Such is, according to the Tao-tê Ching, the mode in which the world gradually became what it is at present. The book does not contain any express statement of opinion as to whether each human creature is born with a good or a bad nature. From various passages in it, however, we are authorised in inferring that Lao-tzŭ regarded an infant as good by nature. Its spirit comes pure and perfect from the Great Mother, but susceptible to all the evil influences which operate upon it and lead it astray.
The standard of virtue to which Lao-tzŭ refers is Nature (Tao), just as another old philosopher says, “in hoc sumus sapientes, quod naturam optimam ducem, tanquam deum, sequimur eique paremus.”[5] By our philosopher, however, Nature is not regarded as personified and deified, but is contemplated as the eternal, spontaneous, and emanatory cause. The manifestation of complete virtue comes from Nature only.[6] This is the guide and model of the universe, and it itself has spontaneity as guide, that is, it has no guide whatever. All creatures and man among them, must conform to it or they miss the end of their existence and soon cease to be. As Tao, however, is very indefinite and intangible, Lao-tzŭ holds it out to mortals as their guide chiefly through the medium of certain other ideas more easily comprehended. Thus Heaven, corresponding somewhat to our notions of providence, imitates Nature, and becomes to man its visible embodiment.[7] In its perfect impartiality, its noiseless working, its disinterested and unceasing well-doing, it presents a rule by which man should regulate his life.[8] Not less are the material heavens above him a model in their unerring, and spontaneous obedience to Nature, and in their eternal purity. The Earth[9] also, with her calm eternal repose, and the great rivers and seas, are types of the far-off olden times, whose boundless merit raised them to the height of fellow-workers with Nature, and to whom all things once paid a willing homage, are patterns for all after ages.[10]
Of a personal deity above all these our author makes no mention, nor can it be inferred with certainty from his book whether he believed in the existence of such a being. In one place he speaks of Nature (Tao) as being antecedent to the manifestation of Ti (帝), a word which the commentators usually explain as meaning lord or master of heaven.[11] The learned Dr. Medhurst translates the passage in question thus, “I do not know whose son it (viz., Taóu) is; it is prior to the (Supreme) Ruler of the visible (heavens).” I do not understand how, after this, the same author can state that the Taoists, that is, with Lao-tzŭ at their head, understand the word Ti “in the sense of the Supreme Being.”[12] Ghosts and Spirits (鬼 and 神) are referred to in the Tao-tê Ching, but these are very subordinate beings capable of being controlled by the saints of the earth. Lao-tzŭ refers, however, as has been seen, to a supernatural punisher of crime; and in several passages he speaks of heaven in a manner very similar to that in which we do when we mean thereby the Deity who presides over heaven and earth.[13] Yet we must not forget that it is inferior and subsequent to the mysterious Tao, and in fact produced by the latter. I cannot, accordingly, agree with the learned Pauthier when he writes thus about the Sixteenth Chapter of the Tao-tê Ching—“Ce chapitre renferme à lui seul les éléments d’une religion; et il n’est pas étonnant que les Sectateurs de Lao-tseu, si habiles, comme tous les Asiatiques, à tirer d’un principe posé toutes les conséquences qui en découlent logiquement, aient établi un culte et un sacerdoce avec les doctrines du philosophe; car dès l’instant qu’un Dieu suprême est annoncé, que les bonnes actions et la connaissance que l’on acquiert de lui sont les seuls moyens pour l’homme de parvenir a l’ternelle félicité dans son sein, il est bien évident qu’il faut des médiateurs entre ce Dieu et l’homme pour conduire et éclairer les intelligences ignorantes et faibles.”[14] Tao with Lao-tzŭ is not a deity, but is above all deities, and, as has been seen, it is not always represented unchangeable. On the contrary, regarded from one point of view the Tao is in a state of constant change—“twinkling restlessly,” to use an expression from Wordsworth. Only when considered as the existence which was solitary in the universe and eternal, is it spoken of as unchanging. Long after Lao-tzŭ’s time Tao was, indeed, raised or rather degraded to be a deity, but the theories of later Taoists are seldom the logical developments of the doctrines of Lao-tzŭ, and in this they err widely.
Of virtue in the abstract little is said by our author, but we know that his idea of it was that it consisted in following Nature (Tao). He generally, however, speaks of it in the concrete as the perfect nature of the world or man and the other creatures of the universe. Sometimes indeed he refers to Tê, Virtue, as if it were a mysterious, independent existence and not an inherent quality. At other times he seems to regard good and bad as merely relative terms, the existence of the former implying and indeed causing the existence of the latter, and vice versa.
