise them.

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2. Words have an ancestor; Deeds have a master [viz., Reason]. Since he is not understood, therefore I am not understood. Those who understand me are few, and thus I am distinguished.

3. Therefore the holy man wears wool, and hides in his bosom his jewels.



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Next: 71. The Disease of Knowledge
71. THE DISEASE OF KNOWLEDGE.




1. To know the unknowable, that is elevating. Not to know the knowable, that is sickness.

2. Only by becoming sick of sickness can we be without sickness.

3. The holy man is not sick. Because he is sick of sickness, therefore he is not sick.



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Next: 72. Holding Oneself Dear

72. HOLDING ONESELF DEAR.



1. If the people do not fear the dreadful, the great dreadful will come, surely.

2. Let them not deem their lives narrow. Let them not deem their lot wearisome. When it is not deemed wearisome, then it will not be wearisome.

3. Therefore the holy man knows himself but does not display himself. He p. 125 holds himself dear but does not honor himself. Thus he discards the latter and chooses the former.



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Next: 73. Daring to Act

73. DARING TO ACT.


1. Courage, if carried to daring, leads to death; courage, if not carried to daring, leads to life. Either of these two things is sometimes beneficial, sometimes harmful.

2. "Why ’t is by heaven rejected,
Who has the reason detected?"

Therefore the holy man also regards it as difficult.

3. The Heavenly Reason strives not, but it is sure to conquer. It speaks not, but it is sure to respond. It summons not, but it comes of itself. It works patiently, but is sure in its designs.

4. Heaven's net is vast, so vast. It is wide-meshed, but it loses nothing.



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Next: 74. Overcome Delusion

74. OVERCOME DELUSION.

1. If the people do not fear death, how can they be frightened by death? If we make people fear death, and supposing p. 126 some would [still] venture to rebel, if we seize them for capital punishment, who will dare?

2. There is always an executioner who kills. Now to take the place of the executioner who kills is taking the place of the great carpenter who hews. If a man takes the place of the great carpenter who hews, he will rarely, indeed, fail to injure his hand.



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Next: 75. Harmed Through Greed

75. HARMED THROUGH GREED.


1. The people hunger because their superiors consume too many taxes; therefore they hunger. The people are difficult to govern because their superiors are too meddlesome; therefore they are difficult to govern. The people make light of death on account of the intensity of their clinging to life; therefore they make light of death.

2. He who is not bent on life is worthier than he who esteems life.



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Next: 76. Beware of Strength

76. BEWARE OF STRENGTH.



1. Man during life is tender and delicate. When he dies he is stiff and stark.

p. 127

2. The ten thousand things, the grass as well as the trees, while they live are tender and supple. When they die they are rigid and dry.

3. Thus the hard and the strong are the companions of death. The tender and the delicate are the companions of life.

Therefore he who in arms is strong will not conquer.

4. When a tree has grown strong it is doomed.

5. The strong and the great stay below. The tender and the delicate stay above.



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Next: 77. Heaven's Reason
77. HEAVEN'S REASON.


1. Is not Heaven's Reason truly like stretching a bow? The high it brings down, the lowly it lifts up. Those who have abundance it depleteth; those who are deficient it augmenteth.

2. Such is Heaven's Reason. It depleteth those who have abundance but completeth the deficient.

3. Man's Reason is not so. He depleteth the deficient in order to serve those who have abundance.

p. 128

4. Where is he who would have abundance for serving the world?

5. Indeed, it is the holy man who acts but claims not; merit he acquires but he does not dwell upon it, and does he ever show any anxiety to display his excellence?



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Next: 78. Trust in Faith


78. TRUST IN FAITH.



1. In the world nothing is tenderer and more delicate than water. In attacking the hard and the strong nothing will surpass it. There is nothing that herein takes its place.

2. The weak conquer the strong, the tender conquer the rigid. In the world there is no one who does not know it, but no one will practise it.

3. Therefore the holy man says:

"Him who the country's sin makes his,
We hail as priest at the great sacrifice.
Him who the curse bears of the country's failing.
As king of the empire we are hailing."

4. True words seem paradoxical.



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Next: 79. Keep Your Obligations
p. 129



79. KEEP YOUR OBLIGATIONS.

1. When a great hatred is reconciled, naturally some hatred will remain. How can this be made good?

2. Therefore the sage keeps the obligations of his contract and exacts not from others. Those who have virtue attend to their obligations; those who have no virtue attend to their claims.

3. Heaven's Reason shows no preference but always assists the good man.



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Next: 80. Remaining in Isolation





80. REMAINING IN ISOLATION.

1. In a small country with few people let there be aldermen and mayors who are possessed of power over men but would not use it. Induce people to grieve at death but do not cause them to move to a distance. Although they had ships and carriages, they should find no occasion to ride in them. Although they had armours and weapons, they should find no occasion to don them.

2 Induce people to return to [the old custom of] knotted cords and to use them [in the place of writing], to delight p. 130 in their food, to be proud of their clothes, to be content with their homes, and to rejoice in their customs: then in a neighboring state within sight, the voices of the cocks and dogs would be within hearing, yet the people might grow old and die before they visited one another.



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Next: 81. Propounding the Essential


81. PROPOUNDING THE ESSENTIAL.

1. True words are not pleasant; pleasant words are not true. The good are not contentious; the contentious are not good. The wise are not learned; the learned are not wise.

2. The holy man hoards not. The more he does for others, the more he owns himself. The more he gives to others, the more will he himself lay up an abundance.

3. Heaven's Reason is to benefit but not to injure; the holy man's Reason is to accomplish but not to strive.




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Next: Chapter I.

COMMENTS AND ALTERNATIVE READINGS.
CHAPTER I.
The phrase 'yiu ming, "having name" (or simply ming, "name") means that which the definition of a name involves, and as such the term represents the actualized types of things. However wu ming, "not name" or "the Unnamable," corresponds to Plato's conception of the prototype of things before they have been actualized. Lao-tze speaks with reverence of the Unnamable, 1 which closely corresponds to the "Ineffable" of Western mystics.

The words "these two things" apparently refer to the Unnamable and the Namable.

What Lao-tze calls "the Name" or "the


p. 132

[paragraph continues] Namable" is in Spinoza's language natura naturata, while "the Unnamable" is natura naturans. In either system the two are one; they are two aspects of one and the same thing which in Lao-tze's taoism is the Tao and in Spinoza's cosmotheism is God as the eternal substance.


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Footnotes
131:1 See also Chapters 32 and 41.



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Next: Chapter 2

CHAPTER 2.
The first sentence reads literally, "Under the heavens [i. e., all over the world, or everywhere] all know [i. e., it is obvious], if beauty acts beauty it is only ugliness." The verb "acts" is to be taken in the same sense as it is used in English, viz., "making a display or show of."

We deem our present rendering an improvement on our former version.

According to a notion of the early Christians the devil would like to play the part of God, as Tertullian says, Satanas affectat sacramenta Dei. On Lao-tze's theory the nature of the devil consists exactly in the attempt of acting the part of God.

p. 133

The close interrelation of goodness with badness and of beauty with ugliness suggests the quotation on opposites. It sets forth the coexistence of contrasts, and their mutual dependence is more obvious to the Chinese than to other nations, because in their word-combinations they use compounds of contrasts to denote what is common in both. Thus a combination of the words "to be" and "not to be" means the struggle for life, or the bread question; "the high and the low" means altitude; "much and little" means quantity, etc. But what originally seems to have been the trivial observation of a grammar-school teacher acquires a philosophical meaning when commented upon by Lao-tze.



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Next: Chapter 3

CHAPTER 3.
In former editions we have translated the verb shang by its common meaning "to exalt," but here it is obviously a reflex verb meaning "to exalt oneself" or "to brag, to boast."

The word fu means literally "stomach"

p. 134

or "the interior," but it may also mean "soul," for according to Chinese ideas the soul has its seat in the stomach.

The idea that the belly is the noblest part of the body where tender sentiments dwell was quite common among early peoples. Thus, e. g. the Hebrew rakhamim, 2 which originally means "entrails," is used in the sense of "compassion" and "love." In Japan that death was considered most worthy in which the first attack upon life was made upon the seat of the properly psychic faculties; therefore the victim of hara-kiri rips open his belly and is then beheaded by his best friend so as to shorten the pain of death. It is, however, quite probable that Lao-tze in this connection really means what he literally says, viz., that the holy man, when he governs, empties the people's hearts of desires, but takes care of their bodily wants, i. e., "fills their stomachs and strengthens their bones."

The word kuh might be translated (as


p. 135

in former editions) "backbone," but in the original it reads "bones." To make a man strong-boned means to render him steady in character. I prefer to translate the passage literally in all its roughness and will leave the interpretation of it to the reader.


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Footnotes
134:2 רַחַמִיִם



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Next: Chapter 4

CHAPTER 4.
The word tsung, 3 "arch-father," translates a Chinese term which means "patriarch, or first ancestor, founder of the family," and is frequently used with reference to Shang Ti, the Lord on High, in the sense of God.

The word ch‘an, "dust," is a Buddhist term which means the worry of worldliness, and it is possible that this usage antedates Buddhism and that the word was current in the same sense in the time of Lao-tze. If that be so, if ch‘an means the troubles of life, the travailing of the world, we offer the following alternate translation of the verse in which the word occurs:


p. 136

"It will blunt its own sharpness,
Will its tangles unravel;
It will dim its own radiance
And conform to its travail."

The same holds good in Chapter 56, where the same verse is quoted.


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Footnotes
135:3



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Next: Chapter 5

CHAPTER 5.
In former editions the translator accepted the following version: "Heaven and earth exhibit no benevolence; to them the ten thousand things are like straw dogs. The holy man exhibits no benevolence; to him the hundred families are like straw dogs."

Does that mean that heaven and earth have a mode of procedure of their own; that their actions can not be measured by the usual standard of human benevolence? May we assume that human lives serve their purpose best if they become sacrifices just as straw-dogs are offered on the altars of heaven and earth? This solution can neither be proved nor refuted, but it seems too modern.

We learn from the commentators that

p. 137

straw dogs are burned in place of living dogs as sacrifices to heaven and earth, and so the reference to them means treatment without regard or consideration. It is possible that Lao-tze meant to say that "heaven and earth" treats all people with an impartial indifference as God makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good (compare Chapter 79). But Lao-tze might as well have meant the very opposite, that "if heaven and earth and also the sage were without benevolence, they would treat the people like straw dogs." The Chinese text seems to favor the former interpretation, but the first sentence may be conditional and then the latter rendering which has been adopted by Harlez would be correct.

