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WHAT DOES LAO-TZU MEAN BY THE TERM "TAO"?

CHUNG-HWAN CHEN
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Everyone who has read Lao-tzu's Tao Te Ching can not but have the impression
that Tao is the foundation of Lao-tzu's thought. The next question is: what does
this Old Master mean by ""Too"? The term "Tao" in Chinese philosophy is as
vague as, if not more vague than, the term "eudaimonia" in Greek ethics. Every
Greek moralist school speaks of eudaimonia, and every school means by it some
thing different. So it is the same with the term "Tao"; every Chinese philosophical
school speaks of "Tao", and speaks differently. In order to understand Lao-tzu's
philosophy, one must, therefore, first of all make clear what is meant by this term
in the Tao Te Ching. That "Tao" as a philosophical term signifies principle, is not
a sufficient answer to the question. "Principle" may be understood in quite differ
ent ways. The real question is: in what sense or senses does Lao-tzu understand
his Tao as a principle? Much has been written on Lao-tzu, commentaries, pam
phlets, articles, and, in addition to these, translations of his work into other lan
guages with introductions and notes, but a clarification of this central term in the
Tao Te Ching still seems wanting. As if one could understand the Aristotelian or
Epicurean or any other Greek moralist's ethics without specifying the meaning of
eudaimonia! This present paper is meant to be such a clarification.

︵@︵
1. A careful reading of the text of the Tao Te Ching shows that Lao-tzu uses
the term "Tao" in different senses. Let us begin with the first chapter, which
opens with these words: "The Tao speakable is not the constant Tao; the name
namable is not the constant name." The parallel construction of the sentence
would suggest the equal importance of the Tao and the name, but, in fact, the
emphasis lies solely upon the Tao; the name is the name of the Tao. What the

stext intends to say is, the constant Tao is unspeakable and has no name, and,
conversely, what is speakable and has a name is not the constant Tao. This in
terpretation is attested by the proposition, "The Tao which is constant has no
name. (32)* Thus we have the Tao which has no name and the Tao which has a

name.

* Chapter 32 in the Tao Te Ching. This chapter reference arrangement to the Tao Te
Ching holds uniformly throughout this article.

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152 THE TSING HUA JOURNAL OF CHINESE STUDIES

the One refers to the Tao. There, among the different things which are said to
possess the Tao> are also the sage kings of old. Through the possession of the
1

Tao they became rulers of the world. If further proof is still needed, let one turn
1

to Chapter 14. The "One" there refers without quest

ion to the Tao. Thus the Tao
is the utlimate model both of things which are not human and human beings, im
mediately of sages and mediately of ordinary people.

II.

1. All of these senses of the term "Tao" we have discussed, whether the
sense of the ultimate source, or the store-house of myriad things, or the ultimate
model, refer to the static side of the Tao. Over against these static senses, the

same term is again used in dynamic senses. In a passage which is meant to give
an account of the genesis (in its or
iginal Greek sense) of the world, Lao-tzu tell us,
"The Tao generates @ One, the One generates Two, the Two generate Three, the
Three generate myriad things." (42) The background of this conception of genesis is
the same biological conception which frequently comes forth in connexion with the
meaning of "Tao" we mentioned f
irst.4 That the verb in the text just quoted
should be understood in the biological sense is attested by another passage where
the same Chinese character is repeated together with a number of verbs relating
to living things. (51) The central meaning of our genesis-passage is that the Tao is
that which brings forth, directly and indirectly, myriad things. Therefore, it is
the agent or the efficient cause5.
2. Closely connected with this conception of Tao is the following conception.
The Tao is also the principle by which myriad things maintain their being, exis
tence, or, more literarily, their lives, and it nourishes them all. (34) It is this fact
which distinguishes the sage from the multitude that the former alone understands
the value of being fed by the Tao, but the latter do not.0 Thus it is the same
Tao, which causes the production of myr
iad things and sustains their being.
3. Besides these two dynamic senses, the term "Tao" is still used in a third
dynamic sense. It is conceived as something active and its activity is reversion, (40)
i. e., the process by contraries. The primary pair of contraries is Nothing and
Being. These are, as we have seen above, two opposite aspects of the Tao. Being
proceeds from Nothing; from Being the process ends again in Nothing. This latter
process Lao-tzu describes more in detail. The Tao, he teaches, is invisible, in
audible, untouchable. It is called by three different names: yi, hsi, wei respectively.
(This is the Tao having names, it is the Tao in its positive aspect or as Being).
These three, he continues, cannot be further investigated; they blend together to
form a unity. This unity is unnamable (i. e., the Tao in its negative aspect); it
 """

