^{page 345 note 1} Fêng Yu–lan , Chung-kuo chê-hsüeh shih , I, 1934, 226–7.Google Scholar All translations in this paper are my own. See also A history of Chinese philosophy, translated by Bodde, Derk, I, 1952, 182–3.Google Scholar

^{page 345 note 2} cf. the passage quoted from Professor Fêng on p. 352 in which he saya, ‘Things in the universe are constantly changing. This change is circular … This is a doctrine common to the Changes and Lao Tzŭ’.

^{page 345 note 3} Yang K'uan , Chan-kuo shih , 1955, 205.

^{page 346 note 1} Yang Jung-kuo Chung-kuo ku-tai ssŭ-hsiang shih 1954, 261–2.

^{page 346 note 2} Yang K'uan, ibid., p. 205.

^{page 346 note 3} It is difficult to know what yin and shêng mean precisely in this context. My rendering is therefore tentative.

^{page 347 note 1} Hu Shih , Chung-kuo chê-hsüeh shih ta-kang I 1919 62–3.Google Scholar

^{page 347 note 2} It is quite possible, of course, that the rest of ch. 2 does not belong together with the two opening sentences. The distinction between yin and shêng (whatever their exact meaning may be in this context, see n. 3, p. 346) is hardly of the same type as that between good and not good, beautiful and ugly. Ch. 3, however, seems to continue the train of thought contained in the two opening sentences in ch. 2.

^{page 348 note 1} In the last two sentences I follow the emendation suggested by Mr. Ma Hsü-lun , shu nêng sun yu yü yi fêng pu tsu wei yu tao chê See Lao Tzŭ chiao ku , 1956 (originally published in 1924 under the slightly different title of Lao Tzŭ hê ku ), p. 194.

^{page 348 note 2} It may be worth noting in passing that Heaven gives to those who have not enough, presumably, only in order that they should have enough, not in order that they should, in their turn, have more than enough.

^{page 349 note 1} I follow the suggestion of Professor Kao Hêng that ju is used for ju , which means ‘grimy’, ‘dirty’. See Lao Tzŭ chêng ku , 1956, 65–6.

^{page 349 note 2} cf. Lao Tzŭ, ch. 28. The text there should also read ‘know the clean, abide by the dirty and be the valley of the world’ See Kao Hêng, loc. cit.

^{page 349 note 3} cf. Lao Tzŭ, ch. 67, ‘I dare not lead the world’.

^{page 349 note 4} cf. ibid., ch. 78, ‘Accept the dirt of the state’.

^{page 349 note 5} cf. ibid., ch. 81, ‘The sage does not hoard. Having bestowed all he has on others, the more he has; having given all he has to others, he has more’.

^{page 349 note 6} cf. ibid., ch. 22, ‘If bent it will be whole (preserved)’.

^{page 349 note 7} cf. ibid., ch. 62, ‘Why was the tao valued in days of old ? Was it not because when one sought, it was by means of it that one attained, and when one transgressed, it was by means of it that one escaped ?’ (Read ch'iu yi te instead of yi ch'iu te.)

^{page 349 note 8} cf. ibid., ch. 76, ‘Hence the hard and strong is akin to death’.

^{page 349 note 9} cf. ibid., ch. 9, ‘What is beaten to a sharp point cannot be preserved always’.

^{page 349 note 10} Chuang Tzŭ , Ssŭ Pu Ts'ung K'an (SPTK) ed., 10.35b–36b.

^{page 349 note 11} Hsün Tzŭ , SPTK ed., 11.25a.

^{page 349 note 12} Lü Shih ch'un-ch'iu , SPTK ed., 17.18a.

^{page 349 note 13} The assumption, of course, is that the greater part of the present Lao Tzŭ really belongs together. For anyone who thinks that Lao Tzŭ is a haphazard collection of sayings, any attempt to systematize the thought in it will not fail to appear misguided.

^{page 350 note 1} See supra, p. 346.

^{page 351 note 1} Fêng, ibid., 229; Bodde, 184.

^{page 351 note 2} In rejecting the interpretation of both Professor Yang K'uan and Professor Feng Yu-lan, I am not denying that there is an apparent similarity between the theory of change in Lao Tzŭ and the dialectical process. However, I think that an attempt to press this similarity by offering a detail interpretation of the theory in Lao Tzŭ corresponding to a detail account of the dialectical process is unwarranted.

^{page 351 note 3} J. J. L. Duyvendak, for instance, in his translation of the Tao tê ching (Wisdom of the East Series), 1954, also interprets Lao Tzŭ by the Changes. He writes in the Introduction, ‘There a close affinity with ideas developed in that other remarkable book of obscure origin, the Yi-ching, the Book of Changes … In this world of hexagrams nothing is permanent; everything is in constant alternation … In the Great Appendix, a rather late section of the Book of Changes, one reads: “An alternation of Yin and Yang is called the Way, Tao“’ (pp. 9–10). He makes use of this idea in numerous places in the book.

^{page 352 note 1} Fêng, ibid., 468–9; Bodde, 388–9. Professor Fêng goes even further when he suggests that the Changes took over the view in Lao Tzŭ as to how one should behave in the world. See p. 474; Bodde, 392.

^{page 353 note 1} For these passages quoted by Professor Fêng, see supra, p. 344.

^{page 353 note 2} I have translated fan by ‘revert’ and fu by ‘return’, simply because it is better to use two English words to translate two different Chinese words. In fact fan and fu are in this connexion synonymous, both meaning ‘return’.

^{page 353 note 3} See supra, pp. 344, 345.

^{page 354 note 1} Huai-nan Tzŭ, SPTK ed., 18.6a.

^{page 354 note 2} See supra, p. 348.