The question is whether Lao-tze did or did not believe that heaven and earth and the Tao were endowed with sentiment. An answer will be difficult if not impossible, but I am now inclined to think that he was more of mystic than a philosopher, and he recognized in the dispensation of the world a paternal and loving providence.

p. 138

The phrase "heaven and earth" has a deeper meaning to the Chinese than to us. According to Chinese notions the primordial essence, called t‘ai chi, 4 "the great Ultimate," divided itself into two principles called Yin and Yang (mentioned in Chapter 42). The former is negative, female, dark, passive; the latter is positive, male, light and active. The former is represented by earth, the latter by heaven; the former by the moon, the latter by the sun. The "ten thousand things" (i. e., all existences in the world), owe their characters to different mixtures of these two elementary principles.

Emptiness is one of the virtues praised by Lao-tze, and the emptiness of heaven is to him an example of the emptiness which man ought to possess. By emptiness Lao-tze understands the absence of personal ambition, of desire, or to use


p. 139

his own phrase, it is "the doing of the not-doing" (wei wu wei).

Lao-tze concludes the chapter with a homely saying concerning gossip, which acquires a deep and peculiar meaning in the context by comparing "fulsome talk" to the emptiness of heaven.

The Chinese text reads to yen, literally, "many words," i. e., gossip.


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Footnotes
138:4 In Chapter 28, 2, Lao-tze calls this same ultimate, wu chi, "the infinite." For further details see Chinese Philosophy, pages 24-34. Compare also page 167 in this book.



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Next: Chapter 6

CHAPTER 6.
The verse quoted in this chapter seems to be the inscription over a fountain which it was claimed never ran dry. People believed that its source was deep and sprang from the root of heaven and earth, which would explain that its supply was inexhaustible. In using this quotation Lao-tze looks upon the spring as an emblem of the mysterious nature of the Tao.

The Manchu version translates the word ku, valley, as a verb by "nourishing," which makes a very good sense for the first line, thus:

"Who nourishes spirituality does not die."

p. 140

The use of ku (valley) as a verb, meaning "to feed, to nourish, to quicken," according to all dictionaries, is quite common in Chinese. But we might as well interpret ku as an adjective or participle and translate (with Couvreur): 5

"L’esprit vivifiant ne meurt pas."

A literal translation would read thus:

"The quickening spirit never dies.
It is called the mysterious woman.
The mysterious woman's gate
Is called of heaven and earth the root.
For ever and aye it abides
[And] its use is without effort."

The Manchu translator finds a physiological meaning in this chapter. Dr. Berthold Laufer has kindly furnished me with a translation of it as follows:

"Who nourishes the soul will not die. This is called the life of the main artery (Kuhen-i ergen = Chinese yüen p‘in, "mysterious woman"). The door of the life of the main artery is called the root


p. 141

of procreation and increase. As if preserved for all eternity, it is inexhaustible in its practical application." 6

Dr. Laufer adds: "It is strange that the Chinese words for 'heaven and earth' which otherwise are literally translated, are here rendered by the verbal nouns banjibure and fusembure, the former 'creating,' the latter 'increasing.'



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Footnotes
140 :5 See his French-Chinese Dictionary, p. 447.

141:6 Literally: "Lasting preserved like; used if, inexhaustible."



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Next: Chapter 9

CHAPTER 9.
A German proverb says: "Allzu scharf macht schartig." This is a truth which few learn, and so it is daily verified again and again in business, in politics and in private life.

The word rh is a copula often translated "and" or "but." The character depicts the side portions of the face, the whiskers, or the bristles of an animal, thus denoting something added or an extension. The sense of the chapter depends on the grammatical significance of this word, and we can scarcely be mistaken when we translate "Grasp to

p. 142

the full, is it not likely stopped? Scheme to being sharp, will you be able long to guard [your position]?" The verb jui = scheme, means "to scrutinize, to examine," and pao = "to guard, to maintain, to protect, to defend."



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Next: Chapter 10

CHAPTER 10.
The text of the first two sentences is difficult, and we deem our present version an improvement. 7 Literally the beginning seems to read thus: "Being insistent in disciplining the sense soul." Mr. Ng Poon Chew writes: "The first two characters are verbs, there is no question as to that. The word poh is commonly understood by the Chinese to be the passive half of the human soul equivalent to yin in nature."

The Manchu version (as Dr. Laufer informs me) in agreement with a Chinese quotation of this passage by Huai Nan Tze takes all these sentences as queries.



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Footnotes
142:7 For an explanation of the text see "Emendations and Comments," pp. ix-x in the second issue of Lao-Tze's Tao-Teh-King.



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Next: Chapter 11

CHAPTER 10.
The text of the first two sentences is difficult, and we deem our present version an improvement. 7 Literally the beginning seems to read thus: "Being insistent in disciplining the sense soul." Mr. Ng Poon Chew writes: "The first two characters are verbs, there is no question as to that. The word poh is commonly understood by the Chinese to be the passive half of the human soul equivalent to yin in nature."

The Manchu version (as Dr. Laufer informs me) in agreement with a Chinese quotation of this passage by Huai Nan Tze takes all these sentences as queries.



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Footnotes
142:7 For an explanation of the text see "Emendations and Comments," pp. ix-x in the second issue of Lao-Tze's Tao-Teh-King.

CHAPTER 11.
Things are shaped by carving, by taking away, by diminishing the material. Accordingly that which is no longer there, the non-existent, constitutes their worth. Thus it appears that the part in this case would be greater than the whole, or to state the same truth briefly "less is more." As Hesiod says in his Works and Days (30):

Νήπιοι οὐδ᾽ ἴσασιν ὅσῳ πλέον ἥμισυ παντός.

"Foolish they are, for they know not
That half than the whole is much greater."





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Next: Chapter 12


CHAPTER 12.
The meaning of the verses quoted in this chapter carries out the principle enunciated in Chapter 11. The utility of things, as well as the worth of life, is attained not by having everything in completion and in fulness, but by selecting some parts and omitting others, by moderation and by discrete elimination. All the colors blind you, a discrete selection will make a picture. All the notes make a noise, while a few of them in

p. 144

proper succession make a melody. All the tastes mixed together are offensive, but a choice of them is pleasant.

Such is Lao-tze's method of teaching that the form of things is more important than substance. (See also Chapter 11.)

In former editions we have translated the quotation thus:

"The five colors the human eye will blind,
The five notes the human ear will rend,
The five tastes the human mouth offend."
"Racing and hunting will human hearts turn mad,
Objects of prize make human conduct bad."

*  *  *

The phrase "he attends to the inner and not to the outer" reads in a literal translation "acts the stomach, not acts the eye."

The outer and the inner are called in Chapter 38 the flower and the fruit, the

p. 145

former being the mere show, the latter the true import of life.



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Next: Chapter 13

CHAPTER 13.
The ruler or prime minister who attends to the government as he attends to his own body, understanding that it is a source of "great heartache," is worthy of the trust.

The comparison of "rank" or "high office" to the body as a source of great trouble and anxiety is based on an idea which also plays an important part in Buddhism. Buddhist philosophy explains that the cause of all earthly trouble is due to the body, and the body ought to be treated like a wound which is the source of pain. We attend to it without loving it. In the "Questions of King Milinda" (Milindapañha) the Buddhist saint Nagasena says: "They who have retired from the world take care of their bodies as though they were wounds without thereby becoming attached to them" (Warren, Buddhism in Translations, p. 423). So long as man lives in his bodily existence he is subject to anxiety; as

p. 146

soon as he ceases to live in the flesh he is no more troubled.

The character ching, here translated "trembling," denotes the state of a shy horse, and the word "heartache" shows a heart with a cord above it, such as is used in China for stringing up coins.

The last sentence of this chapter has been omitted because, with the exception of one word, it is a literal repetition of the preceding sentence and seems to have slipped into the text by a copyist's mistake.



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Next: Chapter 14

CHAPTER 14.
This chapter is remarkable for several reasons. Lao-tze speaks of the Tao, and describes it by saying what it is not. It is not perceptible to the senses; accordingly it is "colorless," "soundless" and "bodiless." It cannot be seen, it cannot be heard, it cannot be touched; but this supersensible something, the purely relational in all things, the divine Reason, is one and the same throughout. It is the Unnamable, the cosmic law, the world-order which moulds all things.

p. 147

[paragraph continues] Both its beginning and its end are wrapped in obscurity.

Lao-tze's expression, "the form of the formless," corresponds pretty closely to Kant's term "Pure form"; it means the form which possesses no bodily shape, and as such it is equivalent to the Buddhist term arupo.

It is strange that Lao-tze's description of the Tao finds an almost literal parallel in the Phædrus where Plato speaks of the presence of a being in the over-heaven, i. e., in the super-celestial place, a being not perceptible to the senses and to be apprehended only by the mind, the "pilot of the soul." This presence is described as an essence, truly existent, 8 without color, without shape and impalpable. Plato says:

Τὸν δε ὑπερουράνιον τόπον οὔτε τισ ὕμνησέ πω τῶν τῇδε ποιητὴς οὔτε ποθ᾽ ὑμνήσει κατ᾽ ἀξίαν. ἔχει δε ὧδε. τολμητέον γὰρ οῦ᾽ν τό γε ἀληθὲς εἰπεῖν ἄλλως τε καὶ περὶ ἀληθείας λέγοντα· ἡ γὰρ ἀχρωματός τε καὶ ἀσχημάτιστος καὶ ἀναφὴς οὐσία ὄντως ψυχῆς οῦ᾽σα κυβερνήτῃ μόνῳ θεατὴ νῷ· περὶ ἣν τὸ τῆς ἀληθοῦς ἐπιστήμης γένος τοῦτον ἕχει τὸν τόπον.


p. 148

In Jowett's translation this reads:

"Of the heaven which is above the heavens, what earthly poet ever did or ever will sing worthily? It is such as I shall describe; for I must dare to speak the truth, when truth is my theme. There abides the very being with which true knowledge is concerned; the colorless, the formless, the intangible essence visible only to mind, who is the pilot of the soul."--Phædrus, pag. 247.

The Latin version of the most important part of the passage reads thus:

"Nam essentia vere existens, sine colore, sine figura, sine tactu."

The similarity with Lao-tze is obvious, only the second term, in Chinese "soundless," or "inaudible," is omitted, while the Greek "shapeless," viz., non-material or having no body, has absolutely the same meaning as the Chinese.