156 THE TSING HUA JOURNAL OF CHINESE STUDIES

events ensuing from a given situation But this is not Lao-tzu's view. He ex
卜凡 @

plains to us, for example, in Chapter 46 the possible alternation of peace or war by
tracing it to the possible internal alternation of one's understanding to be content
or not, and ends the Chapter with the advice to choose the positive alternative.
Another case of possible althernation is given, in Chapter 48, explaining in which
way one can and in which way one cannot conquer the world. The examples refer
red to at random can be easily multiplied from the text, but what is important for
our present problem is the passage where the Way of Men is contrasted to the "Way
of Heaven. The latter is what the sage king takes, the former, the corrupted
ruler.(77) The corrupted ruleris examplif
ied by the robber king whose luxurious living
is maintained by raising heavy taxes from his people so that the poor are thereby
reduced to starving. (75) He abandons the Way of Heaven and follows the Way of
什

Man. Here is the possible alternation of following this or that way. The fact that
叫
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the robber king follows the Way of Man cannot be explained by the self-determin
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ation of the Tao, as the a priori interpretation would like to do. For the deviation
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in question is the following the Way of Man, which, being in contrast to the Tao,
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is alien to it and therefore is not the Tao itself.

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c. The decision which alternative is to be taken lies in man himself. Lao-tzu

explains this clearly in the case of sage king. Our Old Master says, if feudal lords
and kings keep the Tao, all things will be transformed of themselves. (37) Among
"all things," people are, of course, most important. In the reign of the sage king,
people lead such a life that they do not know there is a ruler, and think that their
life is just the result of their own spontaneous development. Here the reign of the
sage king coincides perfectly with the Tao. But we should notice the significance
of the conditional conjunction "if," which is all-important here. In this ideal reign
everything happens spontaneously, but the ideal reign itself does not follow spon
taneously. It is conditioned by something, namely that the ruler wishes to 'follow
the Tao. If this condition is not fulfilled the consequence will be different; Lao-tzu
mentions four otherresponses of the people to their government. (17) The alternation
depends upon the person concerned, or more exactly, upon the fact of whether he
desires to reduce his desires and whether or not he is strong enough to overcome
them. (64,33)
d. The a priori interpretation is shown to be untrue of Lao-tzu's thought by
the obvious fact that he gave, explicitly or implicitly, advice to his fellowmen with
regard both to their private and to their public life. Such advice as: be humble;
be soft; be content with one's fortune; know when to stop, are found throughout
the Tao Te Ching and are also familiar to its reader. But the following advice in

respect to morals are given in especially forcible terms: Banish sageness and
 158 THE TSING HUA JOURNAL OF CHINESE STUDIES

iwith the concept of the axiomatic character of the Tao, a special place in the world
is allowed to the human individual, a place which distinguishes him from all other
things. For, contrasted to the Way of Heaven, there is only the Way of Man. To
follow., one way or the other, only the human individual can decide. This freedom
of choice is the value of man. The individual, once discovered by Lao-tzu, has never
been forgotten in the subsequent history of Chinese philosophy. On the contrary,
<' this 'discovery has since then determined the direction of the Chinese philosophical
investigation; "Man" has become the central topic of study. Its practical influence
is also enormous. Think of those persons who struggled at the cost of their lives
to-realize what they believed they ought to do, especially in the critical moments
when . the nation, was confronted with danger! What would it have been if the
axiomatic sense of the Tao in the sphere of human actions had not been made clear
in the Tao Te Ching?

