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,
