ligious teachings of Lao Tzu, the founder of Taoism, also discouraged individual initiative and thereby moral progress. The sage Lao Tzu, who was a contemporary of Confucius, found the great principle of life in the "Tao." This term "Tao" has an abstruse and mysterious connotation, having been rendered "Reason," "Nature," "The Universal Order," "The Way," "God." The following citation from the fourteenth chapter of the "Tao-Teh-King" will show the elusiveness of its meaning.
Looked for but invisible, it may be named "colorless";
Listened for but inaudible,—it may be named "elusive."
Clutched but unattainable—it may be named "subtile."
These three can not be unravelled by questioning, for they blend into one.
Neither brighter above nor darker below.
Its line, though continuous, is nameless, and in that it reverts to vacuity.
It may be styled "the form of the formless"; "the image of the imageless"; in a word the "indefinite."
Go in front of it and you will discover no beginning; follow after it and you will perceive no ending.
Lay hold of this ancient doctrine; apply it in controlling the things of the present day, you will then understand how from the first it has been the origin of everything.
Here indeed is the clue to the Tao.[1]
This "form of the formless" and "image of the imageless" is viewed as the creative, organizing principle of the universe, and should not be hindered in its working. Lao Tzu "discouraged above all the assertiveness by which any individual would attempt to magnify his importance or to interfere with the normal quiet and rational development of things."[2] The Tao-Teh-King says:
The world's weakest drives the world's strongest.
The indiscernible penetrates where there are no crevices.
From this I perceive the advantages of non-action.
Few indeed in the world realize the instruction of silence, or the benefits of inaction.[3]
These and other available passages from the "Tao-Teh-King" show clearly that Lao Tzu also made his contribution to a more complete enslavement to custom.
The introduction of Buddhism into China during the reign of the Emperor Ming-Ti (A.D. 58-76) did little or nothing toward stimulating a genuine development of the moral ideal. Buddhism in its inception and development has consisted almost entirely of methods whereby the individual may rid himself of the evil effects of desire. Its influence has
- ↑ C. Spurgeon Medhurst, "The Tao Teh King," Chicago, Independent Book Co.. p. 24 f.
- ↑ Paul S. Reinsch, "Intellectual and Political Currents in the Far East," p. 123.
- ↑ C. Spurgeon Medhurst, "The Tao Teh King." p. 75.
