Tao Te Ching - Endnotes

Endnotes

Throughout the book, all renditions of Latinized Chinese words follows the Wade-Giles romanization system. However, because most readers are probably more familiar with the name Laozi and Tao Te Ching, romanization for these two term were retained. —⁠S.E. Editor ↩
Much of what is referred in the past two paragraphs that is not directly related to the Tao Te Ching is not included in this ebook production, but the paragraphs are retained for context. —⁠S.E. Editor ↩
The rest of the “Preface” by Legge solely concerns his translation of Chuang-tzŭ and other shorter Taoist works, which was originally included in his work Sacred Books of the East, Vol. XXXIX and XL as published. Because these has no relevance to this ebook production of the Tao Te Ching, they are omitted. —⁠S.E. Editor ↩
The “appendixes” referred here by Legge is not included in this ebook production. —⁠S.E. Editor ↩
The sixth chapter of Laozi’s treatise, that about “the Spirit of the Valley,” is referred to in Lieh-tzŭ (I 1 b), as being from Huang Ti, from which the commentator Tu Tao-chien (about AD 1300) takes occasion to say: “From which we know that Laozi was accustomed to quote in his treatise passages from earlier records⁠—as when he refers to the remarks of ‘some sage,’ of ‘some ancient,’ of ‘the sentence-makers,’ and of ‘some writer on war.’ In all these cases he is clearly introducing the words of earlier wise men. The case is like that of Confucius when he said, ‘I am a transmitter and not a maker,’ etc.” Found in Chiao Hung, in loc. ↩
See in books IX, X, and XII. ↩
In the present district of Lingbao, Shanzhou, province of Henan. ↩
In an ordinary Student’s Manual I find a note with reference to this incident to which it may be worth while to give a place here:⁠—The warden, it is said, set before Laozi a dish of tea; and this was the origin of the custom of tea-drinking between host and guest (see the 幼學故事尋源, ch. 7, on “Food and Drink”). ↩
The earlier old man of the ho-side is styled in Chinese 河上丈人; the other 河上公; but the designation have the same meaning. Some critical objections to the genuineness of the latter’s commentary on the ground of the style are without foundation. ↩
See Chiao Hung’s Wings or Helps, ch. v p. 11 a. ↩
Notes on Chinese Literature, p. 173. ↩
A section of this introduction here is omitted as it solely concerned of the book Chuang-tzŭ and other writings by the former’s namesake, which are not included in this ebook production. —⁠S.E. Editor ↩
Language and Languages, pp. 184, 185. ↩
Natur. Quaest. lib. II cap. xiv. ↩
Martineau’s Types of Ethical Theory, I p. 286, and his whole Conjectural History of Spinoza’s Thought. ↩
道 is equivalent to the Greek ἡ ὁδός, the way. Where this name for the Christian system occurs in our Revised Version of the New Testament in the Acts of the Apostles, the literal rendering is adhered to, Way being printed with a capital W. See Acts 9:2; 19:9; 22:4; 24:14; 24:22. ↩
大塗. The Kʽang-hsi dictionary defines tʽu by lu, road or way. Medhurst gives “road.” Unfortunately, both Morrison and Williams overlooked this definition of the character. Giles has also a note in loc., showing how this synonym settles the original meaning of Tao in the sense of “road.” ↩
The Tao Te Ching, ch. 25 and Chuang-tzŭ, XIII par. 1. ↩
See Strange Stories from a Chinese Studio, vol. i p. 1 note 2. ↩
Kuang Chêng-tzŭ heads the list of characters in Ko Hung’s History of Spirit-Like Immortals (神仙傳), written in our fourth century. “He was,” it is said, “an immortal of old, who lives on the hill of Kʽung-tung in a grotto of rocks.” ↩
For this sentence we find in Mr. Balfour:⁠—“Spirits of the dead, receiving it, become divine; the very gods themselves owe their divinity to its influence; and by it both heaven and earth were produced.” The version of it by Mr. Giles is too condensed:⁠—“Spiritual beings drew their spirituality thereform, while the universe became what we see it now.” ↩
Compare also bk. XXII parr. 7, 8, and XXIII par. 10. ↩
Mr. Balfour had given for this sentence:⁠—“In the beginning of all things there was not even nothing. There were no names; these arose afterwards.” In his critique on Mr. Balfour’s version in 1882, Mr. Giles proposed:⁠—“At the beginning of all things there was nothing; but this nothing had no name.” He now in his own version gives it, “At the beginning of the beginning, even nothing did not exist. Then came the period of the nameless;”⁠—an improvement, certainly, on the other; but which can hardly be accepted as the correct version of the text. ↩
The Tao Te Ching, ch. 14; et al. ↩
Ch. 50. ↩
That is, between heaven and earth. ↩
Quoted in the Amplification of the Sixteen Precepts or Maxims of the second emperor of the present dynasty by his son. The words are from Dr. Milne’s version of The Sacred Edict, p. 137. ↩
In his index of the Tripiṭaka, Mr. Bunyio Nanjio (p. 359) assigns Liu Mi and his work to the Yüen dynasty. In a copy of the work in my possession they are assigned to that of Sung. The author, no doubt, lived under both dynasties⁠—from the Sung to the Yüen. ↩
See bk. XV par. 1. ↩
Bk. XI par. 5. ↩
Bk. XVI par. 2. ↩
Tao Te Ching, ch. 19. ↩
Confucian Analects, XIV 36. ↩
Julien translates this by “il erre à l’aventure.” In 1861 I rendered it, “He moves as if his feet were entangled.” To one critic it suggests the idea of a bundle or wisp of brushwood rolled about over the ground by the wind. ↩
The character may mean “the old boy,” and so understood have given rise to various fabulous legends; that his mother had carried him in her womb for seventy-two years (some say, for eighty-one), and that when born the child had the white hair of an old man. Julien has translated the fabulous legend of Ko Hung of our fourth century about him. By that time the legends of Buddhism about Śākyamuni had become current in China, and were copied and applied to Laozi by his followers. Looking at the meaning of the two names, I am surprised no one has characterized Laozi as the Chinese Seneca. ↩
Kʽang-sang Tzŭ is evidently the Kêng-sang Chʽu of Chuang’s book XXIII. Wei-lei Hsü is supposed by Ssŭ-ma Chên of the Tʽang dynasty, who called himself the Lesser Ssŭ-ma, to be the name of a book; one, in that case, of the lost books of Chuang. But as we find the “Hill of Wei-lei” mentioned in bk. XXIII as the scene of Kʽang-sang Tzŭ’s Taoistic labours and success, I suppose that Chʽien’s reference is to that. The names are quoted by him from memory, or might be insisted on as instances of different readings. ↩
體道, “Embodying the Tao.” The author sets forth, as well as the difficulty of his subject would allow him, the nature of the Tao in itself, and its manifestation. To understand the Tao one must be partaker of its nature.

Par. 3 suggests the words of the apostle John, “He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love.” Both the Tao, Laozi’s ideal in the absolute, and its Tê, or operation, are comprehended in his chapter, the latter being the Tao with the name, the Mother of all things. See the third chapter of the introduction. ↩
養牲, “The Nourishment of the Person.” But many of Ho-shang Kung’s titles are more appropriate than this.

The chapter starts with instances of the antinomies, which suggest to the mind each of them the existence of its corresponding opposite; and the author finds in them an analogy to the “contraries” which characterize the operation of the Tao, as stated in chapter 40. He then proceeds to describe the action of the sage in par. 3 as in accordance with this law of contraries; and, in par. 4, that of heaven and earth, or what we may call nature, in the process of the vegetable world.

Par. 2 should be rhymed, but I could not succeed to my satisfaction in the endeavour to rhyme it. Every one who can read Chinese will see that the first four members rhyme. The last two rhyme also, the concluding 隨 being pronounced so;⁠—see the Kʽang-hsi dictionary in voc. ↩
安民, “Keeping the People at Rest.” The object of the chapter is to show that government according to the Tao is unfavourable to the spread of knowledge among the people, and would keep them rather in the state of primitive simplicity and ignorance, thereby securing their restfulness and universal good order. Such is the uniform teaching of Laozi and his great follower Chuang-tzŭ, and of all Taoist writers. ↩
無源, “The Fountainless.” There is nothing before the Tao; it might seem to have been before God. And yet there is no demonstration by it of its presence and operation. It is like the emptiness of a vessel. The second character = 沖 = 盅;⁠—see Kʽang-hsi on the latter. The practical lesson is, that in following the Tao we must try to be like it. ↩
虛用, “The Use of Emptiness.” Quiet and unceasing is the operation of the Tao, and effective is the rule of the sage in accordance with it.

