In order to understand the conduct of Lao-tzŭ, in retiring from office in Chou and going into seclusion when he saw its fortunes broken, we must know something of the state of the country at the time. Now the reader of the historical and other works relating to this dynasty will remember what a miserable picture of the kingdom is given in most of them. The hard won territories of king Wu 武 were now subject to his degenerate descendants only in name. The whole country was torn up into petty states, which were always warring with each other. Year by year, army after army, with flaunting banners and gay pennons, passed and repassed through the fields of the people, and left desolation and misery in their track. Fathers and husbands, sons and brothers, were taken away from their homes and their work, and kept in long military service far away from their families. Laxity of morals accompanied this state of civil confusion. Chiefs forgot their allegiance to their princes, and wives their duties to their husbands—usurpers were in the state, and usurpers were in the family. Every little chief was striving with his neighbour for the mastery, and the weak and wicked princes of Chou were unable to overcome them and reduce them to peace and obedience. Men of shining abilities and inordinate ambition rose to power in each state, and, wishing to satisfy their ambition, increased the anarchy of the kingdom. The decree of Heaven was slowly changing, and already, in the time of Lao-tzŭ, “Ichabod” was written up for the princes of Chou. We can now easily see why the philosopher taught that men should not strive, but ever give way; that they should be humble and satisfied with a low condition; that men of virtue and integrity should retire from the dangers and vices of a wicked government; and that no honour should be attached to specious abilities or rare acquisitions. True to his principles, he himself, when the prestige of Chou was lost, and the evil days and evil tongues were becoming more and more evil, withdrew from the court and retired into unenvied obscurity.[21] For this course of action, Confucianists and others have severely censured Lao-tzŭ. We must remember, however, that Confucius himself taught (what he had probably learnt from Lao-tzŭ) that when good principles prevail in a country, the superior man takes office; and that he retires when bad government takes their place. There seem to have been at the time only two courses which an upright and faithful public servant could elect to pursue. He might either take his life in his hands, and try by strong measures to recall his rulers to the path of virtue; or he might establish his own good character, and then withdraw from temptation and corruption. Confucius chose the former course, and ended in disappointment; Lao-tzŭ and many others, as we know from the Lun-yü (論語), chose the latter course.
The Pass to which Szŭ Ma-chien represents Lao-tzŭ as going, and where he met with Yin-hsi 尹喜, is said in a note to this passage to be probably Han-ku-kwan 函谷關, the present Ling-pao 靈寶 in the extreme west of Honan, and on the south bank of the Yellow River. The Pass and its keeper have since become famous in the legendary and poetic literature of China. This is the last historical notice that we have of Lao-tzŭ. He left the Pass, having enriched the keeper with the 81 chapters he had composed on Tao and Virtue, and went away. “No one knows his end.” We may hope, however, that he died a peaceful, happy death, in a good old age, having attained a clear insight into the nature of Tao 道 and Tê 德.
According to the Lao-tzŭ Lie Chuan 老子列傳 of Szŭ Ma-chien,[22] Lao-tzŭ left a son named Tsʽung 宗, who became a high military officer under the chief of Wei 微, and was appointed to the feudal dependency Tuan-kan 段干. His descendants were living in the time of the Han 漢 dynasty in the 2d century B.C.
Such is the sum of the probably true information which I have succeeded in obtaining about this remarkable man. Many things that we would have liked to know about him are wanting, and part of what we have seems uncertain. In his birth and in his death he was mysterious, and through all his life he seems to have courted obscurity. He tells us himself that he appeared to mankind stupid and helpless, but that he had within himself precious treasures of which the world did not know.[23] To me he seems to have been a kind and gentle old philosopher, who thought more of what was beyond this world than about what was in it. I cannot find in him those traits of moroseness and cynicism which others have found, nor any trace of the jealousy and spite with which he is said to have regarded Confucius.[24] Chu-hsi (朱熹) or Chu fu tzŭ, represents him as a man standing aloof from the ordinary ways of men, loving neither their sounds nor their sights, and not living an official life.[25] Confucius himself refers to Lao-tzŭ with affectionate respect, and quotes his opinions as sufficient answers to the questions of his own disciples. He speaks of him as extensively read in antiquity and acquainted with the present, as having penetrated to the sources of Rites and Music, and as understanding what belonged to Tao and Tê (道德之歸).[26] The old man who thought that in troubled times, like those in which they were living, men of wisdom and virtue ought not to make a display of those qualities, but rather to appear to the world destitute of them, when he found his former pupil parading the kingdom with a crowd of disciples (one of whom acted as his car driver), going from court to court admonishing and scolding the chiefs, thought it his duty to give the youthful reformer a sharp reproof and an earnest warning. His advice was excellent, and Confucius found out at last that the restoration of peace and good government to a country was not to be effected so easily as he had thought, even though the preacher of reform dressed unimpeachably, ate and drank only the best he could get, had an excellent ear for music, and knew the decrees of Heaven.