*  *  *

In addition to this surprising similarity between Lao-tze's very words and the thoughts of a philosopher who lived about 200 years after him in ancient

p. 149

[paragraph continues] Greece, a distant country which at that time was in no connection with China, we must point out another strange coincidence. The three words, "colorless," "soundless" and "incorporeal," read in Chinese i, ki, wei, and the French scholar Abel Rémusat saw in this combination of Chinese characters the corresponding three Hebrew letters, Jod, Heh, Vav, indicating the name Jehovah, and his theory was accepted by many others who for some reason or other believed that there ought to have been a mysterious prehistoric connection between the Chinese and the Israelites. The theory has found the support of a German translator of Lao-tze's book, Victor von Strauss, a confessed mystic, but it is not countenanced by any other sinologist of standing, and there is no need to refute it. We see in it a curious though quite remarkable coincidence.

*  *  *

Liquids generally are clear at the top and sediments settle at the bottom, but here Lao-tze, using the simile, reverses the statement by saying that in its upper

p. 150

portion the Tao is not clear and in its lower strata it is not obscure. If we had not to deal with an author like Lao-tze who loves to mystify we might assume some mistake in the text, but as the statement stands it reminds us of St. Augustine's description of Christianity when he compares religious truth to an immeasurable ocean in whose waters a lamb may wade, while an elephant must swim. The simple mind of a child finds no difficulty in understanding the meaning of the Tao while a scholar may not be able to fathom its depth. We may also say that the deeper problems of philosophy are in their general aspect quite simple, but the superficial applications obscure them by complexity.


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Footnotes
147:8 ὄντοως ὄν.



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Next: Chapter 15

CHAPTER 15.
Lao-tze frequently quotes proverbs of the people and sayings of his predecessors. Of the latter he has a very high opinion which he here expresses.

Lao-tze says that the sages of yore behave like guests, alluding to the Chinese

p. 151

custom for guests to be always reserved and modest. They are elusive as the Tao is elusive (see Chapter 21), which means that their words admit of more than one interpretation and frequently conceal a deeper meaning. In the same sense the Tao is called elusive because it has never been grasped in its full significance. A philosopher may think he has fathomed its meaning, and afterwards may find out that his view is only one aspect and there is more to it. So a search for truth can never be completed. Like melting ice the old masters have more depth than the surface shows.

Further, the sages are simple, without the polish of artful elegance, and thus they are compared to "rough wood." They are empty because they make no show, and they are like the valley, which is Lao-tze's favorite simile to indicate an attitude of lowliness. The more lowly a river flows the larger and broader will it be, and the most lowly valley will become the main stream, the ocean river, of an entire system with many tributaries.

p. 152

The last sentence of this chapter is difficult to interpret, and had perhaps better be translated:

"Without being fashionable he is perfect,"

which would mean "though not in style he is as he ought to be." The last three words read in literal translation "not-new-perfected" which may mean "not newly formed," that is to say, "he is not of a modern fashion"; or we may translate, "he is not fashionable and yet perfect"; or "without being renewed he is complete," which would imply that the sage can grow old without standing in need of rejuvenescence, viz., natural or artificial means of recuperating his vitality. But it may mean, as we have translated it in a former edition, "without reform he is perfect." Finally the two last words may be synonyms, and the three may mean, "without being renewed and completed."

Happily the passage is not of much consequence, and there is no great harm if we can not decide which interpretation is preferable.



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Next: Chapter 18

p. 153

CHAPTER 18.
This chapter is directed against the Confucianist morality of filial piety, loyalty, and justice. Lao-tze is disgusted with the very words. Where the Tao obtains there is no need of preaching justice, filial piety and loyalty, for the virtue of the Tao is spontaneous. The men whose hearts are bare of these virtues, parade them in words.



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Next: Chapter 19

CHAPTER 19.
The display which obtains in Confucian ethics is here condemned, and Lao-tze's words remind us of Christ's warnings against the self -righteousness of the Pharisees. Lao-tze wants us to abandon: (1) saintliness and prudence, (2) benevolence and justice, (3) smartness and greed. He declares that culture (i. e., Confucian morality) is insufficient to accomplish these three things. He advises:

"Hold fast that which endures,
Mind simplicity, preserve purity,
Lessen self, diminish desire."

p. 154

The word "learnedness" in contrast to wisdom means the artificial scholarship of Confucian literati, who like the Pharisees of the New Testament insist on external propriety more than on a regeneration of the heart.



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Next: Chapter 20

CHAPTER 20.
Lao-tze continues to criticize Confucianism as represented by the learned ones, the literati. According to Confucius conventional propriety is a great virtue, and it is very important that people reply according to the properly established modes of speaking. There are two forms of affirmation in Chinese: One is pronounced wei, and being straightforward and manly it is proper for men and boys to use; the other, pronounced o, is modest, and it behooves women and girls to employ no other form of expressing assent. Lao-tze would not insist on the significance of such externalities, and so he says, "What is the difference between 'yea' and 'yes'? There is none. But there is a difference between bad and good."

p. 155

In times of disorder lives are constantly endangered and the people become indifferent to death. This is not the natural state of things and ought to be avoided. Lao-tze's warning is illustrated in modern history by the French Revolution when the prisoners of the terrorist government actually joked about the guillotine and went to the place of execution with absolute unconcern. Similar conditions prevailed in China in the days of Lao-tze.

In this chapter, as well as further down (Chapters 72 and 74), the old philosopher makes reference to the prevalence of great disturbances which make the people restless. A Chinese Jeremiah, forlorn among people who only thought of enjoying themselves, he burst out into bitter lamentation, and we cannot read these lines without feeling compassion for the sage who differed so much from the rest of the world.

The fourth and eighth sections of this chapter recall Christ's saying (Matt. viii. 20): "The foxes have holes, and the

p. 156

birds of the air have nests; but the Son of man hath not where to lay his head."



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Next: Chapter 21

CHAPTER 21.
The last two lines of the quoted verse in Chapter 21 are obscure in the original Chinese. The difficulty lies in the meaning of the word fu, which means anything that is first, either in time or dignity. Literally the eight words read:

"Its--name--not--departs; Thereby--it notes--all--the first."

The sense seems to be that the Tao is eternal, for its name never departs. Therefore it has been in the beginning of creation. In this sense we have translated the passage in former editions:

"Its name does not depart
Thence lo! All things take start."

which means, "It is of all the first."

Should fu, however, have to be taken in the sense of excellence we would propose either of these two readings:

"Its name does not pass hence,
Lo! Here's all excellence!"

p. 157

or, if we lay stress on the verb yüeh, "it beholds," we translate:

"Its name is never vanishing
It heeds the good in everything."

Mr. Ng Poon Chew favors the idea that the character fu means "the beginning."

The Manchu version follows the last interpretation. Dr. Laufer translates: "Hence one investigates all good things,"--which seems to mean: "Thereby we learn what in all things is good," and the concluding sentence would read: "Whereby do I know what is good in all things? Through IT." In other words: "Reason is the standard of excellence."

The two last words "through IT" in this chapter comprise a favorite term of Lao-tze, and by "IT" Lao-tze means "Reason."



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Next: Chapter 22


CHAPTER 22.
Lao-tze here as in many other places quotes a sentiment from the sages of yore.

p. 158

These beautiful lines remind us of several Biblical sayings, such as "The crooked shall be made straight" (Is. xl. 4) and "The bruised reed shall he not break" (Matt. xii. 20). Compare also the beatitude that those who mourn shall be comforted (Matt. v. 4).

It is strange, however, that though Christ's Gospel agrees in spirit so well with Lao-tze's philosophy he states the very opposite to the sentiment of the last two lines, saying: "For whosoever hath, to him shall be given, and he shall have more abundance: but whosoever hath not, from him shall be taken away even that he hath" (Matt. xiii. 12).

The Chinese words ch‘ü and ch‘üen here translated "crooked" and "crushed" may be taken in the physical sense as "the distorted ones" and also figuratively, denoting those morally awry or wrong-doers.

The character hwo shows "a heart" and "doubt," the latter being the phonetic (hwo). It means "to delude, to blind, to embarrass, to bewilder, to unsettle,"

p. 159

and we have translated it by "grieve."

The last two lines of the quotation might also be interpreted to mean, "What is too little shall receive more; what is too much shall be in a state of perplexity." See also Chapter 77, 1-3.

Compare the second section of this chapter with Chapter 24.



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Next: Chapter 24


CHAPTER 24.
Mr. Medhurst translates the first sentence: "Who tiptoes totters; who straddles stumbles."

The translator trusts that the style of this chapter has been greatly improved in this edition. The first section has been made more terse, and in the second the sense comes out more clearly. Yü shih, in former editions translated "offal of food," means "too much of food" and is better interpreted as a surfeit of food. Further we have in former editions translated chui hing as "excrescence in the system." The word chui (a synonym of yü) denotes anything that is redundant, an excrescence, or a wen,

p. 160

and hing is a peculiar word which literally means "to go," or "to walk," and may mean the way of acting, or the bodily system, or almost anything else. We might translate chui hing "overdoing in behavior," but it is likely that Lao-tze actually meant that the overdoing of self-display is like a wen in the face--too much and therefore disgusting. Lao-tze may also think of Confucian supererogatory behavior, which is characterized by overdoing in politeness and is offensive to the man who believes in the simple life.

The new interpretation is supported by the Manchu version.

The lines here quoted are parallel to the lines in the second section of Chapter 23. The same words are used, only the negation pu is differently placed so as to produce a contrast.



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Next: Chapter 25


CHAPTER 25.
The word shi, "departing," may very well be understood in the sense of dying.

The word fan means literally "return," denoting "coming back," and in order

p. 161

to imitate the terse Chinese text, the best translation for "having come back" is "home." Lao-tze says: "Reason, the great distant beyond, is our home."

Section 5 seems to be a gloss which slipped into the text. At any rate the bracketed portion is too trivial to come from the hand of Lao-tze.



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Next: Chapter 26

CHAPTER 26.
The word tsz’, translated "gravity," is a peculiar phrase which literally means "baggage wagon." The intermediate idea seems to be "heaviness" or "gravity," the latter in the double sense (literal and figurative) as used in English.

In our former edition it was translated "dignity."



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Next: Chapter 27

CHAPTER 27.
In Section 4 we have adopted an entirely new interpretation. In following a suggestion of Prof. H. A. Giles, we construe the two characters shan (words 6 and 14) denoting "good" or "goodness," as verbs in the sense to consider as good, and translate "to respect"; and further

p. 162

the characters shi (words 9 and 21) in their common meaning as "multitudes," not as we had it in former editions (though it is not wrong), as "educator."