The grass-dogs in par. 1 were made of straw tied up in the shape of dogs, and used in praying for rain; and afterwards, when the sacrifice was over, were thrown aside and left uncared for. Heaven and earth and the sages dealt so with all things and with the people; but the illustration does not seem a happy one. Both Chuang-tzŭ and Huai-nan mention the grass-dogs. See especially the former, XIV, 25 a, b. In that book there is fully developed the meaning of this chapter. The illustration in par. 2 is better. The Chinese bellows is difference to look at from ours, but the principle is the same in the construction of both. The par. concludes in a way that lends some countenance to the later Taoism’s dealing with the breath. ↩
成象, “The Completion of Material Forms.” This title rightly expresses the import of this enigmatical chapter; but there is a foundation laid in it for the development of the later Taoism, which occupies itself with the prolongation of life by the management of the breath (氣) or vital force.

“The valley” is used metaphorically as a symbol of “emptiness” or “vacancy;” and “the spirit of the valley” is the something invisible, yet almost personal, belonging to the Tao, which constitutes the Tê (德) in the name of our Ching. “The spirit of the valley” has come to be a name for the activity of the Tao in all the realm of its operation. “The female mystery” is the Tao with a name of chapter 1, which is “the Mother of all things.” All living beings have a father and mother. The processes of generation and production can hardly be imaged by us but by a recognition of this fact; and so Laozi thought of the existing realm of nature⁠—of life⁠—as coming through an evolution (not a creation) from the primal air or breath, dividing into two, and thence appearing in the forms of things, material and immaterial. The chapter is found in Lieh-tzŭ (I 1 b) quoted by him from a book of Huang-ti; and here Laozi has appropriated it, and made it his own. See the Introduction. ↩
韜光, “Sheathing the Light.” The chapter teaches that one’s best good is realised by not thinking of it, or seeking for it. Heaven and earth afford a pattern to the sage, and the sage affords a pattern to all men. ↩
易性, “The Placid and Contented Nature.” Water, as an illustration of the way of the Tao, is repeatedly employed by Laozi.

The various forms of what is excellent in par. 2 are brought forward to set forth the more, by contrast, the excellence of the humility indicated in the acceptance of the lower place without striving to the contrary. ↩
運夷; but I cannot give a satisfactory rendering of this title. The teaching of the chapter is, that fullness and complacency in success are contrary to the Tao.

The first clauses of the two sentences in par. 1, 持而盈之, 揣而銳之, 銳而揣之, are instances of the “inverted” style not uncommon in the oldest composition. “The way of Heaven” = “the Heavenly Tao” exemplified by man. ↩
能爲, “Possibilities.” This chapter is one of the most difficult to understand and translate in the whole work. Even Chu Hsi was not able to explain the first member satisfactorily. The text of that member seems well supported; but I am persuaded the first clause of it is somehow corrupt.

The whole seems to tell what can be accomplished by one who is possessed of the Tao. In par. 3 he appears free from all self-consciousness in what he does, and of all self-satisfaction in the results of his doing. The other two paragraphs seem to speak of what he can do under the guidance of the Tao for himself and for others. He can by his management of his vital breath bring his body to the state of Taoistic perfection, and keep his intelligent and animal souls from being separated, and he can rule men without purpose and effort. “The gates of heaven” in par. 2 is a Taoistic phrase for the nostrils as the organ of the breath;⁠—see the commentary of Ho-shang Kung. ↩
無用, “The Use of what has no Substantive Existence.” The three illustrations serve to set forth the freedom of the Tao from all preoccupation and purpose, and the use of what seems useless. ↩
檢欲, “The Repression of the Desires.” Government in accordance with the Tao seeks to withdraw men from the attractions of what is external and pleasant to the senses and imagination, and to maintain the primitive simplicity of men’s ways and manners. Compare chap. 2. The five colours are black, red, green or blue, white, and yellow; the five notes are those of the imperfect Chinese musical scale, our G, A, B, D, E; the five tastes are salt, bitter, sour, acrid, and sweet.

I am not sure that Wang Pi has caught exactly the author’s idea in the contrast between satisfying the belly and satisfying the eyes; but what he says is ingenious: “In satisfying the belly one nourishes himself; in gratifying the eyes he makes a slave of himself.” ↩
厭恥, “Loathing Shame.” The chapter is difficult to construe, and some disciples of Chu Hsi had to ask him to explain it as in the case of ch. 10. His remarks on it are not to my mind satisfactory. Its object seems to be to show that the cultivation of the person according to the Tao, is the best qualification for the highest offices, even for the government of the world. Par. 3 is found in Chuang-tzŭ (XI 18 b) in a connection which suggests this view of the chapter. It may be observed, however, that in him the position of the verbal characters in the two clauses of the paragraph is the reverse of that in the text of Ho-shang Kung, so that we can hardly accept the distinction of meaning of the two characters given in his commentary, but must take them as synonyms. Professor Gabelentz gives the following version of Chunag-tzŭ: “Darum, gebraucht er seine Person achtsam in der Verwaltung des Reiches, so mag man ihm die Reichsgewalt anvertrauen;⁠ ⁠… liebend (schonend)⁠ ⁠… übertragen.” ↩
贊玄, “The Manifestation of the Mystery.” The subject of par. 1 is the Tao, but the Tao in its operation, and not the primal conception of it, as entirely distinct from things, which rises before the mind in the second paragraph. The Chinese characters which I have translated “the equable,” “the inaudible,” and “the subtle,” are now pronounced, yi, hsi, and wei, and in 1823 Rémusat fancied that they were intended to give the Hebrew Tetragrammaton יהוה‎ which he thought had some to Laozi somehow from the west, or been found by him there. It was a mere fancy or dream; and still more so is the recent attempt to revive the notion by Victor von Strauss in 1870, and Dr. Edkins in 1884. The idea of the latter is specially strange, maintaining, as he does, that we should read the characters according to their old sounds. Laozi has not in the chapter a personal being before his mind, but the procedure of his mysterious Tao, the course according to which the visible phenomena take place, incognisable by human sense and capable of only approximate description by term appropriate to what is within the domain of sense. See the “Introduction” ch. 3, par. 8. ↩
顯德, “The Exhibition of the Quality,” that is, of the Tao, which has been set forth in the preceding chapter. Its practical outcome is here described in the masters of it of old, who in their own weakness were yet strong in it, and in their humility were mighty to be to be co-workers with it for the good of the world.

The variety of the reading in par. 4 is considerable, but not so as to affect the meaning. This par. is found in Huai-nan (XII, 23 a) with an unimportant variation. From the illustration to which it is subjoined he understood the fullness, evidently as in ch. 9, as being that of a vessel filled to overflowing. Both here and there such fullness is used metaphorically of a man overfull of himself; and then Laozi slides into another metaphor, that of a worn-out garment. The text of par. 3 has been variously tampered with. I omit the 久 of the current copies, after the example of the editors of the great recension of the Yung-lê period (AD 1403⁠–⁠1424) of the Ming dynasty. ↩
歸根, “Returning to the Root.” The chapter exhibits the operation of the Tao in nature, in man, and in government; an operation silent, but all-powerful; unaccompanied with any demonstration of its presence, but great in its results.

An officer receives a charge or commission from his superior (受命); when he reports the execution of it he is said 復命. So all animate things, including men, receive their charge from the Tao as to their life, and when they have fulfilled it they are represented as reporting that fulfilment; and the fulfilment and report are described as their unchanging rule, so that they are the Tao’s impassive instruments, having no will or purpose of their⁠—according to Laozi’s formula of “doing nothing and yet doing all things (無爲而無不爲).”

The getting to possess the Tao, or to be an embodiment of it, follows the becoming of heaven or heaven-like; and this is in accordance with the saying in the fourth chapter that “the Tao might seem to have been before God.” But, in Chuang-tzŭ especially, we often find the full possession of the Tao is exempt from all danger of decay, is generally illustrated by a reference to the utterances in ch. 50; as if Laozi did indeed see in the Tao a preservative against death. ↩
淳風, “The Unadulterated Influence.” The influence is that of the Tao, as seen in the earliest and paradisiacal times. The two chapters that follow are closely connected with this, showing how the silent, passionless influence of the Tao was gradually and injuriously superseded by “the wisdom of the world,” in the conduct of government. In the first sentence there is a small various reading of 不 for 下, but it does not affect the meaning of the passage. The first clause of par. 2 gives some difficulty; 其貴言, “they made their words valuable or precious,” i.e. “they seldom spake;” cp. 1 Samuel 3:1. ↩
俗薄, “The Decay of Manners.” A sequel to the preceding chapter, and showing also how the general decay of manners afforded opportunity for the display of certain virtues by individuals. Observe “the Great Tao,” occurring here for the first time as the designation of “the Tao.” ↩
還淳, “Return to the Unadulterated Influence.” The chapter desires a return to the simplicity of the Tao, and shows how superior the result would be to that of the more developed systems of morals and government which had superseded it. It is closely connected with thte two chapters that precede. Laozi’s call for the renunciation of the methods of the sages and rulers in lieu of his fancied paradisiacal state is repeated ad nauseam by Chuang-tzŭ. ↩
異俗, “Being Different from Ordinary Men.” The chapter sets forth the difference to external appearance which the pursuit and observance of the Tao produces between its votaries and others; and Laozi speaks in it as himself an example of the former. In the last three chapters he has been advocating the cause of the Tao against the learning and philosophy of the other school of thinkers in the country. Here he appears as having renounced learning, and found an end to the troubles and anxieties of his own mind; but at the expense of being misconceived and misrepresented by others. Hence the chapter has an autobiographical character.

