Thomas Watters

“ Lao-tzŭ does not present to us a wax figment of his own imagination—an ideal republic, an Utopia, or a New Atlantis. He looks to his own country as it was then, oppressed and miserable, and he endeavours to recall those in authority to a noble and generous mode of government. His standard of political excellence may be ideal, and some of his maxims may be fanciful, and even bad; still we will find in all a genial human philosophy, which even we of the enlightened nineteenth century cannot utterly despise. ”

“ Whatever be the immediate origin of speech, however, it is in its earliest stage natural and spontaneous, the embodiment of the original tones of Heaven and Earth. The first men spoke just as the wind blows, without any conscious effort. The feelings find vent in sounds which spring from man's mind, having their source in his constitution. Articulate utterances come from man's mind, others tell us, and are natural; their form cannot be altered by any conscious exercise of an individual's power. ”

“ He who according to the Law of Nature (Tao) would assist the prince will not compel the empire by arms—this sort of thing is wont to have its recompense. Where the General pitches his tent, thorns and briers spring up; and in the wake of a great army there are inevitably bad years. If there be necessity for fighting—and only then—he who is wise in ruling will strike a decisive blow at the fit time, and then lay down his arms, not glorying in his conquest. Fine arms are inauspicious implements, hated by all things; and he who holds to Nature will not continue to use them. ”

“ There is the eternal executioner, and he who puts to death for him is like the man who fells a tree for the head wood-man; and such an one seldom fails to wound his hand.23 Capital punishment is thus reserved for something superhuman to execute; and the earthly magistrate has only to endeavour to lead a life free from the appearance of lust and violence.24
It is by justice that a kingdom is well governed, as by stratagem a war is conducted.25 Yet the prince must be lenient to his people. ”

“ Now, though the faculty of speech developed itself in primeval man without conscious action or reflection on his part, the first language must have been poor and rude. But even in its earliest stage this language began to receive enlargement and cultivation from the higher intellects of the time. Hence human speech as we now know it has a twofold origin, in the muddy source whence man emerges into existence with all the myriad creatures of the world, and in the mind—the spiritual principle which he alone knows to cultivate and develope. ”

“ It is nature's, not man's doing that the accent and pronunciation of words alter, that one term rises and another falls out of use as generation follows generation. But how is it that not only has the language of China been always unlike the dialects of the barbarian tribes in her midst and on her frontiers, but also that this language itself varies from district to district? The answer is that here too we have the work of nature. ”

“ 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 Chinese do not yield to any in their appreciation of writing and its developments. They long ago deified the inventor, and his supposed tomb is still a place of pilgrimage for enthusiastic scholars. From the practical, beneficial point of view the invention has been the subject of much praise. Let us hear one man, a Manchoo by origin, but a Chinese scholar of rare attainments, and a man of culture and wide sympathies. Writing, says Kanghsi, is the most precious thing in the world. As to great matters, it has transmitted the philosophy which the ancient sages wished to transmit ”

“ They have no part or lot in the administration of government. They are regarded, not as individuals, but as masses. They are the “hundred surnames,” or “the people,” and the ruler of supreme virtue and wisdom—the godlike man—regards them all impartially as so many straw-made dog-effigies, creatures made to be used. ”

“ The power which the human mind has over its instruments, and independent of their imperfections, is strikingly illustrated by the history of this form of speech, which has successfully answered all the purposes of a cultivated, reflecting, studious, and ingenious people, throughout a career of unequalled duration; which has been put to far higher and more varied uses than most of the multitude of highly organised dialects spoken among men—dialects rich in flexibility, adaptiveness and power of expansion, but poor in the mental poverty and weakness of those who should wield them. ”

“ This doctrine results, no doubt, from the leading idea that all owe their origin to the one all-producing, all-nourishing nature; and it is a doctrine of which Lao-tzŭ seems to have been very fond. He frequently alludes to it as the duty and advantage of man to be humble, gentle, and never striving; and he utterly abhors the idea of violence, and the ostentation of superiority. He goes to excess, however, I think, in his notions about a peaceful, non-interfering mode of life; and carries his doctrine of the imitation of Nature (Tao) to unwarranted lengths. ”