NOTES
1. Ch. 1. jBhFf^Wf
者 異 者
inW^- "M^" refers to Being and Nothing.
f Their common
..origin is the Tao. Waley
w translates: "These two things issued from the
. same mould.. ..5'. This translation can hardly be justified; in the original
text there is no character which is equivalent to "mould". Waley smuggled
W
it into the translation in order to make believable his interpretation of the
relation of the Tao Te Ching and the Realists (cf. his note ad loc). "|Wlf
i"
f
means "to come from the same source", here in the present passage, of course
figuratively "from the same mother". This sense of "|W(f
i" is still used in the
f
present day Chinese. To prove that "K" had this sense in the Spring-Autumn-
Period we quote (from memory) from ? {$. where some one speaks about ]/ @

姓 $&&Fm.
thus: m-knw, 其 不 ．．晉公
w^?, Mf
l-&.
f
2. Ch. 62 tM.^; I^^JI, Both Legge's and Waley's translation (withoutthe latter's
者
irrelevant note) are anticipated by ^M3 who comments: ^M^^il^M-^WtM

碧 義 四十四年薑
ap. Hi?: M^r^$^-Wi-^M^Mih^M^M^ P- 52. Although Wu's explanation of
奧
the term J| is based upon Wl% (v. under J|), yet this sense does not fit the
text here. In accordance with Sf
c , the sentence then should mean: The Tao
is the south-west corner of myriad things which makes no sense. .Therefore
we follow $Lh4 ad loc: W, j^-tfe; t&MM^Z.B,, St$TV^#. '
3. Op. cit. p. 19.
4. Cf. for example, @ in Chs. 1, 25, 52; ^b in Ch. 6; a? in Ch. 4; 1& in Ch. 6.
5. 'The Chinese character & is here a transitive verb, active voice, it expresses
an action; its subject, therefore, donotes the agent and is the cause, the effi
cient cause, the Aristotelean hyph' hou.
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160 THE TSING HUA JOURNAL OF CHINESE STUDIES

Let ue, by the way, add the following: The foregoing consideration con
firms our presonal experience: how dif
icult itis for a person to study a philo
f
sopher whose historical background is quite different from the background in
which the student himself has been brought up. Therefore let us be careful
and try not to "naturalize" a philosopher from another land!
( 9 ) ^n^HHB, Chs. 16, 55. To be enlightened is a state of gnosis (we prefer here
this Greek word to any English term) higher in value than to be wise. One
who knows others is wise, but one who knows himself is enlightened (Ch. 33,
ZttA^^', il^fl^HS). Wisdom is a thing which leads a person astray (Ch. 65,
H^^jUL Wt M) and which, therefore, should be discarded (Ch. 19, glU^f

(lo) The passage is quoted in $$ih$& in the traditional corpus of Chuang-tzu,

which shows this genealogy of morals has become orthodoxy in the Taoist
School.
(11) Ch. 53, r*oM||, nf
tK#F@. The corrupted ruler just follows the by-path; the
result is that he becomes ^^p,the leader of robbers (the reading is Han-Fei's,
cf. also his commentary on the passage).
(12) For the western concept of contradiction cf. its original and also standard
formulation by Aristotle in Met. TV 3.
(13) Ch. 19, together with the first sentence of Ch. 20, the separation of which
from what preceeds is, arbitrary. This view has been represented by earlier
commentators and accepted, among recent writers, by Hu Shih (^MSftfrll

臺灣商務 書 民
j ' itil^li^P^ftJ^MjE+^Jti^ vol. I p. 45).
The difficult sentence: ithH^M^^F^, 'Wc^'MWM seems to us not to have
者
been understood by the English translators whose works we have at hand,
hence we try our own paraphrasing. For the interpretation of $
~ t in the text
cf. wei op. cit. p. 14.@For the meaning of ^ see Lin ad loc.
素
(14) We derive both adjectives directly from their respective substantives: axioma
and on.