De Groot[17] refers to Tao as “the ‘Path’, the unalterable course of Nature,” and adds that the “reverential awe of the mysterious influences of Nature is the fundamental principle of an ancient religious system usually styled by foreigners Tao-ism.”
The idea of the Chinese Tao resembles somewhat that of the Indian Brahma (neuter). Lao Tze says: “It (Tao) was undetermined and perfected, existing before the heaven and the earth. Peaceful was it and incomprehensible, alone and unchangeable, filling everything, the inexhaustible mother of all things. I know not its name, and therefore I call it Tao. I seek after its name and I call [[307]]it the Great. In greatness it flows on for ever, it retires and returns. Therefore is the Tao great.”
In his chapter “The Manifestation of the Mystery”, Lao Tze says:
“We look at it (Tao), and we do not see it, and we name it ‘the Equable’.
“We listen to it, and we do not hear it, and we name it ‘the Inaudible’.
“We try to grasp it, and do not get hold of it, and we name it ‘the Subtle’.
“With these three qualities, it cannot be made the subject of description; and hence we blend them together and obtain ‘The One’.”
Some scholars, like Joseph Edkins and Victor von Strauss, have contended that Lao Tze was attempting to express the ideas of Jehovah in Hebrew theology. Others incline to the belief that the influence of Indian Brahmanic speculations had reached China at an early period and inaugurated the intuitional teaching found in Lao Tze’s treatise.
The idea of the first cause had arisen in India before the close of the Vedic Age. At the beginning:
There was neither existence nor non-existence,
The Kingdom of air, nor the sky beyond.
What was there to contain, to cover, in—
Was it but vast, unfathomed depths of water?