I shall now proceed to give a short sketch of the legendary account of Lao-tzŭ, as related in the Records of Spirits and Fairies and other books.
According, to some writers Lao-tzŭ was a spiritual being, eternal and self-existing, manifesting himself as a human being on the earth at various times and under various names. One author, indeed, puts words like these into the mouth of the sage himself.[27] The most celebrated of his incarnations was that which occurred during the early part of the Chou dynasty. On this memorable occasion his mother, who had conceived by the influence of a shooting star, brought him forth under a Li (李) or plum tree, a circumstance from which he derived his surname. For seventy-two long years (or, according to a more cruel author, for eighty-one years) had he remained in the wretched woman’s womb, and at last he delivered himself by bursting a passage under his mother’s left arm. From his having at his birth gray hairs and the general appearance of an old man, he was called the Old Boy (Lao-tzŭ 老子)[28]; though some have conjectured that this was the nature of his mother’s family, which was given to the child because his mother obtained him in an improper manner. One writer says that Lao-tzŭ could speak immediately on being born, and that he himself intimated at the time that the plum tree under which he emerged into the world would furnish his name. Another says that so soon as he was born he mounted nine paces in the air—his step producing a lotus flower—and while poised there, he pointed with his left hand to heaven and with his right hand to earth, saying: “In Heaven above and on earth beneath it is only Tao which is worthy of honour.” The same author remarks that Shâkyamuni on his birth rose seven paces in the air, and pointing in a similar manner to heaven and earth pronounced himself alone worthy of honour. He observes very properly that there ought not to be such a coincidence.
When his mother got an opportunity of examining her wonderful child, she found him a veritable prodigy. Not only had he gray hairs, but he had also very large ears. Hence came his name Êrh (耳), that is, Ears, or as others give it Chung-êrh (重耳), Heavy ears.[29] Each ear terminated in a point and had three passages. Besides these peculiarities the infant had handsome eyebrows—large eyes—a double-ridged nose—square mouth with thick lips. His hands had ornamental inscriptions on them, and the soles of his feet presented the mysterious numbers, two and five, of which the former represents heaven and the latter earth. He had also many other larger and smaller bodily virtues and beauties.[30]
Lao-tzŭ left heavenly purity and honour for earthly pollution and office. It was under the Heaven-blessed kings Wên (文王) and Wu (武王) that he first took service in the state as Treasury keeper and then as Assistant historiographer. This account, however, would make him survive for the more than patriarchal period of five hundred years. He is represented as having several interviews with Confucius who, as Szŭ Ma-chien also relates, compared him to a dragon which in a mysterious and inexplicable manner mounts a cloud and soars into heaven. This, as Rémusat has observed, was intended as a compliment, the dragon being with the Chinese a symbol of what is exalted and not unattended by a mysterious power.[31]
On retiring from office Lao-tzŭ proceeded westward intending to pass through the Han-ku-kwan (函谷關) to the Kunlun mountains and other distant places. Yin-hsi (尹喜), however, the keeper of the pass, who had known from the state of the weather that a sage was to come his way, recognised Lao-tzŭ for such and detained him until he had himself learned Tao. The time came, however, when the two worthies had to part. Lao-tzŭ informed Yin-hsi that he would have to leave him and go away on a long wandering through the boundless realms of space. Yin-hsi begged earnestly that he might be allowed to go with him—saying that he was prepared to follow the Great Genius through fire and water above the heavens and beneath the earth. Lao-tzŭ declined the offer, but presented his old friend with five thousand words on Tao and Tê.
The pathetic state of affairs was now rudely interrupted. Just as Lao-tzŭ was about to take his departure it was found that his old servant Hsü-chia (徐甲), who had attended him for more than two hundred years without pay, seeing Lao-tzŭ about to set out on an apparently unlimited pilgrimage, demanded payment. The arrears of wages due to him amounted to 7,200,000 cash, and he applied to a friend who got Yin-hsi to speak to the sage. This friend gave his handsome daughter in marriage to Hsü-chia, who was quite delighted with the arrangement. Just at this time, however, the master appeared and told Chia that he ought to remember from what a poor condition he had been raised, and that he would have been dead long ago had it not been for the charm of long life which had been given to him. He also informed Chia that, as he had previously promised, he had intended to pay the debt in gold on reaching An-hsi (安息), a country which Biot identifies with that of the Parthians. Yielding to the last vestige of earthly infirmity Lao-tzŭ became angry and ordered Chia to fall on his face to the ground and open his mouth. The latter could not but obey, he fell to the ground, the charm came forth fresh as when it was swallowed, and Chia lay like a shrivelled mummy. Through the kindness of Yin-hsi, who recognised the miraculous power of Lao-tzŭ, and knocked his head on the ground to him, the ungrateful creditor was restored to life by the same wondrous charm. Yin-hsi also paid him on behalf of Lao-tzŭ the generous sum of 2,000,000 cash, and sent him away.