Having stated the fact following the renunciation of learning, he proceeds to dwell upon the troubles of learning in the rest of par. 1. Until the votary of learning knows everything, he has no rest. But the instances which he adduces of his are not striking nor easily understood. I cannot throw any light on the four lines about the “yes” and the “yea.”

Confucius (Ana. XVI, viii) specifies three things of which the superior man stands in awe; and these and others of a similar nature may have been the things which Laozi had in his mind. The nursing-mother at the end is, no doubt, the Tao in operation, “with a name,” as in ch. 1; “the mysterious virtue” of chapters 51 and 52. ↩
虛心, “The Empty Heart.” But I fail to see the applicability of the title. The subject of the chapter is the Tao in its operation. This is the significance of the 德 in the first clause or line, and to render it by “virtue,” as Julien and Chalmers do, only serves to hide the meaning. Julien, however, says that “the virtue is that of the Tao;” and he is right in taking 從, the last character of the second line, as having the sense of “from,” “the source from,” and not, as Chalmers does, in the sense of “following.”

Laozi’s mind is occupied with a very difficult subject⁠—to describe the production of material forms of the Tao; how or from what, he does not say. What I have rendered “semblances,” Julien “les images,” and Chalmers, “forms,” seems, as the latter says, in some way to correspond to the “Eternal Ideas” of Plato in the Divine Mind. But Laozi had no idea of “personality” in the Tao. ↩
益謙, “The Increase granted to Humility.” This title rightly expresses the subject-matter of the chapter. I cannot translate the first clause otherwise than I have done. It was an old saying, which Laozi found and adopted. Whether it was intended to embrace all the cases which are mentioned may be questioned, but he employs it so as to make it do so.

“The emptiness” which becomes full is literally the hollowness of a cavity in the ground which is sure to be filled by overflowing water;⁠—see Mencius, IV ii 18. “The worn out” is explained by the withered foliage of a tree, which comes out new and fresh in the next spring. I have taken the first sentence of par. 2 as Wu Chʽêng does;⁠—see his commentary in loc. ↩
虛無, “Absolute Vacancy.” This, I think, is the meaning of the title, “Emptiness and Nothingness,” as entire conformity to the Tao in him who professes to be directed by it. Such a one will be omnipotent in his influence in all others. The Tao in him will restrain all (spasmodic) loquacity. Those who are described in par. 2 as “failing” are not to be thought of as bad men, men given up, as Julien has it, au crime. They are simply ordinary men, who have failed in their study of the Tao and practice of it, but are won to truth and virtue by the man whom the author has in mind. As we might expect, however, the mention of such men has much embarrassed the commentators.

Compare the concluding sentence with the one at the end of par. 1 in ch. 17. ↩
苦恩, “Painful Graciousness.” The chapter should be so designated. This concludes the subject of the two previous chapters⁠—pursuing the course, the course of the unemotional Tao without vain effort or display.

The remnants of food were not used as sacrificial offerings;⁠—see the Li Chi (vol. xxvii p. 82). In what I have rendered by “a tumour attached to the body,” the 行 is probably, by a mistake, for 形;⁠—see a quatation by Wu Chʽêng from Ssŭ-ma Chʽien. “Which all dislike” is, literally, “Things are likely to dislike them,” the “things” being “spirits and men,” as Wu explains the term. ↩
象玄, “Representations of the Mystery.” In this chapter Lao approaches very near to give an answer to the questions as to what the Tao is, and yet leaves the reader disappointed. He commences by calling it “a thing (物);” but that term does not necessitate our regarding it as “material.” We have seen in the preceding chapter that it is used to signify “spirits and men.” Nor does his going on to speak of it as “chaotic (混成)” necessarily lead us to conceive it as made up of the “material elements of things;” we have the same term applied in ch. 14 to the three immaterial constituents there said to be blended in the idea of it.

“He does not know its name,” and he designates it by the term denoting a course of way (Tao, 道), and indicating the phenomenal attribute, the method in which all phenomena come before our observation, in their development or evolution. And to distinguish it from all other methods of evolution, he would call it “the Great Method,” and so he employs that combination as its name in ch. 18 and elsewhere; but it cannot be said that this name has fully maintained itself in the writings of his followers. But understood thus, he here says, as in ch. 1, that it is “the Mother of all things.” And yet, when he says that “it was before Heaven and Earth were produced,” he comes very near his affirmations in chapters 1 and 4, that “the nameless Tao was the beginning (or originating cause) of Heaven and Earth,” and “might seem to have been before God.” Was he groping after God if haply he might find Him? I think he was, and he gets so far as to conceive of Him as “the Uncaused Cause,” but comes short of the idea of His personality. The other subordinate causes which he mentions all get their force or power from the Tao, but after all the Tao is simply a spontaneity, evolving from itself, and not acting from a personal will, consciously in the direction of its own wisdom and love. “Who can by searching find out God? Who can find out the Almighty to perfection?”

The predicate of the Tao in the chapter, most perplexing to myself, is “It returns,” in par.3. “It flows away, far away, and comes back;”⁠—are not the three statements together equal to “It is everywhere?” ↩
重德, “The Quality of Gravity.” Gravity and stillness are both attributes of the Tao; and he who cultivates it must not give way to lightness of mind, or hasty action.

The rule for a leader not to separate from his baggage waggons is simply the necessity of adhering to gravity. I have adopted from Han Fei the reading of “the wise prince” for “the sage,” which is found in Ho-shang Kung; and later on the reading of “has lost his root” for his “loses his ministers,” though the latter is found also in Han Fei. ↩
巧用, “Dexterity in Using,” that is, in the application of the Tao. This is the substance of the chapter, celebrating the effective but invisible operation of the Tao, and the impartial exercise of it for the benefit of all men and all things.

I have given the most natural construction of the two characters at the end of par. 1, the only possible construction of them, so far as I can see, suitable to the context. The action of the Tao (non-acting and yet all-efficient) and that of the sage in accordance with it, are veiled by their nature of the sight of ordinary men.

It is more difficult the catch the scope and point of par. 2. If there were not the conditions described in it, it would be hard for even an intelligent onlooker to distinguish between the man who had the skill and the man without it, between his who possessed the Tao, and him who had it not, which would be strange indeed. ↩
反樸, “Returning to Simplicity.” The chapter sets forth humility and simplicity, and artless freedom from all purpose, as characteristic of the man of Tao, such as he was in the primeval time. “The sage” in par. 2 may be “the Son of Heaven,”⁠—the head of all rule in the kingdom, or the feudal lord in a state. ↩
無爲, “Taking no Action.” All efforts made with a purpose are sure to fail. The nature of the Tao necessitates their doing so, and the uncertainty of things and events teaches the same lesson.

That the kingdom or throne is a “spirit-like vessel” has become a common enough saying among the Chinese. Julien has, “L’Empire est comme un vase divin;” but I always shrink from translating 神 by “divine.” Its English analogue is “spirit,” and the idea in the text is based on the immunity of spirit from all material law, and the uncertain issue of attempts to deal with it according to ordinary methods. Wu Chʽêng takes the phrase as equivalent to “superintended by spirits,” which is as inadmissible as Julien’s “divin.” The Tao forbids action with a personal purpose, and all such action is sure to fail in the greatest things as well as in the least. ↩
儉武, “A Caveat against War.” War is contrary to the spirit of the Tao, and, as being so, is productive of misery, and leads to early ruin. It is only permissible in a case of necessity, and even then its spirit and tendencies must be guarded against.

In translating 果 by “striking a decisive blow,” I have, no doubt, followed Julien’s “frapper un coup décisif.” The same 果 occurs six times in par. 3, followed by 而, and Chiao Hung says that in all but the first instance the 而 should be taken as equivalent to 於, so that we should have to translate, “He is determined against being vain,” etc. But there is no necessity for such a construction of 而.