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Next: Chapter 28

CHAPTER 28.
In order to understand what Lao-tze means by manhood and womanhood, by brightness and blackness, by fame and shame, we must bear in mind what has been said above in the explanation of Chapter 5 about the two principles Yin and Yang. Compare also Lao-tze's views about honoring the right in times of war and the left in times of peace (Chapter 31). Manliness is not worth much unless tempered by womanliness, and a good warrior is not warlike, a good fighter is not pugnacious (Chap. 68).

The word chih means "to carve, to form, to regulate," and as a noun "law" or "norm." Lao-tze seems to mean that a government which upholds great principles and rules according to the maxims of the Tao can never do any harm.

Professor Giles translates, "a great principle can not be divided," which

p. 163

he interprets to mean, that it applies universally. (See Emendations and Comments to Lao-Tze's Tao-Teh-King, pp. xxi-xxii.)



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Next: Chapter 29


CHAPTER 29.
The doctrine of "doing the not-doing" has rightly been compared to the French principle of laissez faire, although the two are not the same. Lao-tze wants to say here that "he who makes, mars"; we therefore should not interfere but let everything take the course of its natural development.



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Next: Chapter 35

CHAPTER 35.
The world is noisy. There is music; there are dainties to eat; there are many distractions, and the passing stranger stops. The Tao is tasteless, is invisible, is inaudible, but inexhaustible in its use. We have here a trinity of the negative qualities of the Tao just as in Chapter 14. Compare also Chapter 42.



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Next: Chapter 36


CHAPTER 36.
The tendency of the world is to acquire hardness and strength, but in this

p. 164

chapter the sage warns us to beware of these qualities, and rather remain tender and weak. The people should scarcely know that weapons exist.

On the authority of Professor Giles the last section of this chapter should read "Fishes can not be taken away from the water. The instruments of government can not be delegated to others." Huai Nan Tze tells a story of a sovereign who lost his throne by transferring the power of punishment to his minister. (See Emendations and Comments to Lao-Tze's Tao-Teh-King, second issue, pages xvi-xvii.)

Lao-tze regarded acquaintance with weapons as an unnatural condition which would prove fatal to the people, just as fish must die when they are removed from their natural element, the water.



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Next: Chapter 38


CHAPTER 38.
Justice is different from virtue and benevolence. It is the nature of justice to act and enforce its pretensions.

True or superior virtue is here called "unvirtue" because it does not make a

p. 165

show of virtue; it does not "act virtue." A difference between virtue and justice is that justice doling out punishments must make a show of its power, and so "acts and makes pretensions." It is obvious that here the Confucian conception of virtue is criticised for the reason that it is always in evidence and is therefore inferior,--it is shoddy.

Traditionalism (ts’ien shih, "of times bygone the knowledge") which is mentioned further on in this chapter is a characteristic feature of Confucian ethics.

In former editions I took ts’ien in the sense of "early" or "premature" and translated "quickwittedness"; but we must bear in mind that we have before us a criticism of Confucian ethics with its rules of propriety based upon a reverence for the past, clinging tenaciously to tradition. Lao-tze says that this respect for bygone times, this traditionalism is not commendable. It is but "the flower of reason," meaning thereby that it makes a display or show of virtue;

p. 166

it parades morality but it does not contain the fruit.



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Next: Chapter 39


CHAPTER 39.
Plato scholars will note that the famous dialogue "Parmenides," discussing the problem of the one and the many, may fitly be compared with Lao-tze's exposition of the nature of oneness, the poetical portion of which sounds like a philosophical rhapsody.

The simile that the carriage does not consist of its parts, but it a definite combination of its parts, is also used in the Buddhist book, "Questions of King Milinda," written several centuries after Lao-tze.

*  *  *

The last line in section 7, Ta fang wu yü (literally, "Greatest square has no corner") should be compared with the same sentiment in Chapter 45, ta chih joh ch‘ü ("greatest straightness seems curved").



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Next: Chapter 42

CHAPTER 42.
The subject of oneness or unity treated in Chapter 39 is here continued, and

p. 167

unity is represented as the product of the Tao, or Reason.

The trinity idea plays an important part in human thought almost everywhere, in philosophical systems and in many religions including Christianity. The Chinese idea of trinity is based on the notion that there are two opposed principles, Yang and Yin, which have originated, as Lao-tze explains, from a primordial oneness, called by Cheu-tze and other later philosophers Chi, the ultimate, or the absolute. Oneness produces by differentiation a twohood, viz., the twohood of Yang, or heaven, and Yin, or earth. Between heaven and earth is the air, Ch‘i, the breath of life; and from this trinity of Yang, Yin and Ch‘i all things are derived.

Incidentally we must warn the reader that chi, the ultimate, 1 is quite different from ch‘i, breath. 2



p. 168

The words ku kwa, here translated "orphaned, lonely," mean, the former "a fatherless son," and the latter "lonely"; and in this sense the emperor has been called the "lonely one" as one who stands aloof, who is solitary, peerless and without equal. But the original meaning is still prominent in the term and so we may look upon Lao-tze's use of the word as a pun which he uses as a peg upon which to hang a lesson. The word kwa, "lonely," has the meaning of "little" and "insignificant" which in agreement with a Chinese view of politeness is also used in the sense of "your humble servant," or as the Germans say, meine Wenigkeit, which may justly be considered an adequate equivalent for the Chinese kwa.

The term pu ku is used in the same sense as kwa, meaning literally "not worthy," as a modest expression in which the speaker refers to himself. It serves so commonly as an equivalent for the

p. 169

pronoun of the first person that even the emperor does not scorn it. However the former words ku kwa denote the emperor as a peerless person, the only one of his kind, the man who has no equal.

*  *  *

Lao-tze is certainly an original thinker and yet he disclaims originality; he constantly quotes his predecessors, but he reads his own thoughts into their sayings. He says here, "What others have taught I teach also," but in Chapter 15 he says that they are too profound to be understood, and so he endeavors to make them intelligible.

*  *  *

The chapter concludes with a statement which tradition explains as meaning that he will "expound the doctrine's foundation," but the literal reading of the last six words runs thus:

"I shall do the doctrine's father."

The word fu, "father," pictures a hand with a rod and means "rule, authority, father, fatherly or loving." It is the most common word for "father" and

p. 170

ought to be so translated unless weighty reasons speak against it.

The word wei, commonly translated "to do," may mean "to live up to, to actualize, to exemplify, to do the will of, to obey." Obviously it means the actual doing, not the purely theoretical expounding, and so we explain the passage to mean, "While the mass of mankind are violent and self-willed, which leads to trouble and an unnatural death, I mean to exemplify in my life the will of the doctrine's father," or in a more literal rendering "But I will obey the doctrine's father (i. e., the Tao)."


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Footnotes
167:1  Chi is used by Lao-tze in its ordinary sense in Chapter 16, and 68, last word. For the philosophical terms t‘ai chi and wu chi see p. 138 and compare Giles's Dictionary, No. 859.

167:2  Ch‘i, breath, occurs three times in our p. 168 text: (1) translated "airs" in Sze ma Tsien's biography of Lao-tze; (2) translated "vitality" in Chapter 10; and (3) "breath," in Chapter 42. See Giles's Dictionary No. 1064. The word is also transcribed k‘i.



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Next: Chapter 45

CHAPTER 42.
The subject of oneness or unity treated in Chapter 39 is here continued, and

p. 167

unity is represented as the product of the Tao, or Reason.

The trinity idea plays an important part in human thought almost everywhere, in philosophical systems and in many religions including Christianity. The Chinese idea of trinity is based on the notion that there are two opposed principles, Yang and Yin, which have originated, as Lao-tze explains, from a primordial oneness, called by Cheu-tze and other later philosophers Chi, the ultimate, or the absolute. Oneness produces by differentiation a twohood, viz., the twohood of Yang, or heaven, and Yin, or earth. Between heaven and earth is the air, Ch‘i, the breath of life; and from this trinity of Yang, Yin and Ch‘i all things are derived.

Incidentally we must warn the reader that chi, the ultimate, 1 is quite different from ch‘i, breath. 2



p. 168

The words ku kwa, here translated "orphaned, lonely," mean, the former "a fatherless son," and the latter "lonely"; and in this sense the emperor has been called the "lonely one" as one who stands aloof, who is solitary, peerless and without equal. But the original meaning is still prominent in the term and so we may look upon Lao-tze's use of the word as a pun which he uses as a peg upon which to hang a lesson. The word kwa, "lonely," has the meaning of "little" and "insignificant" which in agreement with a Chinese view of politeness is also used in the sense of "your humble servant," or as the Germans say, meine Wenigkeit, which may justly be considered an adequate equivalent for the Chinese kwa.

The term pu ku is used in the same sense as kwa, meaning literally "not worthy," as a modest expression in which the speaker refers to himself. It serves so commonly as an equivalent for the

p. 169

pronoun of the first person that even the emperor does not scorn it. However the former words ku kwa denote the emperor as a peerless person, the only one of his kind, the man who has no equal.

*  *  *

Lao-tze is certainly an original thinker and yet he disclaims originality; he constantly quotes his predecessors, but he reads his own thoughts into their sayings. He says here, "What others have taught I teach also," but in Chapter 15 he says that they are too profound to be understood, and so he endeavors to make them intelligible.

*  *  *

The chapter concludes with a statement which tradition explains as meaning that he will "expound the doctrine's foundation," but the literal reading of the last six words runs thus:

"I shall do the doctrine's father."

The word fu, "father," pictures a hand with a rod and means "rule, authority, father, fatherly or loving." It is the most common word for "father" and

p. 170

ought to be so translated unless weighty reasons speak against it.

The word wei, commonly translated "to do," may mean "to live up to, to actualize, to exemplify, to do the will of, to obey." Obviously it means the actual doing, not the purely theoretical expounding, and so we explain the passage to mean, "While the mass of mankind are violent and self-willed, which leads to trouble and an unnatural death, I mean to exemplify in my life the will of the doctrine's father," or in a more literal rendering "But I will obey the doctrine's father (i. e., the Tao)."


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Footnotes
167:1  Chi is used by Lao-tze in its ordinary sense in Chapter 16, and 68, last word. For the philosophical terms t‘ai chi and wu chi see p. 138 and compare Giles's Dictionary, No. 859.

167:2  Ch‘i, breath, occurs three times in our p. 168 text: (1) translated "airs" in Sze ma Tsien's biography of Lao-tze; (2) translated "vitality" in Chapter 10; and (3) "breath," in Chapter 42. See Giles's Dictionary No. 1064. The word is also transcribed k‘i.



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Next: Chapter 45

CHAPTER 45.
Literally the second quotation reads:

"Greatest straightness is like a curve,
Greatest skill is like awkwardness,
Greatest eloquence is like stammering."

The first line reminds us of modern geometry where the straight line may be regarded as a curve of an infinitely small curvature. Cf. note on Chapter 41.



