Chapter 4

Nature Tao

The Tao is (like) the emptiness of a vessel; and in our employment of it we must be on our guard against all fulness. How deep and unfathomable it is, as if it were the Honoured Ancestor of all things! We should blunt our sharp points, and unravel the complications of things; we should attemper our brightness, and bring ourselves into agreement with the obscurity of others. How pure and still the Tao is, as if it would ever so continue! I do not know whose son it is. It might appear to have been before God.

Commentary

SOURCELESS. 1. Reason is empty, but its use is inexhaustible. In its profundity, verily, it p. 76 rese mbleth the arch-father of the ten thousand things. 2. "It will blunt its own sharpness, Will its tangles adjust; It will dim its own radiance And be one with its dust." 3. Oh, how calm it seems to remain! I know not whose son it is. Apparently even the Lord it precedes. Next: 5. The Function of Emptiness | « Previous: The Canon of Reason and Virtue (Tao te Ching): The Old Ph... Next: The Canon of Reason and...

Sources: Paul Carus (1913) - Chapter heading; Paul Carus (1913) - Canon of Reason and Virtue