“Weakness” and not “strength” is the character of the Tao; hence the lesson in par. 4. ↩
偃武, “Stilling War.” The chapter continues the subject of the preceding. The imperially-appointed editors of Wang Pi’s Text and Commentary (1765) say that from the beginning of par. 2 to the end, there is the appearance of text and commentary being mixed together; but they make no alteration in the text as it is found in Ho-shang Kung, and in all other ancient copies.

The concluding sentence will suggest to some readers the words of the Duke of Wellington, that to gain a battle was the saddest thing next to losing it. ↩
聖德. Chalmers translates this by “sagely virtue.” But I cannot adopt that rendering, and find it difficult to supply a better. The “virtue” is evidently the attribute of the Tao come out from the condition of the absolute, and capable of being named. In the former state it has no name; in the latter, it has. Par. 1 and the commencement of par. 4 must both be explained from ch. 1.

The “primordial simplicity” in par. 2 is the Tao in its simplest conception, alone, and by itself, and the 始制 in par. 4 is that Tao come forth into operation and become Tê, the Tê which affords a law for men. From this to the end of the paragraph is very obscure. I have translated from the text of Wang Pi. The text of Ho-shang Kung is different, and he comments upon it as it stands, but to me it is inexplicable. ↩
辨德, “Discriminating between (different) Attributes.” The teaching of the chapter is that the possession of the Tao confers the various attributes which are here most distinguished. It has been objected to it that elsewhere the Tao is represented as associated with dullness and not intelligence, and with weakness and not with strength. But these seem to be qualities viewed from without, and acting on what is beyond itself. Inwardly, its qualities are the very opposite, and its action has the effect of enlightening what is dark, and overcoming what is strong.

More interesting are the predicates in par. 2. Chiao Hung gives the comment on it of the Indian monk, Kumārajīva, “one of the four suns of Buddhism,” and who went to China in AD 401: “To be alive and yet not alive may well be called long; to die and yet not be dead may well be called longevity.” He also gives the view of Lu Nung-shih (AD 1042⁠–⁠1102) that the freedom from change of Lieh-tzŭ, from the death of Chuang-tzŭ, and from extinction of the Buddhists, have all the same meaning as the concluding saying of Laozi here; that the human body is like the covering of the caterpillar or the skin of the snake; that we occupy it but for a passing sojourn. No doubt, Laozi believed in another life for the individual after the present. Many passages in Chuang-tzŭ indicate the same faith. ↩
任成, “The Task of Achievement.” The subject is the greatness of what the Tao, called here by Lao’s own name for it in ch. 25, does; and the unconscious simplicity with which it does it; and then the achievements of the sage who is permeated by the Tao. Par. 2 is descriptive of the influence of the Tao in the vegetable world. The statements and expressions are much akin to those in parts of chapters 2, 10, and 51, and for Ho-shang Kung’s difficult reading of 不名有 some copies give 而不居, as in chapter 2. ↩
仁德, “The Attribute of Benevolence.” But there seems little appropriateness in this title. The subject of the chapter is the inexhaustible efficacy of the Tao for the good of the world.

The Great Image (of the invisible Tao) is a name for the Tao in its operation; as in chapters 14 and 41. He who embodies this in his government will be a centre of attraction for all the world. Or the 天下住 may be taken as a predicate of the holder of the Great Image:⁠—“If he go all under heaven teaching the Tao.” Both constructions are maintained by commentators of note. In par. 2 the attraction of the Tao is contrasted with that of ordinary pleasures and gratifications. ↩
微明, “Minimising the Light;” equivalent, as Wu Chʽêng has pointed out, to the 襲明 of ch. 27.

The gist of the chapter is to be sought in the second paragraph, where we have two instances of the action of the Tao by contraries, supposed always to be for good.

But there is a difficulty in seeing the applicability to this cases mentioned in par. 1. The first case, indeed is merely a natural phenomenon, having no moral character; but the others, as they have been illustrated from historical incidents, by Han Fei and others at least, belong to schemes of selfish and unprincipled ambitious strategy, which it would be injurious to Laozi to suppose that he intended.

Par. 3 is the most frequently quoted of all the passages in our Ching, unless it be the first part of ch. 1. Fishes taken from the deep, and brought into shallow water, can be easily taken or killed; that is plain enough. “The sharp instruments of a state” are not its “weapons of war,” nor its “treasures,” nor its “instruments of government,” that is, its rewards and punishments, though this last is the interpretation often put on them, and sustained by a foolish reference to an incident, real or coined, in the history of the dukedom of Sung. The li chʽi are “contrivances for gain,” machines, and other methods to increase the wealth of a state, but, according to the principles of Laozi, really injurious to it. These should not be shown to the people, whom the Taoistic system would keep in a state of primitive simplicity and ignorance. This interpretation is in accordance with the meaning of the characters, and with the general teaching of Taoism. In no other way can I explain the paragraph so as to justify the place undoubtedly belonging to it in the system. ↩
爲政, “The Exercise of Government.” This exercise should be according to the Tao, doing without doing, governing without government.

The subject of the third paragraph is a feudal prince of the king, and he is spoken of in the first person, to give more vividness to the style, unless the 吾, “I,” may, possibly, be understood of Laozi himself, personating one of them. ↩
論德, “About the Attributes;” of Tao, that is. It is not easy to render Tê here by any other English term than “virtue,” and yet there would be a danger of its thus misleading us in the interpretation of the chapter.

The “virtue” is the activity or operation of the Tao, which is supposed to have come out of its absoluteness. Even Han Fei so defines it here⁠—“Tê is the meritorious work of the Tao.”

In par. 5 we evidently have a resume of the preceding paragraphs, and, as it is historical, I translate them in the past tense; though what took place on the early stage of the world may also be said to go on taking place in the experience of every individual. With some considerable hesitation I have given the subjects in those paragraphs in the concrete, in deference to the authority of Ho-shang Kung and most other commentators. The former says, “By ‘the highest Tê’ is to be understood the rulers of the greatest antiquity, without name or designation, whose virtue was great, and could not be surpassed.” Most ingenious, and in accordance with the Taoistic system, is the manner in which Wu Chʽêng construes the passage, and I am surprised that it has not been generally accepted. By “the higher Tê” he understands, “the Tao,” that which is prior to and above the Tê (上德者, 在德之上, 道也); by “the lower Tê,” benevolence, that which is after and below the Tê which is above benevolence; by “the higher righteousness,” the benevolence which is above righteousness; and by “the higher propriety,” the righteousness which is above propriety. Certainly in the summation of these four paragraphs which we have in the fifth, the subjects of them would appear to have been in the mind of Laozi as thus defined by Wu.

In the reminder of the chapter he goes on to speak depreciatingly of ceremonies and knowledge, so that the whole chapter must be understood as descriptive of the process of decay and deterioration from the early time in which the Tao and its attributes swayed the societies of men. ↩
法本, “The Origin of the Law.” In this title there is a reference to the law given to all things by the Tao, as described in the conclusion of chapter 25. And the Tao affords that law by its passionless, undemonstrative nature, through which in its spontaneity, doing nothing for the sake of doing, it yet does all things.

The difficulty of translation is in the third paragraph. The way in which princes and kings speak depreciatingly of themselves in adduced as illustrating how they have indeed got the spirit of the Tao; and I accept the last epithet as given by Ho-shang Kung, “naveless” (轂), instead of 穀 (= “the unworthy”), which is found in Wang Pi, and has been adopted by nearly all subsequent editors. To see its appropriateness here, we have only to refer back to chapter 11, where the thirty spokes, and the nave, empty to receive the axle, are spoken of, and it is shown how the usefulness of the carriage is derived from that emptiness of the nave. This also enables us to give a fair and consistent explanation of the difficult clause which follows, in which also I have followed the text of Ho-shang Kung. For his 車, Wang Pi has 輿, which also is found in a quotation of it by Huai-nan Tzŭ; but this need not affect the meaning. In the translation of the clause we are assisted by a somewhat similar illustration about a horse in the twenty-fifth of Chuang-tzŭ’s books, par. 10. ↩
去用, “Dispensing with the Use (of Means);”⁠—with their use, that is, as it appears to us. The subject of the brief chapter is the action of the Tao by contraries, leading to a result the opposite of what existed previously, and by means which might seem calculated to produce a contrary result.

In translating par. 2 I have followed Chiao Hung, who finds the key to it in ch. 1. Having a name, the Tao is “the mother of all things;” having no name, it is “the originator of heaven and earth.” But here is the teaching of Laozi:⁠—“If Tao seem to be before God,” Tao itself sprang from nothing. ↩
同異, “Sameness and Difference.” The chapter is a sequel of the preceding, and may be taken as an illustration of the Tao’s proceeding by contraries.