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Next: Chapter 47

p. 171

CHAPTER 47.
Whether or not Lao-tze meant it, he here endorses Kant's doctrine of the a priori, which means that certain truths can be stated a priori, viz., even before we make an actual experience. It is not the globe trotter who knows mankind, but the thinker. In order to know the sun's chemical composition we need not go to the sun; we can analyze the sun's light by spectrum analysis. We need not stretch a tape line to the moon to measure its distance from the earth, we can calculate it by the methods of an a priori science (trigonometry).



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Next: Chapter 49


CHAPTER 49.
The word shang means "constant, ordinary, usual, common" etc., and the contrast requires the sense that the saint has not the heart as other people have, which means a heart of his own.

The "one hundred families" is a Chinese term which means the people of a district.

p. 172

The second section of this chapter contains a difficulty in the text. Its third sentence reads in the Chinese text as translated in our former editions, "Virtue is good"; but this does not make good sense, as it is trivial. While pondering over the meaning of these two characters the translator discovered two versions 9 which replace the word teh, "virtue," by its homophone, teh, "to obtain," and it seemed quite probable that this was the original reading. The change from teh, "to obtain," to teh, "virtue," could naturally and at an early date have originated through a careless scribe in a book where the word teh, "virtue," occurred so frequently. Once introduced, the mistake could easily have been perpetuated in the text.

The word teh, "to obtain," makes good sense and might even suggest itself as the most appropriate text emendation. On the ground of this consideration we might prefer the reading teh, "to obtain,"


p. 173

and propose to translate the passage thus:

"The good I meet with goodness, the bad I also meet with goodness; thus I obtain goodness (i. e., I actualize virtue.) The faithful I meet with faith, the faithless I also meet with faith; thus I obtain faith (i. e., I actualize faith)."

In other words, we must meet not only the good with goodness but the bad also with goodness, if we want to actualize the ideal of goodness; and we must meet not only the faithful with faith but the faithless also with faith, in order to actualize the ideal of faith.

This is the obvious meaning of Lao-tze, for he here expresses his view of the way a man can become truly good and faithful. He does not admit any utilitarian argument and lays down the rule for a man who follows the Tao. He can be truly good and truly faithful only if he is good and faithful to all, whether he has to deal with the good or the not-good, the faithful or the faithless.

The Manchu translator had before him a text which read teh, "virtue," not teh,

p. 174

[paragraph continues] "obtain," but he construes teh, "virtue," as a genitive. If he is right, we must translate, "That is virtue's goodness," and further down, "That is virtue's faith."

After some hesitation we have finally adopted the interpretation of the Manchu version.


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Footnotes
172:9 See the Emendations and Comments to the second issue of the author's Lao-Tze's Tao-Teh-King, p. vii.



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Next: Chapter 50

CHAPTER 50.
The first line of this chapter contains much food for thought. In our first edition we have translated these four words by "Going forth is life, coming home is death." We still cling to the same meaning, but we believe we have improved the diction by translating "Abroad in life, home in death."

We must grant, however, that we might translate, "He who enters life must return in death," but this interpretation that "he who is born must die," is objectionable mainly because it is too trivial for Lao-tze.

The second paragraph in this chapter is obscure and seems beyond hope of

p. 175

making good sense. A literal translation reads:

"Life's followers [are] ten have three
Death's followers [are] ten have three
In man's life the moving to death places are also ten have three."

This may mean either ten plus three, i. e., thirteen, or of ten take three, viz., "three in ten."

If the translation "thirteen" be correct, "thirteen retainers" might according to Chinese folklore mean the five senses and the eight apertures which make thirteen avenues of life. This interpretation is based on the view of the commentator Lu Tze who may be right, and his view becomes somewhat probable when we bear in mind Chapter 52, where Lao-tze speaks of the mouth and the sense-gates as beset with danger. There he declares that the sage who keeps these openings closed will to the end of his life remain safe.

I applied to Mr. Ng Poon Chew for an explanation and he writes:

"The passage is very vague and obscure, its meaning is no clearer to me

p. 176

than to you. I have consulted a few good Chinese scholars and they were all baffled. The words shi yiu san, "ten have three," may mean here "thirteen" or "three out of ten."

If we translate "three in ten," the reader will naturally ask, Three times three in ten make nine, where is the tenth? And we would answer, it is "the man who bases his life on goodness." Three in ten are anxious to live, three in ten somehow are doomed to death, and other three in ten walk blindly toward death; they all live life's intensity. There is but one who is above life and death, and this is the man who bases his life on goodness.

In this case we interpret the word fu, "footman, follower, retainer," in the sense of "pursuer."

We have chosen the former interpretation which seems to us the most probable, but do not claim to have solved the difficulty.

*  *  *

The last section of this chapter finds a striking parallel in Plato's Phædrus,

p. 177

in the same book and on the same pagina (248) that contains the reference to the supercelestial being which is colorless and shapeless, quoted above in our comments on Chapter 14. The passage in Plato reads: "There is a law of destiny that the soul which attains any vision of truth in company with a god is preserved from harm until the next period, and if attaining always is always unharmed." 10

The same idea is expressed in the famous ode of Horace, Integer vitae. The belief that a truly good man is miraculously protected in danger is not uncommon in folktales and appears to have been an integral part of primitive religion.

Are these coincidences between Plato and Lao-tze accidental or are we to look upon them as echoes of a notion which in both the West and East have been inherited from a distant prehistoric past? The latter is certainly not improbable.

*  *  *

"Reality" here translates the word


p. 178

wuh, "concrete things," and commonly occurs in the phrase "the ten thousand things" which means the entire world.

The character sh‘ = "expansion" is a synonym of wei in the sense of assertion. The sage fears to be or to appear or to claim too much. He avoids self-aggrandizement.


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Footnotes
177:10 Jowett's translation.



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Next: Chapter 54

CHAPTER 54.
This chapter, like so many other passages, is directed against the Confucianists who in their ethics insist on the ritual of ancestral sacrifices. Lao-tze believes that wherever the Tao is observed, filial piety and sacrificial celebrations will be spontaneous.



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Next: Chapter 56


CHAPTER 56.
The quotation is the same as in Chapter 4, only here it is attributed to the sage, in the former place to the Tao. The sage identifies himself with the mortal coil he is heir to, with ch'an, his dust or the troubles of his bodily life, and this is called here "a profound identification." Even in the lowliness of his condition

p. 179

the sage feels his own dignity as a man of the Tao.

This same idea has produced the conception of the god-man in Christianity as well as in pagan religions.



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Next: Chapter 57

CHAPTER 57.
When, as Hamlet says, "the time is out of joint," we observe that political disorder produces restlessness among the people and in its wake come startling events. The people are frightened and superstition dominates their minds. The result is that ghosts will spook and the gods will be angry, as stated in Chapter 60.



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Next: Chapter 59


CHAPTER 59.
The "mother of the commonwealth" is commonly interpreted to be thrift. It is not impossible that Lao-tze means the Tao or Reason, but in the same chapter he uses the term Tao in the more general sense as "way."



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Next: Chapter 60


CHAPTER 60.
Whatever the first sentence of this chapter may mean, it is oddly expressed.

p. 180

[paragraph continues] One should govern a country as one would fry small fish, and we have added the traditional explanation in brackets, "neither gut nor scale them," which means the same as the rule wei wu wei, i. e., do the not-doing, practice non-practice; leave them alone and do not meddle with their affairs.

In ancient times ghosts were feared, and ghosts begin to spook, or at least are believed to spook, where crimes keep the minds of the people in a state of fearful and unsettled expectancy. See Chapter 57.



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Next: Chapter 61


CHAPTER 61.
This chapter contains more wisdom than it seems to possess at first sight. The same idea is expressed in the English saying that by stooping one conquers. It is also echoed in the New Testament where Jesus says that he who wishes to be the master of all should be their servant. In an empire or confederacy of states that state takes the lead which renders the greatest service to the others. For instance Prussia took the

p. 181

lead in Germany because through its systematic administration and well-organized army it offered protection and other advantages to the smaller states and so served their interests. In the same way Athens gained and lost ascendency in Greece; its downfall dates from the time when it ceased to serve the others and began to misuse its power. Since the loss of the thirteen American colonies England has adopted the same maxim of serving the interests of her dependencies. This policy which has proved successful and has repeatedly saved the British empire from dismemberment, was pronounced by Lao-tze in plain terms two and a half millenniums ago.



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Next: Chapter 62

CHAPTER 62.
The proposition that "when sought the Tao is obtained," reminds one of the New Testament verse, "Seek and ye shall find."



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Next: Chapter 63

CHAPTER 63.
In the famous passage, "Requite hatred with virtue," the word teh, "virtue," is

p. 182

commonly translated "goodness." We grant that this is the meaning, but we prefer a literal rendering. The sentence recalls Christ's injunction, "Love your enemies," but it means that we should treat those who hate us with justice and goodness, according to the rules of the Tao, the eternal Reason. It is not so emphatic as the Christian saying, but it is more logical and less paradoxical.

The sentence before the last means: Rash promises are easily made; and if we take things easy in the beginning without thinking of the consequences we shall soon be involved in complications.



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Next: Chapter 64

CHAPTER 64.
The last word here translated by "interfere" is in Chinese wei, "to do" or "to act."

The terms "likely" and "unlikely" are literal translations of the Chinese. Likely apparently means what is common or usual, and the unlikely, what is unusual.



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Next: Chapter 70

p. 183

CHAPTER 70.
When Lao-tze says, "words have an ancestor, deeds have a master," he personifies Reason which makes the conception of Tao resemble Christian theism; but we can not deny that in this atmosphere of abstract thought the expressions, "ancestor" and "master" may be regarded as intentional similes, just as in other chapters the Tao is compared to a "father" (Chapters 4 and 42), a "mother" (Chapter 20, also I and 52), "the Lord" (Chapter 4) and the "great carpenter" (Chapter 74). Nevertheless the fact remains that Lao-tze has repeatedly personified the Tao in spite of its abstract nature.



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Next: Chapter 71

CHAPTER 71.
The passage "to know the unknowable" is a smooth and quite correct translation, but there is a deeper sense in it and it certainly should not be interpreted in the sense of agnosticism. A strictly correct literal translation should read "know the not-knowing," which

p. 184

means "be familiar with that state of mind where knowing (the noetic faculty) is not the medium of our mental life." It is an expression of Lao-tze's mysticism in which the attitude of heart is considered superior to comprehension, and seems to involve what European mystics call intuition and what is characterized by St. Paul as the "peace that passeth understanding." We can retain the translation "unknowable" if it is understood in this sense, not as anything incomprehensible, an x in cognition, but as a mental attitude, as the feeling of the ineffable.

