“Lao Tzŭ abode for a long time in Chou, but when he saw that the State showed signs of decay, he left. On reaching the frontier, the Warden, named Yin Hsi, said to him, ‘So you are going into retirement. I beg you to write a book for me.’ Thereupon Lao Tzŭ wrote a book, in two parts, on Tao and Tê,[3] extending to over 5000 words. He then went away, and no one knows where he died.”
It is clear from Ssŭ-ma Ch‘ien’s account that he himself had never seen the book, though a dwindling minority still believe that we possess that book in the well-known Tao-Tê-Ching.
It must now be stated that throughout what are generally believed to be the writings of Confucius the name of Lao Tzŭ is never once mentioned.[4] It is not mentioned by Tso of the famous commentary, nor by the editors of the Confucian Analects, nor by Tsêng Ts‘an, nor by Mencius. Chuang Tzŭ, who devoted all his energies to the exposition and enforcement of the teaching of Lao Tzŭ, never once drops even a hint that his Master had written a book. In his work will now be found an account of the meeting of Confucius and Lao Tzŭ, but it has long since been laughed out of court as a pious fraud by every competent Chinese critic. Chu Hsi, Shên Jo-shui, and many others, declare emphatically against the genuineness of the Tao-Tê-Ching; and scant allusion would indeed have been made to it here, were it not for the attention paid to it by several more or less eminent foreign students of the language. It is interesting as a collection of many genuine utterances of Lao Tzŭ, sandwiched however between thick wads of padding from which little meaning can be extracted except by enthusiasts who curiously enough disagree absolutely among themselves. A few examples from the real Lao Tzŭ will now be given:—
“The Way (Tao) which can be walked upon is not the eternal Way.”
“Follow diligently the Way in your own heart, but make no display of it to the world.”
“By many words wit is exhausted; it is better to preserve a mean.”
“To the good I would be good. To the not-good I would also be good, in order to make them good.”
“Recompense injury with kindness.”
“Put yourself behind, and you shall be put in front.”
“Abandon wisdom and discard knowledge, and the people will be benefited an hundredfold.”