Who the sentence-makers were whose sayings are quoted we cannot tell, but it would have been strange if Laozi had not had a large store of such sentences at this command. The fifth and sixth of those employed by him here are found in Lieh-tzŭ (II 15 a), spoken by Lao in reproving Yang Chu, and in VII 3 a, that heretic appears quoting an utterance of the same kind, with the words, “according to an old saying (古語有之).” ↩
道化, “The Transformations of the Tao.” In par. 2 we have the case of the depreciating epithets given to themselves by kings and princes, which we found before in ch. 39, and a similar lesson is drawn from it. Such depreciation leads to exaltation, and the contrary course of self-exaltation leads to abasement. This latter case is stated emphatically in par. 3, and Laozi says that it was the basis of his teaching. So far therefore we have in this chapter a repetition of the lesson that “the movement of the Tao is by contraries,” and that its weakness is the sure precursor of strength. But the connection between this lesson and what he says in par. 1 it is difficult to trace. Up to this time at least it has baffled myself. The passage seems to give us a cosmogony. “The Tao produced One.” We have already seen that the Tao is “The One.” Are we to understand here that the Tao and The One were one and the same? In this case what would be the significance of the 生 (“produced”)?⁠—that the Tao which had been previously “non-existent” now became “existent,” or capable of being named? This seem to be the view of Ssŭ-ma Kuang (AD 1009⁠–⁠1086).

The most singular form which this view assumes is in one of the treatises on our Ching, attributed to the Taoist patriarch Lü (呂祖道德經解), that “the One is Heaven, which was formed by the congealing of the Tao.” According to another treatise, also assigned to the same Lü (道德真經合解), the One was “the primordial ether;” the Two, “the separation of that into its Yin and Yang constituents;” and the Three, “the production of heaven, earth, and man by these.” In quoting the paragraph, Huai-nan Tzŭ omits 道生一, and commences with 一生二, and his glossarist, Kao Yu, makes out the One to be the Tao, the Two to be Spiritual Intelligences (神明), and the Three to be the Harmonising Breath. From the mention of the Yin and Yang that follows, I believe that Laozi intended by the Two these two qualities or elements in the primordial ether, which would be “the One.” I dare not hazard a guess as to what “the Three” were. ↩
徧用, “The Universal Use (of the action in weakness of the Tao).” The chapter takes us back to the lines of ch. 40, that

“Weakness marks the course
Of Tao’s mighty deeds.”

By “the softest thing in the world” it is agreed that we are to understand “water,” which will wear away the hardest rocks. “Dashing against and overcoming” is a metaphor taken from hunting. Ho-shang Kung says that “what has no existence” is the Tao; it is better to understand by it the unsubstantial air (氣) which penetrates everywhere, we cannot see how.

Compare par. 2 with ch. 2, par. 3. ↩
立戒, “Cautions.” The chapter warns men to let nothing come into competition with the value which they set on the Tao. The Tao is not named, indeed, but the idea of it was evidently in the writer’s mind.

The whole chapter rhymes after a somewhat peculiar fashion; familiar enough, however, to one who is acquainted with the old rhymes of the Book of Poetry. ↩
洪德, “Great or Overflowing Virtue.” The chapter is another illustration of the working of the Tao by contraries.

According to Wu Chʽêng, the action which overcomes cold is that of the yang element in the developing primordial ether; and the stillness which overcomes heat is that of the contrary yin element. These may have been in Laozi’s mind, but the statements are so simple as hardly to need any comment. Wu further says that the purity and stillness are descriptive of the condition of non-action. ↩
儉欲, “The Moderating of Desire or Ambition.” The chapter shows how the practice of the Tao must conduce to contentment and happiness.

In translating par. 1 I have, after Wu Chʽêng, admitted a 車 after the 糞, his chief authority for doing so being that it is so found in a poetical piece by Chang Hêng (AD 78⁠–⁠139). Chu Hsi also adopted this reading (朱子大全, XVIII 7 a). In par. 2 Han Ying has a tempting variation of 多欲 for 可欲, but I have not adopted it because the same phrase occurs elsewhere. ↩
鑒遠, “Surveying what is Far-off.” The chapter is a lesson to men to judge of things according to their internal conviction of similar things in their own experience. Short as the chapter is, it is somewhat mystical. The phrase, “The Tao” or way of Heaven, occurs in it for the first time; and it is difficult to lay down its precise meaning. Laozi would seem to teach that man is a microcosm; and that, if he understand the movements of his own mind, he can understand the movements of all other minds. There are various readings, of which it is not necessary to speak.

I have translated par. 2 in the past tense, and perhaps the first should also be translated so. Most of it is found in Han Ying, preceded by “formerly” or “anciently.” ↩
忘知, “Forgetting Knowledge;”⁠—the contrast between Learning and the Tao. It is only by the Tao that the world can be won.

Chiao Hung commences his quotations of commentary on this chapter with the following Kumārajīva on the second par.:⁠—“He puts it away till he has forgotten all that was bad in it. He then puts away all that is fine about him. He does so till he has forgotten all that was good in it. But the bad was wrong, and the good is right. Having diminished the wrong, and also diminished the right, the process is carried on till they are both forgotten. Passion and desire are both cut off; and his virtue and the Tao are in such union that he does nothing; but though he does nothing, he allows all things to do their own doing, and all things are done.” Such is a Buddhistic view of the passage, not very intelligible, and which I do not endorse.

In a passage in the Narratives of the School (Bk. IX Art. 2), we have a Confucian view of the passage:⁠—“Let perspicacity, intelligence, shrewdness, and wisdom be guarded by stupidity, and the service of the possessor will affect the whole world; let them be guarded by complaisance, and his daring and strength will shake the age; let them be guarded by timidity, and his wealth will be all within the four seas; let them be guarded by humility, and there will be what we call the method of ‘diminishing it, and diminishing it again.’ ” But neither do I endorse this.

My own view of the scope of the chapter has been given above in a few words. The greater part of it is found in Chuang-tzŭ. ↩
任德, “The Quality of Indulgence.” The chapter shows how that quality enters largely into the dealing of the sage with other men, and exercises over them a transforming influence, dominated as it is in him by the Tao.

My version of par. 1 is taken from Dr. Chalmers. A good commentary on it was given by the last emperor but one of the earlier of the two great Sung dynasties, in the period AD 1111⁠–⁠1117:⁠—“The mind of the sage is free from preoccupation and able to receive; still, and able to respond.”

In par. 2 I adopt the reading of 得 (“to get”) instead of the more common 德 (“virtue” or “quality”). There is a passage in Han Ying (IX 3 b, 4 a), the style of which, most readers will probably agree with me in thinking, was moulded on the text before us, though nothing is said of any connection between it and the saying of Laozi. I must regard it as a sequel to the conversation between Confucius and some of his disciples about the principle (Lao’s principle) that “Injury should be recompensed with kindness,” as recorded in the Con. Ana. XIV 36. We read:⁠—“Tzŭ-lu said, ‘When men are good to me, I will also be good to them; when they are not good to me, I will also be not good to them.’ Tzŭ-kung said, ‘When men are good to me, I will also be good to them; when they are not good to me, I will simply lead them on, forwards it maybe or backwards.’ Yen Hui said, ‘When men are good to me, I will also be good to them; when they are not good to me, I will still be good to them.’ The views of the three disciples being thus different, they referred the point to the Master, who said, ‘The words of Tzŭ-lu are such as might be expected among the (wild tribes of) the Man and the Mo; those of Tzŭ-kung, such as might be expected among friends; those of Hui, such as might be expected among relatives and near connections.’ ” This is all. The Master was still far from Laozi’s standpoint, and that of his own favourite disciple, Yen Hui. ↩
貴生, “The Value set on Life.” The chapter sets forth the Tao as an antidote against decay and death.

In par. 1 life is presented to us as intermediate between two non-existences. The words will suggest to many readers those in Job 1:21.

In pars. 2 and 3 I translate the characters 十有三 by “three in ten,” instead of by “thirteen,” as Julien and other translators have done. The characters are susceptible of either translation according to the tone in which we read the 有. They were construed as I have done by Wang Pi; and many of the best commentators have followed in his wake. “The ministers of life to themselves” would be those who eschewed all things, both internal and external, tending to injure health; “the ministers of death,” those who pursued courses likely to cause disease and shorten life; the third three would be those who thought that by mysterious and abnormal courses they could prolong life, but only injured it. Those three classes being thus disposed of, there remains only one in ten rightly using the Tao, and he is spoken of in the next paragraph.