*  *  *

The connection between the first and second paragraphs consists in the idea that courage is sometimes successful and sometimes it brings harm. We do not know the reason why heaven sometimes dooms a hero. The word "doom," translated in the text "reject," reads in the Chinese "hate."



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Next: Chapter 74

p. 185

CHAPTER 74.
The "great carpenter who hews" is undoubtedly the Tao, or as theists would say, God. Compare our comment on Chapter 70.

We read in the Bible, "Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord."



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Next: Chapter 75

CHAPTER 75.
The last sentence finds its parallel in the New Testament (John xii. 25) where we read: "He that loveth his life shall lose it; and he that hateth his life in this world shall keep it unto life eternal."



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Next: Chapter 78

CHAPTER 78.
In China the emperor takes the guilt of the whole nation upon himself when he brings his annual sacrifice, a full burnt offering, to Shang Ti the Lord on High, and this is expressed in the quotation of this chapter which thus bears a remarkable similarity to the Christian doctrine that Christ as the High Priest takes the sins of mankind upon his own

p. 186

shoulders. Here is another coincidence of the East with the West. The priest according to the primitive custom speaks in the name of the sacrificial animal, and the sacrificial animal represents the god himself.



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Next: Chapter 79
CHAPTER 79.
The original reads, "The holy man keeps the left (tso) of contract" and tso, "left," means the debit side. The right side of the contract table contained the claims, ch‘eh, which in its original meaning denotes "to go through" and then "that which can be enacted."



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Next: Chapter 80

CHAPTER 80.
Lao-tze is not in favor of progress. He is bent on preaching that the Tao can be actualized in primitive conditions as well as, if not more easily than, in a highly complicated state of civilization. His ideal is not the luxury of wealth and power and learnedness, but the simple life of simple-minded people. He may even be accused of reactionary tendencies, for he is ready to abandon the

p. 187

advance made by his predecessors up to his own time and give up the practice of writing on bamboo slips, in favor of the prehistoric mode of keeping memoranda by knotted cords (chieh shing), or as they are now called with an American name, quipu, a method of assisting the memory by threads of various dyes knotted in special ways.

Lao-tze will scarcely find followers for his proposal to revert to primitive conditions, but even here where he is mistaken, there is a truth at the bottom of his thought. It is the ideal of a simple life, so much preached and so little practised in our days. Progress not only brings new inventions but also loosens the old ideals of simplicity, purity, honesty and faith. In place of the restful contentedness of former ages, the new generation is filled with desires. People have become reckless, arrogant, and luxurious. Learnedness takes the place of wisdom, and a pretentious display of filial piety supplants spontaneous respect for parents.

Translated from the
Book of Lieh-Tzü
with Introduction and Notes by
LIONEL GILES
M.A., D.Litt.
[1912]
Lieh-Tzü was major Taoist sage who lived c. 350 BCE. His writings use stories and fables to elucidate the Taoist philosophy of cooperating with nature; they illustrate the magical powers of the ancient sages who were so 'in the Tao' that they were able to prolong life, walk through solid rock, and levitate.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Title Page
Contents
Editorial Note
Introduction
Book I: Cosmogony
Book II: The Yellow Emperor
Book III: Dreams
Book IV: Confucius
Book V: The Questions of Pang
Book VI: Effort and Destiny
Book VII: Causality


TAOIST TEACHINGS
Translated from the
Book of Lieh-Tzü
with Introduction and Notes by
LIONEL GILES
M.A., D.Litt.
[1912]
{scanned at sacred-texts.com, January 2002.

Notes were interspersed in the main body of the text in the original book; these appear in a smaller typeface in this etext.}

{p. 3}

TO
My Father
whose translation of Chuan Tzû
first awakened in me
the love of Taoist lore

{p. 6}

{p. 7}


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Next: Contents

Contents

Introduction
9

I
COSMOGONY
16

II
THE YELLOW EMPEROR
34

III
DREAMS
54

IV
CONFUCIUS
68

V
THE QUESTIONS OF T'ANG
76

VI
EFFORT AND DESTINY
90

VII
CAUSALITY
96




{p. 8}


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Next: Editorial Note

Editorial Note
The object of the Editor of this series is a very definite one. He desires above all things that these books shall be the ambassadors of good-will between East and West. He hopes that they will contribute to a fuller knowledge of the great cultural heritage of the East, for only through real understanding will the West be able to appreciate the underlying Problems and aspirations of Asia to-day. He is confident that a deeper knowledge of the great ideals and lofty philosophy of Eastern thought will help to a revival of that true spirit of charity which neither despises nor fears the nations of another creed and colour.

J. L. CRANMER-BYNG

50 Albemarle Street
London, W. 1

{p. 9}


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Next: Introduction

Introduction
The history of Taoist philosophy may be conveniently divided into three stages: the primitive stage, the stage of development, and the stage of degeneration. The first of these stages is only known to us through the medium of a single semi-historical figure, the philosopher Lao Tzu, whose birth is traditionally assigned to the year 604 B.C. Some would place the beginnings of Taoism much earlier than this, and consequently regard Lao Tzu rather as an expounder than as the actual founder of the system; just as Confucianism--that is, a moral code based on filial piety and buttressed by altruism and righteousness--may be said to have flourished long before Confucius. The two cases, however, are somewhat dissimilar. The teachings of Lao Tzu, as preserved in the Tao Tê Ching, are not such as one can easily imagine being handed down from generation to generation among the people at large. The principle on which they are based is simple enough, but their application to everyday life is surrounded by difficulties. It is hazardous to assert that any great system of philosophy has sprung from the brain of one man; but the assertion is probably as true of Taoism as of any other body of speculation.

Condensed into a single phrase, the injunction of Lao {p. 10} Tzu to mankind is, 'Follow Nature.' This is a good practical equivalent for the Chinese expression, 'Get hold of Tao', although 'Tao' does not exactly correspond to the word Nature, as ordinarily used by us to denote the sum of phenomena in this ever-changing universe. It seems to me, however, that the conception of Tao must have been reached, originally, through this channel. Lao Tzu, interpreting the plain facts of Nature before his eyes, concludes that behind her manifold workings there exists an ultimate Reality which in its essence is unfathomable and unknowable, yet manifests itself in laws of unfailing regularity. To this Essential Principle, this Power underlying the sensible phenomena of Nature, he gives, tentatively and with hesitation, the name of Tao, 'the Way', though fully realizing the inadequacy of any name to express the idea of that which is beyond all power of comprehension.

A foreigner, imbued with Christian ideas, naturally feels inclined to substitute for Tao the term by which he is accustomed to denote the Supreme Being--God. But this is only admissible if he is prepared to use the term 'God' in a much broader sense than we find in either the Old or the New Testament. That which chiefly impresses the Taoist in the operations of Nature is their absolute impersonality. The inexorable law of cause and effect seems to him equally removed from active goodness or benevolence on the one hand, and from active, or malevolence on the other. This is a fact which

{p. 11}

will hardly be disputed by any intelligent observer. It is when he begins to draw inferences from it that the Taoist parts company from the average Christian. Believing, as he does, that the visible Universe is but a manifestation of the invisible Power behind It, he feels justified in arguing from the known to the unknown, and concluding that, whatever Tao may be in itself (which is unknowable), it is certainly not what we understand by a personal God--not a God endowed with the specific attributes of humanity, not even (and here we find a remarkable anticipation of Hegel) a conscious God. In other words, Tao transcends the illusory and unreal distinctions on which all human systems of morality depend, for in it all virtues and vices coalesce into One.

The Christian takes a different view altogether. He prefers to ignore the facts which Nature shows him, or else he reads them in an arbitrary and one-sided manner. His God, if no longer anthropomorphic, is undeniably anthropopathic. He is a personal Deity, now loving and merciful, now irascible and jealous, a Deity who is open to prayer and entreaty. With qualities such as these, it is difficult to see how he can be regarded as anything but a glorified Man. Which of these two views--the Taoist or the Christian--it is best for mankind to hold, may be a matter of dispute. There can be no doubt which is the more logical.

The weakness of Taoism lies in its application to the conduct of life. Lao Tzu was not content to be a

{p. 12}

metaphysician merely, he aspired to be a practical reformer as well. It was man's business, he thought, to model himself as closely as possible on the great Exemplar, Tao. It follows as a matter of course that his precepts are mostly of a negative order, and we are led straight to the doctrine of Passivity or Inaction, which was bound to be fatally misunderstood and perverted. Lao Tzu's teaching has reached us, if not in its original form, yet in much of its native purity, in the Tao Tê Ching. One of the most potent arguments for the high antiquity of this marvellous little treatise is that it shows no decided trace of the corruption which is discernible in the second of our periods, represented for us by the writings of Lieh Tzu and Chuang Tzu. I have called it the period of development because of the extraordinary quickening and blossoming of the buds of Lao Tzu's thought in the supple and imaginative minds of these two philosophers. The canker, alas! is already at the heart of the flower; but so rich and luxuriant is the feast of colour before us that we hardly notice it as yet.

Very little is known of our author beyond what he tells us himself. His full name was Lieh Yü-k'ou, and it appears that he was living in the Chêng State not long before the year 398 B.C., when the Prime Minister Tzu Yang was killed in a revolution (see p. 101). He figures prominently in the pages of Chuang Tzu, from whom we learn that he could 'ride upon the wind'.[1] On the

[1. He is thus depicted in the design on the cover of this volume, taken from an illustrated work on Ink-tablets.]

{p. 13}

insufficient ground that he is not mentioned by the historian Ssu-ma Ch'ien, a certain critic of the Sung dynasty was led to declare that Lieh Tzu was only a fictitious personage invented by Chuang Tzu, and that the treatise which passes under his name was a forgery of later times. This theory is rejected by the compilers of the great Catalogue of Ch'ien Lung's Library, who represent the cream of Chinese scholarship in the eighteenth century.

Although Lieh Tzu's work has evidently passed through the hands of many editors and gathered numerous accretions, there remains a considerable nucleus which in all probability was committed to writing by Lieh Tzu's immediate disciples, and is therefore older than the genuine parts of Chuang Tzu. There are some obvious analogies between the two authors, and indeed a certain amount of matter common to both; but on the whole Lieh Tzu's book bears an unmistakable impress of its own. The geniality of its tone contrasts with the somewhat hard brilliancy of Chuang Tzu, and a certain kindly sympathy with the aged, the poor and the humble of this life, not excluding the brute creation, makes itself felt throughout. The opposition between Taoism and Confucianism is not so sharp as we find it in Chuang Tzu, and Confucius himself is treated with much greater respect. This alone is strong evidence in favour of the priority of Lieh Tzu, for there is no doubt that the breach between the two systems widened as time went on. Lieh Tzu's work is about half as long as Chuang Tzu's, and is now divided into eight

{p. 14}

books. The seventh of these deals exclusively with the doctrine of the egoistic philosopher Yang Chu, and has therefore been omitted altogether from the present selection.