“ In man, writes a practical statesman, [23] speech is the handle of the moral nature, the lord of action, the motive power of the mind, and the visible expression of the body, and with man alone words are capable of communicating ideas. The object of speech is to give expression to the feelings and thoughts. But that it is not a perfect instrument was long ago seen and acknowledged by the Chinese. Thus we are told that as writing does not fully represent the spoken language so this latter does not fully express the mind. ”

“ He does not regard the study of nature as consisting in the investigation of colour, sound, heat, and such things—the less one has to do with these the better. The study should be carried on in one’s own room without any adventitious aids. The student must overcome his affections and passions 54before he can attain to a knowledge of the great mysteries of Nature, but having once attained the serene heights of desireless existence he can know all things.32 This is no doubt a bad way of studying nature, and one which would never conduct to the material benefit of humanity. ”

“ All things that exist submit to Tao as their chief, but it displays no lordship over them.13 In the spring time it quickens the dead world, clothes it as with a garment, and nourishes it, yet the world knows not its foster-mother. ”

“ It can bring together people separated by a long interval of time, and allow them to hold intercourse; and by it scholars of all the world, though living far apart, may take hands and talk their minds together. It makes a man's good repute, and aids him in his profession, expands his intelligence and supplies him with evidence. By it man learns without study and teaches without speaking. ”

“ But intercourse with foreign nations introduced at least a partial knowledge of other languages, and the Chinese had to compare their own perfectly harmonised speech with the shrike-tongued cries of barbarians, and their own matchless characters with the mere imitations of bird and beast footprints used by the undeveloped savages who had never been blessed with divine philosophers. One of the marks whereby a barbarian is known is that he writes from left to right, another being that he takes his food without using chop-sticks. ”

“ It helps to make us “mingle with the universe,” have a lower appreciation of ourselves, and sympathise affectionately with all that surrounds us. We have abundance of room in the world for the two classes of philosophers—those who experiment on Nature with a view to the material progress of mankind, and those who regard her with the dutiful love of a son for a mother.
In the teachings of Lao-tzŭ in Speculative Physics, as sketched above, the student of philosophy will find many ideas resembling others with which he is already more familiar. ”

“ Metal and stone are mute, but they give sound when struck, and it is the same as to man with speech. When he cannot get his own way he speaks; he sings his anxiety and weeps his sorrow. All the utterances which proceed from his mouth are the result of his being disturbed. Speech is the quintessence of human sounds, and literary composition is the quintessence of speech. [9] It was perhaps from the perception of the emotional nature of early speech that some Chinese writers were led to the theory that their spoken language had its origin in music. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Very few, however, have clung to the heresy of the special creation of Chinese, though many have held it to be a language by itself without parent and without offspring. In direct opposition to such opinions is the theory which makes Chinese to have been the primeval tongue, the first language, — that in which Adam and Eve talked with the Lord God and the Serpent and to each other as they walked among the trees in the Garden of Eden — and so the fore-mother of all other languages. ”

“ The Supreme Critic on the errors of the past and the present, and the only prophet of that which must be, is that great Nature in which we rest, as the earth lies in the soft arms of the atmosphere; that Unity, that Oversoul, within which every man’s particular being is contained and made one with all others ”

“ One native philosopher describes man as speaking by breathing forth the air contained in the mouth and throat by movements of the lips and tongue. The act of speaking is like playing a flute. Man's mouth and throat are the musical instrument, and the movements of the tongue are the play of the fingers on the holes. The power of speaking grows and fails with the growth and decay of man's vital powers, and these need food and drink for their maintenance. ”

“ In the exercise of government Lao-tzŭ does not allow the use of violence, and he inveighs nobly against military oppression. If the prince keep himself from being absorbed in worldly interests—do not confer honour and emoluments on brilliant parts—nor prize what the world holds valuable—nor make display of that which is coveted: his example will have such virtue that all his subjects will cease from strife and violence, and live in peaceful obedience.19 But if he try to have the empire through force, he will fail. ”