This par. 4 is easy of translation, and the various readings in it are unimportant, differing in this respect from those in par. 3. But the aim of the author in it is not clear. In ascribing such effects to the possession of the Tao, is he “trifling,” as Dr. Chalmers thinks? or indulging the play of his poetical fancy? or simply saying that the Taoist will keep himself out of danger? ↩
養德, “The Operation (of the Tao) in Nourishing Things.” The subject of the chapter is the quiet passionless operation of the Tao in nature, in the production and nourishing of things throughout the seasons of the year;⁠—a theme dwelt on by Laozi, in II 4, X 3, and other places.

The Tao is the subject of all the predicates in par. 1, and what seem the subjects in all but the first member should be construed adverbially.

On par. 2 Wu Chʽêng says that the honour of the Son of Heaven is derived from his appointment by God, and that then the nobility of the feudal princes is derived from him; but in the honour given to the Tao and the nobility ascribed to its operation, we are not to think of any external ordination. There is a strong reading of two of the members of par. 3 in Wang Pi, viz. 亭之毒之 for 成之熟之. This is quoted and predicated of “heaven,” in the Nestorian Monument of Xi’an in the eighth century. ↩
歸元, “Returning to the Source.” The meaning of the chapter is obscure, and the commentators give little help in determining it. As in the preceding chapter, Laozi treats of the operation of the Tao on material things, he seems in this to go on to the operation of it in man, or how he, with his higher nature, should ever be maintaining it in himself.

For the understanding of paragraph 1 we must refer to the first chapter of the treatise, where the Tao, “having no name,” appears as “the Beginning” or “First Cause” of the world, and then, “having a name,” as its “Mother.” It is the same thing or concept in both of its phases, the ideal or absolute, and the manifestation of it in its passionless doings. The old Jesuit translators render this par. by “Mundus principium et causam suam habet in Divino 有 seu actione Divinae sapientiae quae dici potest ejus mater.” So far I may assume that they agreed with me in understanding that the subject of the par. was the Tao.

Par. 2 lays down the law of life for man thus derived from the Tao. The last clause of it is given by the same translators as equivalent to “Unde fit ut post mortem nihil ei timendum sit,”⁠—a meaning which the characters will not bear. But from that clause, and the next par., I am obliged to conclude that even in Laozi’s mind there was the germ of sublimation of the material frame which issued in the asceticism and life-preserving arts of the later Taoism.

Par. 3 seems to indicate the method of “guarding the mother in man,” by watching over the breath, the proto-plastic “one” of ch. 42, the ethereal matter out of which all material things were formed. The organs of this breath in man are the mouth and nostrils (nothing else should be understood here by 兌 and 門;⁠—see the explanations of the former in the last par. of the fifth of the appendixes to the Yi in vol. xvi p. 432); and the management of the breath is the mystery of the esoteric Buddhism and Taoism.

In par. 4 “The guarding what is soft” is derived from the used of “the soft lips” in hiding and preserving the hard and strong teeth.

Par. 5 gives the gist of the chapter:⁠—Man’s always keeping before him the ideal of the Tao, and, without purpose, simply doing whatever he finds to do; Tao-like and powerful in all his sphere of action.

I have followed the reading of the last character but one, which is given by Chiao Hung instead of that found in Ho-shang Kung and Wang Pi. ↩
益證, “Increase of Evidence.” The chapter contrasts government by the Tao with that conducted in a spirit of ostentation and by oppression.

In the “I” of paragraph 1 does Laozi speak of himself? I think he does. Wu Chʽêng understands it of “any man,” i.e. any one in the exercise of government;⁠—which is possible. What is peculiar to my version is the pregnant meaning given to 有如, common enough in the mouth of Confucius. I have adopted it here because of a passage in Liu Hsiang’s Shuo-yüan (XX 13 b), where Laozi is made to say “Excessive is the difficulty of practising the Tao at the present time,” adding that the princes of his age would not receive it from him. On the “Great Tao,” see chapter 25, 34, et al. From the twentieth book of Han Fei (12 b and 13 a) I conclude that he had the whole of this chapter in his copy of our Ching, but he broke it up, after his fashion, into fragmentary utterances, confused and confounding. He gives also some remarkable various readings, one of which (竽, instead of Ho-shang Kung and Wang Pi’s 夸, character 48) is now generally adopted. The passage is quoted in the Kʽang-hsi dictionary under 竽 with this reading. ↩
修觀, “The Cultivation (of the Tao), and the Observation (of its Effects).” The sentiment of the first paragraph is found in the twenty-seventh and other previous chapters⁠—that the noiseless and imperceptible acting of the Tao is irresistible in its influence; and this runs through to the end of the chapter with the additional appeal to the influence of its effects. The introduction of the subject of sacrifices, a religious rite, though not presented to the highest object, will strike the reader as peculiar in our Ching.

The Tê mentioned five times in par. 2 is the “virtue” of the Tao embodied in the individual, and extending from him in all the spheres of his occupation, and is explained differently by Han Fei according to its application; and his example I have to some extent followed.

The force of pars. 3 and 4 is well given by Ho-shang Kung. On the first clause he says, “Take the person of one who cultivates the Tao, and compare it with that of one who does not cultivate it;⁠—which is in a state of decay? and which is in a state of preservation? ↩
玄符, “The Mysterious Charm;” meaning, apparently, the entire passivity of the Tao.

With pars. 1 and 2, compare what is said about the infant in chapters 10 and 20, and about the immunity from dangers such as here described of the disciples of the Tao in ch. 50. My “evil” in the second triplet of par. 3 has been translated by “felicity;” but a reference to the Kʽang-hsi dictionary will show that the meaning which I give to 祥 is well authorised. It is the only meaning allowable here. The third and fourth 曰 in this par. appear in Ho-shang Kung’s text as 日, and he comments on the clauses accordingly; but 曰 is now the received reading. Some light is thrown on this paragraph and the next by an apocryphal conversation attributed to Laozi in Liu Hsiang’s Shuo-yüan, X, 4 a. ↩
玄德, “The Mysterious Excellence.” The chapter gives us a picture of the man of Tao, humble and retiring, oblivious of himself and of other men, the noblest man under heaven.

Par. 1 is found in Chuang-tzŭ (XIII 20 b), not expressly mentioned, as taken from Laozi, but at the end of a string of sentiments, ascribed the “the Master,” some of them, like the two clause here, no doubt belonging to him, and the others, probably Chuang-tzŭ’s own.

Par. 2 is all found in chapters 4 and 52, excepting the short clause in the conclusion. ↩
淳風, “The Genuine Influence.” The chapter shows how government by the Tao is alone effective, and of universal application; contrasting it with the failure of other methods.

After the “weapons of war” in par. 1, one is tempted to take “the sharp implements” in par. 2 as such weapons, but the meaning which I finally adopted, especially after studying chapters 36 and 80, seems more consonant with Laozi’s scheme of thought. In the last member of the same par., Ho-shang Kung has the strange reading of 法物, and uses it in his commentary; but the better text of 法令 is found both in Huai-nan and Ssŭ-ma Chʽien, and in Wang Pi.

We do not know if the writer were quoting any particular sage in par. 3, or referring generally to the sages of the past;⁠—men like the “sentence-makers” of ch. 41. ↩
順化, “Transformation according to Circumstances;” but this title does not throw light on the meaning of the chapter; nor are we helped to an understanding of it by Han Fei, with his additions and comments (XII 3 b, 4 b), nor by Huai-nan with his illustrations (XII 21 a, b). The difficulty of it is increased by its being separated form the preceding chapter of which it is really the sequel. It contrasts still further government by the Tao with that by the method of correction. The sage is the same in both chapters, his character and government both marked by the opposites or contraries which distinguish the procedure of the Tao as stated in ch. 40. ↩
守道, “Guarding the Tao.” The chapter shows how it is the guarding of the Tao that ensures a continuance of long life, with vigour and success. The abuse of it and other passages in our Ching helped on, I must believe, the later Taoist dreams about the elixir vitae and life-preserving pills. The whole of it, with one or two various readings, is found in Han Fei (VI 4 b⁠–⁠6 a), who speaks twice in his comments of the book.

Par. 1 has been translated, “In governing men and in serving Heaven, there is nothing like moderation.” But by “Heaven” there is not intended “the blue sky” above us, nor any personal Power above it, but the Tao embodied in our constitution, the heavenly element in our nature. The “moderation” is the opposite of what we call “living fast,” “burning the candle at both ends.”

In par. 2 I must read 復, instead of the more common 服. Its meaning is the same as in 復歸其明 in ch. 52, par. 5. Tê is not “virtue” in our common meaning of the term, but “the attributes of the Tao,” as almost always with Laozi. ↩
居位, “Occupying the Throne;” occupying it, that is, according to the Tao, noiselessly and purposelessly, so that the people enjoy their lives, free from all molestation seen and unseen.