Nearly all the Taoist writers are fond of parables and allegorical tales, but in none of them is this branch of literature brought to such perfection as in Lieh Tzu, who surpasses Chuang Tzu himself as a master of anecdote. His stories are almost invariably pithy and pointed. Many of them evince not only a keen sense of dramatic effect, but real insight into human nature. Others may appear fantastic and somewhat wildly imaginative. The story of the man who issued out of solid rock (p. 47) is a typical one of this class. It ends, however, with a streak of ironical humour which may lead us to doubt whether Lieh Tzu himself really believed in the possibility of transcending natural laws. His soberer judgment appears in other passages, like the following: 'That which has life must by the law of its being come to an end; and the end can no more be avoided than the living creature can help having been born. So that he who hopes to perpetuate his life or to shut out death is deceived in his calculations.' That leaves little doubt as to the light in which Lieh Tzu would have regarded the later Taoist speculations on the elixir of life. Perhaps the best solution of the problem is the theory I have already mentioned: that the 'Lieh Tzu' which we possess now, while containing a solid and authentic core of the Master's own teaching, has been

{p. 15}

overlaid with much of the decadent Taoism of the age that followed.

Of this third period little need be said here. It is represented in literature by the lengthy treatise of Huai-nan Tzu, the spurious episodes in Lieh Tzu and Chuang Tzu, and a host of minor writers, some of whom tried to pass off their works as the genuine relics of ancient sages. Chang Chan, an officer of the Banqueting Court under the Eastern Chin dynasty (fourth century A.D.), is the author of the best commentary on Lieh Tzu; extracts from it, placed between inverted commas, will be found in the following pages. In the time of Chang Chan, although Taoism as a philosophical system had long run its course, its development into a national religion was only just beginning, and its subsequent influence on literature and art is hardly to be over-estimated. It supplied the elements of mystery, romance and colour which were needed as a set-off against the uncompromising stiffness of the Confucian ideal. For reviving and incorporating in itself the floating mass of folklore and mythology which had come down from the earliest ages, as well as for the many exquisite creations of its own fancy, it deserves the lasting gratitude of the Chinese people.

{p. 16}


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Next: Book I: Cosmogony

BOOK I
Cosmogony
Our Master Lieh Tzu dwelt on a vegetable plot in the Chêng State for forty years, and no man knew him for what he was. The Prince, his Ministers, and all the State officials looked upon him as one of the common herd. A time of dearth fell upon the State, and he was preparing to migrate to Wei, when his disciples said to him: 'Now that our Master is going away without any prospect of returning, we have ventured to approach you, hoping for instruction. Are there no words from the lips of Hu-Ch'iu Tzu-lin that you can impart to us? Lieh Tzu smiled and said: 'Do you suppose that Hu Tzu dealt in words? However, I will try to repeat to you what my Master said on one occasion to Po-hun Mou-jên.

A fellow-disciple. Out of modesty, Lieh Tzu does not say that the teaching was imparted directly to himself.

I was standing by and heard his words, which ran as, follows:--

"There is a Creative Principle which is itself uncreated; there is a Principle of Change which is itself unchanging. The Uncreated is able to create life; the Unchanging is

{p. 17}

able to effect change. That which is produced cannot but continue producing; that which is evolved cannot but continue evolving. Hence there is constant production and constant evolution. The law of constant production and of constant evolution at no time ceases to operate.

The commentator says: 'That which is once involved in the destiny of living things can never be annihilated.'

So is it with the Yin and the Yang, so is it with the Four Seasons.

The Yin and the Yang are the Positive and Negative Principles of Nature, alternately predominating in day and night.

The Uncreated we may surmise to be Alone in itself.

'The Supreme, the Non-Engendered--how can its reality be proved? We can only suppose that it is mysteriously One, without beginning and without end.'

The Unchanging goes to and fro, and its range is illimitable. We may surmise that it stands Alone, and that its Ways are inexhaustible."

'In the Book of the Yellow Emperor it is written: "The Spirit of the Valley dies not; it may be called the Mysterious Feminine. The issuing-point of the Mysterious Feminine must be regarded as the Root of the Universe. Subsisting to all eternity, it uses its force without effort."

The Book of the Yellow Emperor is no longer extant, but

{p. 18}

the above passage is now incorporated in the Tao Tê Ching, and attributed to Lao Tzu.

'That, then, which engenders all things is itself unengendered; that by which all things are evolved is itself untouched by evolution. Self-engendered and self-evolved, it has in itself the elements of substance, appearance, wisdom, strength, dispersion and cessation. Yet it would be a mistake to call it by any one of these names.

*        *        *

The Master Lieh Tzu said: 'The inspired men of old regarded the Yin and the Yang as controlling the sum total of Heaven and Earth. But that which has substance is engendered from that which is devoid of substance; out of what then were Heaven and Earth engendered?

'They were engendered out of nothing, and came into existence of themselves.'

'Hence we say, there is a great Principle of Change, a great Origin, a great Beginning, a great Primordial Simplicity. In the great Change substance is not yet main est. In the great Origin lies the beginning of substance. In the great Beginning, lies the beginning of material form.

'After the separation of the Yin and the Yang, when classes of objects assume their forms.'

In the great Simplicity lies the beginning of essential

{p. 18}

qualities. When substance, form and essential qualities are still indistinguishably blended together it is called Chaos. Chaos means that all things are chaotically intermixed and not yet separated from one another. The purer and lighter elements, tending upwards, made the Heavens; the grosser and heavier elements, tending downwards, made the Earth. Substance, harmoniously proportioned, became Man; and, Heaven and Earth containing thus a spiritual element, all things were evolved and produced.'

*        *        *

The Master Lieh Tzu said: 'The virtue of Heaven and Earth, the powers of the Sage, and the uses of the myriad things in Creation, are not perfect in every direction. It is Heaven's function to produce life and to spread a canopy over it. It is Earth's function to form material bodies and to support them. It is the Sage's function to teach others and to influence them for good. It is the function of created things to conform to their proper nature. That being so, there are things in which Earth may excel, though they lie outside the scope of Heaven; matters in which the Sage has no concern, though they afford free play to others. For it is clear that that which imparts and broods over life cannot form and support material bodies; that which forms and supports material bodies cannot teach and influence for good; one who teaches and influences for good cannot run counter to natural instincts;

{p. 20}

that which is fixed in suitable environment does not travel outside its own sphere. Therefore the Way of Heaven and Earth will be either of the Yin or of the Yang; the teaching of the Sage will be either of altruism or of righteousness; the quality of created objects will be either soft or hard. All these conform to their proper nature and cannot depart from the province assigned to them.'

*        *        *

On one hand, there is life, and on the other, there is that which produces life; there is form, and there is that which imparts form; there is sound, and there is that which causes sound; there is colour, and there is that which causes colour; there is taste, and there is that which causes taste.

Things that have been endowed with life die; but that which produces life itself never comes to an end. The origin of form is matter; but that which imparts form has no material existence. The genesis of sound lies in the sense of hearing; but that which causes sound is never audible to the ear. The source of colour is vision; but that which produces colour never manifests itself to the eye. The origin of taste lies in the palate; but that which causes taste is never perceived by that sense. All these phenomena are functions of the principle of Inaction.

Wu Wei, Inaction, here stands for the inert, unchanging Tao.

{p. 21}

To be at will either bright or obscure, soft or hard, short or long, round or square, alive or dead, hot or cold, buoyant or sinking, treble or bass, present or absent, black or white, sweet or bitter, fetid or fragrant--this it is to be devoid of knowledge, yet all-knowing, destitute of power, yet all-powerful.

Such is Tao.

*        *        *

On his journey to Wei, the Master Lieh Tzu took a meal by the roadside. His followers espied an old skull, and pulled aside the undergrowth to show it to him. Turning to his disciple Po Fêng, the Master said: 'That skull and I both know that there is no such thing as absolute life or death.

'If we regard ourselves as passing along the road of evolution, then I am alive and he is dead. But looked at from the standpoint of the Absolute, since there is no such principle as life in itself, it follows that there can be no such thing as death.'

This knowledge is better than all your methods of prolonging life, a more potent source of happiness than any other.'

*        *        *

In the Book of the Yellow Emperor it is written: 'When form becomes active it produces not form but

{p. 22}

shadow; when sound becomes active it produces not sound but echo.'

See note on p. 17. This passage does not occur in the Tao Tê Ching.

When Not-Being becomes active, it does not produce Not-Being but Being. Form is something that must come to an end. Heaven and Earth, then, have an end, even as we all have an end. But whether the end is complete we do not know.

'When there is conglomeration, form comes into being; when there is dispersion, it comes to an end. That is what we mortals mean by beginning and end. But although for us, in a state of conglomeration, this condensation into form constitutes a beginning, and its dispersion an end, from the standpoint of dispersion, it is void and calm that constitute the beginning, and condensation into form the end. Hence there is perpetual alternation in what constitutes be timing and end, and the underlying Truth is that there is neither any beginning nor any end at all.'

The course of evolution ends where it started, without a beginning; it finishes up where it began, in Not-Being.

A paradoxical way of stating that there is no beginning and no end.

That which has life returns again into the Lifeless; that which has form returns again into the formless. This, that {p. 23} I call the Lifeless, is not the original Lifelessness. This, that I call the formless, is not the original Formlessness.

'That, which is here termed the Lifeless has formerly possessed life, and subsequently passed into the extinction of death, whereas the original Lifelessness from the beginning knows neither life nor extinction.' We have here again the distinction between the unchanging life-giving Principle (Tao), which is itself without life, and the living things themselves, which are in a perpetual flux between life and death.

That which has life must by the law of its being come to an end; and the end can no more be avoided than the living creature can help having been born. So that he who hopes to perpetuate his life or to shut out death is deceived as to his destiny.

The spiritual element in man is allotted to him by Heaven, his corporeal frame by Earth. The part that belongs to Heaven 'is ethereal and dispersive, the part that belongs to Earth is dense and tending to conglomeration. When the spirit parts from the body, each of these elements resumes its true nature. That is why disembodied spirits are called kuei, which means 'returning', that is, returning to their true dwelling-place.

'The region of the Great Void.'

