In the opinion of Mr. Fung, there is no necessary connection between Lao Tzu the man and the book titled Lao-tzu. He thinks that Lao Tzu the man was an older contemporary of Confucius, while the book Lao-ztu was written or composed after Hui Shih and Kong-sun Long by others but not Lao Tzu himself. The reason of Mr. Fung is that: “the Lao-tzu contains considerable discussion about the Names, and in order to do this it would seem that men should first have become conscious of the existence of names themselves.”[1] The topics that Lao-tzu attempts to discuss are some kind of problems about “what is lies within shapes and features,” which, according to Mr. Fung, can only appear after the School of Names. All things that lie within shapes and features have names. They are namable. While not everything that lies beyond shapes and features is unnamable. But on the other hand, all things unnamable are beyond shapes and features. And the Tao or Way is a concept of this sort.
Tao the Unnamable and the Logical Beginning of All Things
There is a famous statement in the book of Lao-tzu that: “The Tao that can be comprised in words is not the eternal Tao; the name that can be named is not the abiding name. The Unnamable is the beginning of Heaven and Earth; the namable is the mother of all things.”
“The Tao that can be comprised in words is not the eternal Tao; the name that can be named is not the abiding name.” Such a statement shows that Tao is eternal and cannot be named. As Mr. Fung’s explanation: “Tao never ceases to be and the name of Tao also never ceases to be.”[2] That is to say, Tao is an abiding name. And due to that Tao is an abiding name, it cannot be named. In this sense, we can say that Tao is not a name or not a real name. We are just forced to call it Tao. Tao is some kind of nameless which can be said in Chinese as “Wu-ming”. “Wu-ming” can be abbreviated as term of “Wu” which means literally “Non-being.” On the contrary, the thing which can be named, is called in Chinese as “You-ming” which can be abbreviated in “You”(“Being”). The thing which can be named is in another word the thing defined. While the Tao is nameless and therefore undefined. Such an undefined thing, as Hegel explains, is Wu.
“The Unnamable is the beginning of Heaven and Earth; the namable is the mother of all things.” Such a statement shows us that Tao the Wu-ming is the logical beginning(but not the beginning in time) of all things. In the Lao-tzu there is another statement that: “All things in the world come into being from Being(You); and Being comes into being from Non-being(Wu).” “The Tao is that,” as Mr. Fung explains: “by which anything and everything comes to be.”[3] He gives out a short deduction: “Anything that comes to be is a being, and there are many beings. The coming to be of beings implies that first of all there is Being.”[4] It is not difficult to understand. Just as the existence of men logically implies the existence of animals. So, “In the same way, the being of all things implies the being of Being.”[5] While before the being of Being, there must be Non-being, that is, the Tao, from which Being comes into bing. And the above is the ontology expressed by the Lao-tzu.
The Practical Philosophy in the Lao-tzu
As we know, The book of Lao-tzu has another name, that is Tao Te Jing. As Mr. Fung explains that: “Tao is that by which they come to be.”[6] While “in this process of coming to be, each individual thing obtains something from the universal Tao, and this something is called Te. Te is a word that means ‘power’ or ‘virtue’.”[7] The Te of a thing is what it naturally is, that is to say, the Te is that by which a thing is what it is.
The Tao follows its nature, or in another word, follows what itself is. And among the laws of nature or of the Tao, the most fundamental and invariable one is that “when a thing reaches one extreme, it reverts from it.” According to the Lao-tzu, we know that both a thing and a man cannot beyond their extreme. Such a law is invariable, or in Chinese, we call it “heng” or “chang.” Therefore, if we want to be strong, we should hold the elements of weakness, if we want to be wise, we should hold the elements of foolishness. Such a theory is called wu-wei, which means “not over-doing.” Mr. Fung makes a well-known Chinese story “hua she tian zu” as an illustration. This story describes that two men were once competing drawing a snake. one of them, having already finished his drawing, saw that the other man was still far behind, so decided to widen the gap by adding feet to his snake. Then the other man said: “You have lost, for a snake has no feet.” This story is a good explanation to that over-doing is worse than not doing.
The nature of Tao asks for not over doing, and the opposite are artificiality and arbitrariness. According to the Lao-tzu, to protect our life, we must keep life as simple as possible. Therefore the theory in the Lao-tzu is very different from Confucianists. The Confucian virtues such as human-heartedness and righteousness are, in the opinion of the Lao-tzu, vice and evil. It says: “When the Tao is lost, there is the Te. When the Te is lost, there is [the nature of] human-heartedness. When the human-heartedness is lost, there is [the nature of] righteousness. When the righteousness is lost, there are the ceremonials.” Maybe we can continue to say: when the ceremonials lost, there is the law. And the Lao-tzu says: “The more laws are promulgated, the more thieves and bandits there will be.” on the contrary, “Banish human-heartedness, discard righteousness, and people will be dutiful and compassionate.”
[1] Fung Yu-lan. A Short History of Chinese Philosophy. The Free Press, 1948,p.94.
[2] Ibid.,p.95.
[3] Ibid.
[4] Ibid.,p.96.
[5] Ibid.
[6] Ibid.,p.100.
[7] Ibid.
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