Par. 1, that is, in the most quiet and easy manner. The whole of the chapter is given and commented on by Han Fei (VI 6 a⁠–⁠7 b); but very unsatisfactorily.

The more one thinks and reads about the rest of the chapter the more does he agree with the words of Julien:⁠—“It presents the frequent recurrence of the same characters, and appears as insignificant as it is unintelligible, if we give to the Chinese characters their ordinary meaning.”⁠—The reader will observe that we have here the second mention of spirits (the manes; Chalmers, “the ghosts;” Julien, les démons). See ch. 39.

Whatever Laozi meant to teach in par. 2, he laid in it a foundation for the superstition of the later and present Taoism about the spirits of the dead;⁠—such as appeared a few years ago in the “tail-cutting” scare. ↩
謙德, “The Attribute of Humility;”⁠—a favourite theme with Laozi; and the illustration of it from the low-lying stream to which smaller streams flow is also a favourite subject with him. The language can hardly but recall the words of a greater than Laozi:⁠—“He that humbleth himself shall be exalted.” ↩
爲道, “Practising the Tao.” 貴道, “The value set on the Tao,” would have been a more appropriate title. The chapter sets forth that value in various manifestations of it.

Par. 1 For the meaning of 奧, see Confucian Analects, III ch. 13.

Par. 2 I am obliged to adopt the reading of the first sentence of this paragraph given by Huai-nan, 美言可以市尊, 美行可以加人;⁠—see especially his quotation of it in XVIII 10 a, as from a superior man, I have not found his reading anywhere else.

Par. 3 is not easily translated, or explained. See the rules on presenting offerings at the court of a ruler or the kind, in vol. xxvii of the Sacred Books of the East, p. 84, note 3, and also a narrative in the Tso Chuan under the thirty-third year of duke Hsi. ↩
思始, “Thinking in the Beginning.” The former of these two characters is commonly misprinted 恩, and this has led Chalmers to mistranslate them by “The Beginning of Grace.” The chapter sets forth the passionless method of the Tao, and how the sage accordingly accomplishes his objects easily by forestalling in his measures all difficulties. In par. 1 the clauses are indicative, and not imperative, and therefore we have to supplement the text in translating in some such way, as I have done. They give us a cluster of aphorisms illustrating the procedure of the Tao “by contraries,” and conclude with one, which is the chief glory of Laozi’s teaching, though I must think that its value is somewhat diminished by the method in which he reaches it. It has not the prominence in the later teaching of Taoist writers which we should expect, nor is it found (so far as I know) in Chuang-tzŭ, Han Fei, or Huai-nan. It is quoted, however, twice by Liu Hsiang;⁠—see my note on par. 2 of ch. 49.

It follows from the whole chapter that the Taoistic “doing nothing” was not an absolute quiescence and inaction, but had a method in it. ↩
守微, “Guarding the Minute.” The chapter is a continuation and enlargement of the last. Wu Chʽêng, indeed, unites the two, blending them together with some ingenious transpositions and omissions, which is not necessary to discuss. Compare the first part of par. 3 with the last part of par. 1, ch. 29. ↩
淳德, “Pure, unmixed Excellence.” The chapter shows the powerful and beneficent influence of the Tao in government, in contrast with the applications and contrivances of human wisdom. Compare ch. 19. My “simple and ignorant” is taken from Julien. More literally the translation would be “to make them stupid.” My “scourge” in par. 2 is also after Julien’s fléau. ↩
後己, “Putting one’s self Last.” The subject is the power of the Tao, by its display of humility in attracting men. The subject and the way in which it is illustrated are frequent themes in the Ching. See chapters 8, 22, 39, 42, 61, et al.

The last sentence of par. 3 is found also in ch. 22. There seem to be no quotations from the chapter in Han Fei or Huai-nan; but Wu Chʽêng quotes passages from Tung Chung-shu (of the second century BC), and Yang Hsiung (BC 53⁠–⁠AD 18), which seem to show that the phraseology of it was familiar to them. The former says:⁠—“When one places himself in his qualities below others, his person is above them; when he places them behind those of others, his person is before them;” the other, “Men exalt him who humbles himself below them; and give the precedence to him who puts himself behind them.” ↩
三寶, “The Three Precious Things.” This title is taken from par. 2, and suggests to us how the early framer of these titles intended to express by them the subject-matter of their several chapters. The three things are the three distinguishing qualities of the possessor of the Tao, the three great moral qualities appearing in its followers, the qualities, we may venture to say, of the Tao itself. The same phrase is now the common designation of Buddhism in China⁠—the Tri-ratna or Ratna-traya, “the Precious Buddha,” “the Precious Law,” and “the Precious Priesthood (or rather Monkhood) or Church;” appearing also in the “Tri-śaraṇa,” or “formula of the Three Refuges,” what Dr. Eitel calls “the most primitive formula fidei of the early Buddhists, introduced before Southern and Northern Buddhism separated.” I will not introduce the question of whether Buddhism borrowed this designation of Taoism, after its entrance into China. It is in Buddhism the formula of a peculiar church or religion; in Taoism a rule for the character, or the conduct which the Tao demands from all mean. “My Tao” in par. 1 is the reading of Wang Pi; Ho-shang Kung’s text is simply 我. Wang Pi’s reading is now generally adopted.

The concluding sentiment of the chapter is equivalent to the saying of Mencius (VII ii iv 2), “If the ruler of a state love benevolence, he will have no enemy under heaven.” “Heaven” is equivalent to “the Tao,” the course of events⁠—Providence, as we should say. ↩
配天, “Matching Heaven.” The chapter describes the work of the practiser of the Tao as accomplished like that of Heaven, without striving or crying. He appears under the figure of a mailed warrior (士) of the ancient chariot. The chapter is a sequel of the preceding, and is joined on to it by Wu Chʽêng, as is also the next. ↩
玄用, “The Use of the Mysterious (Tao).” Such seems to be the meaning of the title. The chapter teaches that, if war were carried on, or rather avoided, according to the Tao, the result would be success. Laozi’s own statements appear as so many paradoxes. They are examples of the procedure of the Tao by “contraries,” or opposites.

We do not know who the master of the military art referred to was. Perhaps the author only adopted the style of quotation to express his own sentiments. ↩
知難, “The Difficulty of being (rightly) Known.” The Tao comprehends and rules all Laozi’s teachings, as the members of a clan were all in the loins of their first father (宗), and continue to look up to him; and the people of a state are all under the direction of their ruler; yet the philosopher had to complain of not being known. Laozi’s principle and rule or ruler was the Tao. His utterance here is very important. Compare the words of Confucius in the Analects, XIV ch. 37, et al.

Par. 2 is twice quoted by Huai-nan, though his text is not quite the same in both cases. ↩
知病, “The Disease of Knowing.” Here, again, we have the Tao working “by contraries,”⁠—in the matter of knowledge. Compare par. 1 with Confucius’s account of what knowledge is in the Analects, II ch. 17. The par. 1 is found in one place in Huai-nan, lengthened out by the addition of particles; but the variation is unimportant. In another place, however, he seems to have had the correct text before him.

Par. 2 in Han Fei also lengthened out, but with an important variation (不病 for 病病), and I cannot construe his text. His 不 is probably a transcriber’s error. ↩
愛己, “Loving one’s Self.” This title is taken from the expression in par. 4; and the object of the chapter seems to be to show how such loving should be manifested, and to enforce the lesson by the example of the “sage,” the true master of the Tao.

In par. 1 “the great dread” is death, and the things which ought to be feared and maybe feared, are the indulgences of the appetites and passions, which, if not eschewed, tend to shorten life and accelerate the approach of death.

Pars. 2 and 3 are supplementary to 1. For 狹, the second character of Ho-shang Kung’s text in par. 2, Wang Pi reads 狎, which has the same name as the other; and according to the Kʽang-hsi’s dictionary, the two characters are interchangeable. I have also followed Wu Chʽêng in adopting 狎 for the former of the two 厭 in par. 3. Wu adopted this reading from a commentator Liu of Lu-ling. It gives a good meaning, and is supported by the structure of other sentences made on similar lines.

In par. 4 “the sage” must be “the ruler who is a sage,” a master of the Tao, “the king” of ch. 25. He “loves himself,” i.e. his life, and takes the right measures to prolong his life, but without any demonstration that he is doing so.

The above is, I conceive, the correct explanation of the chapter; but as to the Chinese critics and foreign translators of it, it maybe said, “Quot homines, tot sententiae.” In illustration of this I venture to subjoin what is found on it in the old version of the Jesuit missionaries, which has not been previously printed:⁠—

Prima explicatio juxta interpretes.