The Yellow Emperor said: 'If my spirit returns through the gates whence it came, and my bones go back

{p. 24}

to the source from which they sprang, where does the Ego continue to exist?'

*        *        *

Between his birth and his latter end, man passes through four chief stages-infancy, adolescence, old age and death. In infancy, the vital force is concentrated, the will is undivided, and the general harmony of the system is perfect. External objects produce no injurious impression, and to the moral nature nothing can be added. In adolescence, the animal passions are wildly exuberant, the heart is filled with rising desires and preoccupations. The man is open to attack by the objects of sense, and thus his moral nature becomes enfeebled. In old age, his desires and preoccupations have lost their keenness, and the bodily frame seeks for repose. External objects no longer hold the first place in his regard. In this state, though not attaining to the perfection of infancy, he is already different from what he was in adolescence. In death, he comes to his rest, and returns to the Absolute.

*        *        *

Confucius was travelling once over Mount T'ai when he caught sight of an aged man roaming in the wilds. He was clothed in a deerskin, girded with a rope, and was singing as he played on a lute. 'My friend,' said Confucius, 'what is it that makes you so happy?' The old man replied: 'I have a great deal to make me happy. God

{p. 25}

created all things, and of all His creations man is the noblest. It has fallen to my lot to be a man: that is my first ground for happiness. Then, there is a distinction between male and female, the former being rated more highly than the latter. Therefore it is better to be a male; and since I am one, I have a second ground for happiness. Furthermore, some are born who never behold the sun or the moon, and who never emerge from their swaddling-clothes. But I have already walked the earth for the space of ninety years. That is my third ground for happiness. Poverty is the normal lot of the scholar, death the appointed end for all human beings. Abiding in the normal state, and reaching at last the appointed end, what is there that should make me unhappy? ;What an excellent thing it is,' cried Confucius, 'to be able to find a source of consolation in oneself!'

*        *        *

Tzu Kung was tired of study, and confided his feelings to Confucius, saying: 'I yearn for rest.' Confucius replied: 'In life there is no rest.'

'To toil in anxious planning for the future, to slave in bolstering up the bodily frame--these are the businesses of life.'

'Is rest, then, nowhere to be found? 'Oh yes!' replied Confucius; 'look at all the graves in the wilds, all the vaults, all the tombs, all the funeral urns, and you may

{p. 26}

know where rest is to be found.' 'Great, indeed, is Death!' exclaimed Tzu Kung. 'It gives rest to the noble hearted, and causes the base to cower.' 'You are right,' said Confucius. 'Men feel the joy of life, but do not realize its bitterness. They feel the weariness of old age, but not its peacefulness. They think of the evils of death, but not of the repose which it confers.'

*        *        *

Yen Tzu said: 'How excellent was the ancients' view of death!--bringing rest to the good and subjection to the wicked. Death is the boundary-line of Virtue.

That is, Death abolishes all artificial and temporary distinctions between good and evil, which only hold good in this world of relativity.

'The ancients spoke of the dead as kuei-jên (men who have returned). But if the dead are men who have returned, the living are men on a journey. Those who are on a journey and think not of returning have cut themselves off from their home. Should any one man cut himself off from his home, he would incur universal reprobation. But all mankind being homeless, there is none to see the error. Imagine one who leaves his native village, separates himself from all his kith and kin, dissipates his patrimony and wanders away to the four corners of the earth, never to return:--what manner of man is this? The world will surely set him down as a

{p. 27}

profligate and a vagabond. On the other hand, imagine one who clings to respectability and the things of this life, holds cleverness and capacity in high esteem, builds himself up a reputation, and plays the braggart amongst his fellow men without knowing where to stop:--what manner of man, once more, is this? The world will surely look upon him as a gentleman of great wisdom and counsel. Both of these men have lost their way, yet the world will consort with the one, and not with the other. Only the Sage knows with whom to consort and from whom to hold aloof.'

'He consorts with those who regard life and death merely as waking and sleeping, and holds aloof from those who are steeped in forgetfulness of their return.'

*        *        *

Yü Hsiung said: 'Evolution is never-ending. But who can perceive the secret processes of Heaven and Earth? Thus, things that are diminished here are augmented there; things that are made whole in one place suffer loss in another. Diminution and augmentation, fullness and decay are the constant accompaniments of life and death. They alternate in continuous succession, and we are not conscious of any interval. The whole body of spiritual substance progresses without a pause; the whole body of material substance suffers decay without intermission. But we do not perceive the process of completion, nor do we perceive the process of decay. Map, likewise, from

{p. 28}

birth to old age becomes something different every day in face and form, in wisdom and in conduct. His skin, his nails and his hair are continually growing and continually perishing. In infancy and childhood there is no stopping nor respite from change. Though imperceptible while it is going on, it may be verified afterwards if we wait.'

*        *        *

There was once a man in the Ch'i State who was so afraid the universe would collapse and fall to pieces, leaving his body without a lodgment, that he could neither sleep nor eat. Another man, pitying his distress, went to enlighten him. 'Heaven,' he said, 'is nothing more than an accumulation of ether, and there is no place where ether is not. Processes of contraction and expansion, inspiration and expiration are continually taking place up in the heavens. Why then should you be afraid of a collapse?' The man said: 'It is true that Heaven is an accumulation of ether; but the sun, the moon, and the stars--will they not fall down upon us? His informant replied: 'Sun, moon and stars are likewise only bright lights Within this mass of ether. Even supposing they were to fall, they could not possibly harm us by their impact.' 'But what if the earth should fall to pieces? 'The earth,' replied the other, 'is merely an agglomeration of matter, which fills and blocks up the four comers of space. There is no part of it where matter is not. All

{p. 29}

day long there is constant treading and tramping on the surface of the earth. Why then should you be afraid of its falling to pieces? Thereupon the man was relieved of his fears and rejoiced exceedingly. And his instructor was also joyful and easy in mind. But Ch'ang Lu Tzu laughed at them both, saying: 'Rainbows, clouds and mist, wind and rain, the four seasons--these are perfected forms of accumulated ether, and go to make up the heavens. Mountains and cliffs, rivers and seas, metals and rocks, fire and timber--these are perfected forms of agglomerated matter, and constitute the earth. Knowing these facts, who can say that they will never be destroyed? Heaven and earth form only a small speck in the midst of the Void, but they are the greatest things in the sum of Being. This much is certain: even as their nature is hard to fathom, hard to understand, so they will be slow to pass away, slow to come to an end. He who fears lest they should suddenly fall to pieces is assuredly very far from the truth. He, on the other hand, who says that they will never be destroyed has also not reached the right solution. Heaven and earth must of necessity pass away, but neither will revert to destruction apart from the other.

The speaker means that though there is no immediate danger of a collapse, it is certain that our universe must obey the natural law of disintegration, and at some distant date disappear altogether. But the process of decay will be so gradual as to be imperceptible.

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Who, having to face the day of disruption, would not be alarmed?

The Master Lieh Tzu heard of the discussion, and smiling said: 'He who maintains that Heaven and earth are destructible, and he who upholds the contrary, are both equally at fault. Whether they are destructible or not is something we can never know, though in both cases it will be the same for all alike. The living and the dead, the going and the coming, know nothing of each other's state. Whether destruction awaits the world or no, why should I trouble my head about it?

*        *        *

Mr Kuo of the Ch'i State was very rich, while Mr Hsiang of the Sung State was very poor. The latter travelled from Sung to Ch'i and asked the other for the secret of his prosperity. Mr Kuo told him. 'It is because I am a good thief,' he said. 'The first year I began to be a thief, I had just enough. The second year, I had ample. The third year, I reaped a great harvest. And, in course of time, I found myself the owner of whole villages and districts.' Mr Hsiang was overjoyed; he understood the word 'thief' in its literal sense, but he did not understand the true way of becoming a thief. Accordingly, he climbed over walls and broke into houses, grabbing everything he could see or lay hands upon. But before very long his thefts brought him into trouble, and he was stripped even of what he had previously possessed. Thinking

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that Mr Kuo had basely deceived him, Hsiang went to him with a bitter complaint. 'Tell me,' said Mr Kuo, 'how did you set about being a thief?' On learning from Mr Hsiang what had happened, he cried out: 'Alas and alack! You have been brought to this pass because you went the wrong way to work. Now let me put you on the right track. We all know that Heaven has its seasons, and that earth has its riches. Well, the things that I steal are the riches of Heaven and earth, each in their season--the fertilizing rain-water from the clouds, and the natural products of mountain and meadow-land. Thus I grow my grain and ripen my crops, build my walls and construct my tenements. From the dry land I steal winged and four-footed game, from the rivers I steal fish and turtles. There is nothing that I do not steal. For corn and grain, clay and wood, birds and beasts, fishes and turtles are all products of Nature. How can I claim them as mine?

It will be observed that Lieh Tzu anticipates here, in a somewhat different sense, Proudhon's famous paradox: 'La propriété c'est le vol.'

'Yet, stealing in this way from Nature, I bring on myself no retribution. But gold, jade, and precious stones, stores of grain, silk stuffs, and other kinds of property, are things accumulated by men, not bestowed upon us by Nature. So who can complain if he gets into trouble by stealing them?

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Mr Hsiang, in a state of great perplexity, and fearing to be led astray a second time by Mr Kuo, went off to consult Tung Kuo, a man of learning. Tung Kuo said to him: 'Are you not already a thief in respect of your own body? You are stealing the harmony of the Yin and the Yang in order to keep alive and to maintain your bodily form. How much more, then, are you a thief with regard to external possessions! Assuredly, Heaven and earth cannot be dissociated from the myriad objects of Nature. To claim any one of these as your own betokens confusion of thought. Mr Kuo's thefts are carried out in a spirit of justice, and therefore bring no retribution. But your thefts were carried out in a spirit of self-seeking and therefore landed you in trouble. Those who take possession of property, whether public or private, are thieves.

By 'taking possession of public property', as we have seen, Lieh Tzu means utilizing the products of Nature open to all--rain and the like.

Those who abstain from taking property, public or private, are also thieves.

'For no one can help possessing a body, and no one can help acquiring some property or other which cannot be got rid of with the best will in the world. Such thefts are unconscious thefts.'

The great principle of Heaven and earth is to treat public property as such and private property as such. Knowing

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this principle, which of us is a thief, and at the same time which of us is not a thief?'

The object of this anecdote is to impress us with the unreality of mundane distinctions. Lieh Tzu is not much interested in the social aspect of the question. He is not an advocate of communism, nor does he rebel against the common-sense view that theft is a crime which must be punished. With him, everything is intended to lead up to the metaphysical standpoint.

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Next: Book II: The Yellow Emperor