What, then, was the quality which Lâo-tsze had in view, and which he
thought of as the _Tâo_--there in the library of Chow, at the pass of
the valley of Han, and where he met the end of his life beyond the
limits of the civilized state? It was the simplicity of spontaneity,
action (which might be called non-action) without motive, free from all
selfish purpose, resting in nothing but its own accomplishment. This is
found in the phenomena of the material world. "All things spring up
without a word spoken, and grow without a claim for their production.
They go through their processes without any display of pride in them;
and the results are realized without any assumption of ownership. It is
owing to the absence of such assumption that the results and their
processes do not disappear" (chap. ii.). It only needs the same quality
in the arrangements and measures of government to make society beautiful
and happy. "A government conducted by sages would free the hearts of the
people from inordinate desires, fill their bellies, keep their ambitions
feeble and strengthen their bones. They would constantly keep the people
without knowledge and free from desires; and, where there were those who
had knowledge, they would have them so that they would not dare to put
it in practice" (chap. iii.). A corresponding course observed by
individual man in his government of himself becoming again "as a little
child" (chaps. x. and xxviii.) will have corresponding results. "His
constant virtue will be complete, and he will return to the primitive
simplicity" (chap. xxviii.).
Such is the subject matter of the _Tâo Teh King_--the operation of this
method or _Tâo_, "without striving or crying," in nature, in society and
in the individual. Much that is very beautiful and practical is
inculcated in connexion with its working in the individual character.
The writer seems to feel that he cannot say enough on the virtue of
humility (chap. viii., &c.). There were three things which he prized and
held fast--gentle compassion, economy and the not presuming to take
precedence in the world (chap. lxvii.). His teaching rises to its
highest point in chap. lxiii.:--"It is the way of _Tâo_ not to act from
any personal motive, to conduct affairs without feeling the trouble of
them, to taste without being aware of the flavour, to account the great
as small and the small as great, to recompense injury with kindness."
This last and noblest characteristic of the _Tâo_, the requiting "good
for evil," is not touched on again in the treatise; but we know that it
excited general attention at the time, and was the subject of
conversation between Confucius and his disciples (_Confucian Analects_,
xiv. 36).
What is said in the _Tâo_ on government is not, all of it, so
satisfactory. The writer shows, indeed, the benevolence of his heart. He
seems to condemn the infliction of capital punishment (chaps. lxxiii.
and lxxiv.), and he deplores the practice of war (chap. lxix.); but he
had no sympathy with the progress of society or with the culture and
arts of life. He says (chap. lxv.):--"Those who anciently were skilful
in practising the _Tâo_ did not use it to enlighten the people; their
object rather was to keep them simple. The difficulty in governing the
people arises from their having too much knowledge, and therefore he who
tries to govern a state by wisdom is a scourge to it, while he who does
not try to govern thereby is a blessing." The last chapter but one is
the following:--"In a small state with a few inhabitants, I would so
order it that the people, though supplied with all kinds of implements,
would not (care to) use them; I would give them cause to look on death
as a most grievous thing, while yet they would not go away to a distance
to escape from it. Though they had boats and carriages, they should have
no occasion to ride in them. Though they had buff-coats and sharp
weapons, they should not don or use them. I would make them return to
the use of knotted cords (instead of written characters). They should
think their coarse food sweet, their plain clothing beautiful, their
poor houses places of rest and their common simple ways sources of
enjoyment. There should be a neighbouring state within sight, and the
sound of the fowls and dogs should be heard from it to us without
interruption, but I would make the people to old age, even to death,
have no intercourse with it."
On reading these sentiments, we must judge of Lâo-tsze that, with all
his power of thought, he was only a dreamer. But thus far there is no
difficulty arising from his language in regard to the _Tâo_. It is
simply a quality, descriptive of the style of character and action,
which the individual should seek to attain in himself, and the ruler to
impress on his administration. The language about the _Tâo_ in nature is
by no means so clear. While Sir Robert Douglas says that "the way" would
be the best translation of _Tâo_, he immediately adds:--"But _Tâo_ is
more than the way. It is the way and the way-goer. It is an eternal
road; along it all beings and things walk; but no being made it, for it
is being itself; it is everything, and nothing and the cause and effect
of all. All things originate from _Tâo_, conform to _Tâo_ and to _Tâo_
at last they return."
The Tâo and the Deity.