Populus, ubi jam principis iram non timet, nihil non audet ut jugum excutiat, resque communis ad extremum discrimen adducitur.

Ambitio principis non faciat terram angustiorem, et vectigalium magnitudine alendo populo insufficientem; numquam populus patriae pertaesus alias terras quaeret.

Vitae si non taedet, neque patrii soli taedebit.

Quare sanctus sibi semper attentus potentiam suam non ostentat.

Quia vere se amat, non se pretiosum facit; vel quia sibi recte consulit non se talem aestimat cujus felicitati et honori infelices populi unice servire debeant, immo potius eum se reputat qui populorum felicitati totum se debeat impendere.

Ergo illud resecat, istud amplectitur.

Alia explicatio.

Populus si non ita timet principis majestatem, sed facile ad eum accedit, majestas non minuitur, immo ad summum pervenit.

Vectigalibus terra si non opprimitur, suâ quisque contentus alias terras non quaeret, si se non vexari populus experitur.

Vitae si non taedet, nec patrii soli taedebit.

Quare sanctus majestatis fastum non affectat, immo similem se caeteris ostendit.

Sibi recte consulens, populorum amans, non se pretiosum et inaccessibilem facit.

Quidquid ergo timorem incutere potest, hoc evitat; quod amorem conciliat et benignitatem, se demonstrat hoc eligi et ultro amplectitur.

↩
任爲. “Allowing Men to take their Course.” The chapter teaches that rulers should not be hasty to punish, especially by the infliction of death. Though they may seem to err in leniency, yet heaven does not allow offenders to escape.

While heaven hates the ill-doer, yet we must not always conclude from its judgements that every one who suffers from them is an ill-doer; and the two lines which rhyme, and illustrate this point, are equivalent to the sentiment in our Old Book, “Clouds and darkness are round about Him.” They are ascribed to Laozi by Lieh-tzŭ (VI 7 a); but, it has been said, that they are quoted by him “in an entirely different connection.” But the same text in two different sermons may be said to be in different connections. In Lieh-tzŭ and our Ching the lines have the same meaning, and substantially the same application. Indeed Chang Chan, of our fourth century, the commentator of Lieh-tzŭ, quotes the comment of Wang Pi on this passage, condensing it into, “Who can know the mind of Heaven? Only the sage can do so.” ↩
制惑, “Restraining Delusion.” The chapter sets forth the inefficiency of capital punishment, and warns rulers against the infliction of it. Who is it that superintends the infliction of death? The answer of Ho-shang Kung is very clear:⁠—“It is Heaven, which, dwelling on high and ruling all beneath, takes note of the transgressions of men.” There is a slight variation in the readings of the second sentence of par. 2 in the texts of Ho-shang Kung and Wang Pi, and the reading adopted by Chiao Hung differs a little from them both; but the meaning is the same in them all.

This chapter and the next are rightly joined on to the preceding by Wu Chʽêng. ↩
貪損, “How Greediness Injures.” The want of the nothing-doing Tao leads to the multiplication of exactions by the government, and to the misery of the people, so as to make them think lightly of death. The chapter is a warning for both rulers and people.

It is not easy to determine whether rulers, or people or both, are intended in the concluding sentence of par. 2. ↩
戒強, “A Warning against (trusting in) Strength.” To trust in one’s force is contrary to the Tao, whose strength is more in weakness and humility.

In par. 1 the two characters which I have rendered by “(so it is with) all things” are found in the texts of both Ho-shang Kung and Wang Pi, but Wu Chʽêng and Chiao Hung both reject them. I should also have neglected them, but they are also found in Liu Hsiang’s Shuo Wên (X 4 a), with all the rest of pars. 1 and 2, as from Laozi. They are an anacoluthon, such as is elsewhere found in our Ching; e.g.天下之牝 in ch. 21, par. 2.

The “above” and “below” in par. 4 seem to be merely a play on the words, as capable of meaning “more and less honourable.” ↩
天道, “The Way of Heaven;” but the chapter contrasts that way, unselfish and magnanimous, with the way of man, selfish and contracted, and illustrates the point by the method of stringing a bow. This must be seen as it is done in China fully to understand the illustration. I have known great athletes in this country tasked to the utmost of their strength to adjust and bend a large Chinese bow from Peking.

The “sage” of par. 4 is the “King” of ch. 25. Compare what is said of him with ch. 2, par. 4, et al. ↩
任信, “Thing to be Believed.” It is difficult to give a short and appropriate translation of this title. The chapter shows how the most unlikely results follow from action according to the Tao.

Par. 1. Water was Laozi’s favourite emblem of the Tao. Compare chapters 8, 66, et al.

Par. 2. Compare ch. 36, par. 2.

Par. 3. Of course we do not know who the sage was from whom Laozi got the lines of this paragraph. They may suggest to some readers the lines of Burns, as they have done to me:⁠—

“This honest man, though e’er so poor,
Is king o’ men for a’ that.”

But the Taoist of Laozi is a higher ideal than Burn’s honest man.

Par. 4 is separated from this chapter, and made to begin the next by Wu Chʽêng. ↩
任契, “Adherence to Bond or Covenant.” The chapter shows, but by no means clearly, how he who holds fast to the Tao will be better off in the end than he who will rather try to secure his own interests.

Par. 1 presents us with a case which the statements of the chapter are intended to meet:⁠—two disputants, one good, and the other bad; the latter, though apparently reconciled, still retaining a grudge, and ready to wreak his dissatisfaction, when he has an opportunity. The 爲 = “for,” “for the good of.”

Par. 2 is intended to solve the question. The terms of a contract or agreement were inscribed on a slip of wood, which was then divided into two; each party having one half of it. At the settlement, if the halves perfectly fitted to each other, it was carried through. The one who had the right in the dispute has his part of the agreement, but does not insist on it, and is forbearing; the other insists on the conditions being even now altered in his favour. The characters by which this last case is expressed, are very enigmatical, having reference to the satisfaction of the government dues of Laozi’s time⁠—a subject into which it would take much space to go.

Par. 3 decides the question by the action of heaven, which is only another name for the course of the Tao. ↩
獨立, “Standing Alone.” The chapter sets forth what Laozi conceived the ancient government of simplicity was, and what he would have government in all time to be. He does not use the personal pronoun “I” as the subject of the thrice-recurring 使, but it is most natural to suppose that he is himself that subject; and he modestly supposes himself in charge of a little state and a small population. The reader can judge for himself of the consummation that would be arrived at;⁠—a people rude and uninstructed, using quippos, abstaining from war and all travelling, kept aloof from intercourse even with their neighbours, and without the appliances of what we call civilisation.

The text is nearly all found in Ssŭ-ma Chʽien and Chuang-tzŭ. The first member of par. 1, however is very puzzling. The old Jesuit translators, Julien, Chalmers, and V. von Strauss, all differ in their views of it. Wu Chʽêng and Chiao Hung take what I have now rendered by “abilities,” as meaning “implements of agriculture,” but their view is based on a custom of the Han dynasty, which is not remote enough for the purpose, and on the suppression, after Wang Pi, of a 人 in Ho-shang Kung’s text. ↩
顯質, “The Manifestation of Simplicity.” The chapter shows how quietly and effectively the Tao proceeds, and by contraries in a way that only the master of it can understand. The author, says Wu Chʽêng, “sums up in this the subject-matter of the two parts of his treatise, showing that in all its five thousand characters, there is nothing beyond what is here said.”

Par. 2 suggests to Dr. Chalmers the well-known lines of Bunyan as an analogue of it:⁠—

“A man there was, though some did count him mad,
The more he gave away, the more he had.”

Wu Chʽêng brings together two sentences from Chuang-tzŭ (XXXIII 21 b, 22 a), written evidently with the characters of this text in mind, which as from a Taoist mint, are a still better analogue, and I venture to put them into rhyme:⁠—

“Amassing but to him a sense of need betrays;
He hoards not, and thereby his affluence displays.”

I have paused long over the first pair of contraries in par. 3 (利 and 害). Those two characters primarily mean “sharpness” and “wounding by cutting;” they are also often used in the sense of “being beneficial,” and “being injurious;”⁠—“contraries,” both of them. Which “contrary” had Laozi in mind? I must think the former, though differing in this from all previous translators. The Jesuit version is, “Celestis Tao natura ditat omnes, nemini nocet;” Julien’s, “Il est utile aux êtres, et ne leur nuit point;” Chalmers’s, “Benefits and does not injure;” and V. von Strauss’s, “Des Himmels Weise ist wolthun und nicht beschädigen.” ↩