^{page 354 note 3} . This reminds one naturally of the passage in Hsün Tzŭ (also found in the Ta Tai li chi ) containing the sentence ‘without accumulating half–steps one cannot reach a thousand li’ (SPTK ed., 1.10a; cf. also 1.22a 1. 8–22b 1.1). Because of this it may be thought that this is an idea of the Confucian school, and that this theory does not belong properly to the system of thought contained in Lao Tzŭ. That will, I think, be hasty. This is not the only case where similar ideas are found both in Confucian and Taoist works. To take an obvious example, the idea of wu wei can be found the Analects, II.l, xv.4. I see no difficulty in assuming that there was a stock of ideas common different schools of thought in ancient China. It is not an idea as such that marks it as the property of a particular school. It is the reasons for holding that idea, and the use the idea is put to, that vary from one school to another. According to the Confucians the sage kings could rule through wu wei, because through their tê they could exercise an imperceptible influence over the people while they sat on the throne and did nothing (see Analects, xii.19); whereas according to the Taoists human interference is invariably contrary to the natural course of the tao and therefore makes things worse.

^{page 355 note 1} There is another distinction between victory and defeat on the one hand, and, say, weakness and strength on the other. To state this in contemporary philosophical terminology, the former are achievement words; the latter are not. Hence the latter describe a thing in a way that the former do not.

^{page 355 note 2} For taking ju to mean ‘dirt’, see n. 1, p. 349.

^{page 356 note 1} ‘To abide by the soft is called strong’ (ch. 52).

^{page 356 note 2} If true defeat is also defined in this curious sense of non–contention, then true defeat and true victory will be one and the same thing, and, again, there can be no change from true victory true defeat.

^{page 356 note 3} Chuang Tzŭ, 8PTK ed., 10.26a.

^{page 356 note 4} I am accepting the consensus of opinion among contemporary scholars that Lao Tzŭ is a work of the Warring Kingdoms. (See, for instance Fêng, ibid., 210; Bodde, 170.)

^{page 357 note 1} In his autobiography Thomas Hobbes said that his mother gave birth to twins—himself and fear. It is sometimes said that it is because Hobbes was such a timid man that he set out, in his Leviathan, to devise a political system which offers security to the common man. Can it be that the author of Lao Tzǔ was also a timid man living in an exceptionally disorderly age, and this accounts for the preoccupation in the book with the problem of the preservation of one's life ? This point has been very well put by Ch'ao Kung Wu in his Chün-chai tu-shu chih (preface dated 1151): ‘Is it a book by some one unfortunately living in a disorderly age who was full of fear ? Otherwise why does he seek so desperately for preservation ? … Because he is afraid that the bright easily becomes dim, he holds on to the dark; because he is afraid of losing favour, he does not avoid disgrace; because he is afraid that the hard will break, he makes himself soft; because he is afraid that the straight will be blunted, he makes himself bent; because he is afraid of losing much, he dares not hoard much; because he is afraid of spilling over through being full, he prefers to stop; when he is exalted in rank he is afraid of getting into the wrong, and so withdraws; when he has accomplished his work, because he is afraid that the merit will desert him, he does not claim it. That he knows the male but abides by the female, knows the white but abides by the black, and adopts the way of weakness and humility is because he thinks, “Unless I do so I shall not escape from faults”. Judging from this, is this not what is called seeking for preservation ?’ (Changsha, 1884 ed., 11. lb–2a.)

^{page 357 note 2} Pan Ku , Han shu , Po-na ed., 30.16a.

^{page 357 note 3} cf. Fêng, ibid., 216; Bodde 175.

^{page 357 note 4} I do not see any necessity of the interpretation by Dr. Waley of the phrase chiu shih as ‘fixed staring’, ‘a method of trance induction’. (See The Way and its power, 214.)

^{page 358 note 1} See Fêng, ibid., 472 ff.; Bodde, 391 ff.

^{page 358 note 2} In ch. 78, however, we find ‘That the weak overcomes the strong and the soft overcomes the hard, everyone in the world understands but none is able to act on it’. One may, perhaps, say this doctrine in Lao Tzǔ is both easy and difficult at the same time, easy, because it is such a simple doctrine, difficult because it is liable to sound absurd to the ordinary man (see ch. 41).

^{page 358 note 3} See supra, p. 348.

^{page 359 note 1} For a modern author who uses this term to describe Lao Tzǔ, see, for instance, Yang Jung-kuo, ibid., 264 ff.

^{page 359 note 2} Duyvendak found it difficult to render the sentence as ‘The way of Heaven shows no favouritism, but is always on the side of the good man’, because this is in flagrant contradiction to the character of the Way which admits neither good nor evil’. (Tao tê ching, 161.) He did not seem to be aware of the fact that the word shan is the only word for ‘good’ which is ever used in a non-pejorative sense in Lao Tzǔ. It means, in that case, good in the Taoist sense, and is quite distinct from other words meaning good in the Confucian sense. Take one example. In ch. 8 we find ‘the highest good (shang shan ) is like water. Water is good at benefiting the ten thousand things without contention’.

^{page 359 note 3} Lao Tzǔ, ch. 33, ‘One who knows when to be content is rich’.

^{page 360 note 1} The fact that ch. 13 contains no rhyming lines at all is an indication that it is possibly of a later date.

^{page 360 note 2} Fêng, ibid., 179, 215; Bodde, 142–3, 173–4. As I have criticized Professor Fêng's interpretation of a specific point in the doctrines of Lao Tzǔ, I should like to say that I have, in my experience, found his Chung-kuo chê-hsǔch shih both indispensable and invaluable. It may perhaps be said that the penalty a work has to pay for being the standard work on any subject is that it will stimulate disagreement from those who have benefited much by it.