Descending from these generalities, however, we now come to the consideration of Lao-tzŭ’s conception of the ideal sage. The virtues which characterise the perfect man, and which all should endeavour to possess, are described in the Tao-tê Ching with greater or less fulness. Among the most important of these is the negative excellence of an absence of the bustling ostentation of goodness. Not to be fussy or showy, but to do one’s proper work and lead a quiet life without meddling in the concerns of others, are virtues which to Lao-tzŭ seemed of transcendent importance, the expression which I interpreted as meaning absence of ostentation or bustle is wu-wei (無爲).[15] Many Chinese commentators seem to regard this as equivalent to nothingness, non-existence, or absolute inaction; so Julien also translates it usually by “non-agir.”[16] Though, however, the words have in many places these meanings, yet there are several passages which seem to require the explanation given above, and which is also in harmony with the general tenor of the book. Man’s guide is Nature (Tao), and it works incessantly but without noise or show. So also it is not an inactive life that Lao-tzŭ commends, but a gentle one, and one which does not obtrude itself on the notice of the world. The man who would follow Nature must try to live virtuously without the appearance of so doing; he must present a mean exterior while under it he hides the inestimable jewel.[17] The advice which Sir Thomas Browne gives is very like the teaching of Lao-tzŭ. “Be substantially great in thyself, and more than thou appearest unto others; and let the world be deceived in thee, as they are in the lights of heaven.”[18] Again, the man who follows Nature is wise but wears the mask of ignorance[19]—to the world he appears silly and stupid, but in his breast are deep stores of wisdom. So also he does good without the show of doing it; he helps in the amelioration of his fellows, and indeed of all things in the world, without talking or making any display.[20] He does his alms not before men but in secret and without a preluding trumpet. Those are rare who can instruct others without the necessity of talking, and benefit them without making a show; but in striving to attain to this excellence man is aiming at the perfection of Nature.[21] The art of living thus is an art made by Nature—the silent, informing, universally-operant spirit. By Nature (Tao) the passions and other impediments to virtue are lessened more and more until man attains to that state of perfection in which he acts naturally and so can do all things.[22]
The virtue of humility is one of which Lao-tzŭ speaks very highly. Water is always with him the type of what is humble; and the godlike man, like it, occupies a low position, which others abhor but in which he can profit all around him.[23] “The supremely virtuous is like water,” are words taken from the Tao-tê Ching, and frequently inscribed on rocks and other objects. Such a man does not claim precedence or merit, nor does he strive with any one.[24] He never arrogates honour or preferment, yet they come to him;[25] and he is yielding and modest, yet always prevails in the end. When success is obtained, and his desire accomplished, he modestly retires. Pride, on the other hand, and vaulting ambition, always fail to attain the wished-for consummation.[26] So also the man who is violent and headstrong generally comes to a bad end.[27] Some of the commentators, however, seem to take this humility in a bad sense, and they would make us believe that the quality as recommended by Lao-tzŭ is not virtue but rather a vice, as partaking of the nature of a trick or artifice. The historical instance which they most frequently quote as illustrating the success of this humility is the career of the famous Chang Tzŭ-fang (張子房), a sort of political Uriah Heep.
To continence also Lao-tzŭ assigns a high place. The total exemption from the power of the passions and desire is a moral pre-eminence to which man should seek to attain—
“For not to desire or admire, if a man could learn it, were more
Than to walk all day like the Sultan of old in a garden of spice.”
It is the body, with its inseparably connected emotions and passions, which is the cause of all the ills that attend humanity;[28] and he who would return to the state of original innocence must overcome his body.[29] To be without desires is to be at rest, and if man were freed from the body he would have no cause for fear. To keep the gateways of the senses closed against the sight, sounds and tastes which distract and mar the soul within, is the simple metaphor which Lao-tzŭ uses to express this overcoming of self.[30] This conquest he puts above every other. He who knows others is learned, but he who knows himself is enlightened; he who overcomes others has physical force, but he who overcomes himself has moral strength.[31] The disastrous consequence of yielding to the bodily appetites is beautifully illustrated by a metaphor familiar to us in a Taoist book to which I have already referred. The people of the world following their desires strive for reputation, grasp at gain, covet wine, and lust after beauty—they take the bitter for the pleasant and the false for the real—day and night they toil and moil, morn and even they fret and care, nor desist even when their vital energies are almost exhausted. Like the moth which extinguishes its life in the dazzling blaze of the lamp or the worm which goes to its own destruction in the fire, these men do not wait for the command of the king of Death, but send themselves to the grave.[32]