Some of these representations require modification; but no thoughtful
reader of the treatise can fail to be often puzzled by what is said on
the point in hand. Julien, indeed, says with truth (p. xiii.) that "it
is impossible to take _Tâo_ for the primordial Reason, for the sublime
Intelligence, which has created and governs the world"; but many of
Lâo-tsze's statements are unthinkable if there be not behind the _Tâo_
the unexpressed recognition of a personal creator and ruler. Granted
that he does not affirm positively the existence of such a Being, yet
certainly he does not deny it, and his language even implies it. It has
been said, indeed, that he denies it, and we are referred in proof to
the fourth chapter:--"_Tâo_ is like the emptiness of a vessel; and the
use of it, we may say, must be free from all self-sufficiency. How deep
and mysterious it is, as if it were the author of all things! We should
make our sharpness blunt, and unravel the complications of things; we
should attemper our brightness, and assimilate ourselves to the
obscurity caused by dust. How still and clear is _Tâo_, a phantasm with
the semblance of permanence! I do not know whose son it is. It might
appear to have been before God (_Ti_)."
The reader will not overlook the cautious and dubious manner in which
the predicates of _Tâo_ are stated in this remarkable passage. The
author does not say that it was before God, but that "it might appear"
to have been so. Nowhere else in his treatise does the nature of _Tâo_
as a method or style of action come out more clearly. It has no positive
existence of itself; it is but like the emptiness of a vessel, and the
manifestation of it by men requires that they endeavour to free
themselves from all self-sufficiency. Whence came it? It does not shock
Lâo-tsze to suppose that it had a father, but he cannot tell whose son
it is. And, as the feeling of its mysteriousness grows on him, he
ventures to say that "it might appear to have been before God."
There is here no denial but express recognition of the existence of God,
so far as it is implied in the name _Tî_, which is the personal name for
the concept of heaven as the ruling power, by means of which the fathers
of the Chinese people rose in prehistoric time to the idea of God. Again
and again Lâo-tsze speaks of heaven just as "we do when we mean thereby
the Deity who presides over heaven and earth." These last words are
taken from Watters (p. 81); and, though he adds, "We must not forget
that this heaven is inferior and subsequent to the mysterious _Tâo_, and
was in fact produced by it," it has been shown how rash and unwarranted
is the ascription of such a sentiment to "the Venerable Philosopher." He
makes the _Tâo_ prior to heaven and earth, which is a phrase denoting
what we often call "nature," but he does not make it prior to heaven in
the higher and immaterial usage of that name. The last sentence of his
treatise is:--"It is the _Tâo_--the way--of Heaven to benefit and not
injure; it is the _Tâo_--the way--of the sage to do and not strive."
Since Julien laid the _Tâo Teh King_ fairly open to Western readers in
1842, there has been a tendency to overestimate rather than to
underestimate its value as a scheme of thought and a discipline for
the individual and society. There are in it lessons of unsurpassed
value, such as the inculcation of simplicity, humility and
self-abnegation, and especially the brief enunciation of the divine
duty of returning good for ill; but there are also the regretful
representations of a primitive society when men were ignorant of the
rudiments of culture, and the longings for its return.
When it was thought that the treatise made known the doctrine of the
Trinity, and even gave a phonetic representation of the Hebrew name
for God, it was natural, even necessary, to believe that its author
had had communication with more western parts of Asia, and there was
much speculation about visits to India and Judaea, and even to Greece.
The necessity for assuming such travels has passed away. If we can
receive Sze-mâ Ch'ien's histories as trustworthy, Lâo-tsze might have
heard, in the states of Chow and among the wild tribes adjacent to
them, views about society and government very like his own. Ch'ien
relates how an envoy came in 624 B.C.--twenty years before the date
assigned to the birth of Lâo-tsze--to the court of Duke Mû of Ch'in,
sent by the king of some rude hordes on the west. The duke told him of
the histories, poems, codes of rites, music and laws which they had
in the middle states, while yet rebellion and disorder were of
frequent occurrence, and asked how good order was secured among the
wild people, who had none of those appliances. The envoy smiled, and
replied that the troubles of China were occasioned by those very
things of which the duke vaunted, and that there had been a gradual
degeneration in the condition of its states, as their professed
civilization had increased, ever since the days of the ancient sage,
Hwang Tî, whereas in the land he came from, where there was nothing
but the primitive simplicity, their princes showed a pure virtue in
their treatment of the people, who responded to them with loyalty and
good faith. "The government of a state," said he in conclusion, "is
like a man's ruling his own single person. He rules it, and does not
know how he does so; and this was indeed the method of the sages."
Lâo-tsze did not need to go further afield to find all that he has
said about government.