at it."

The Tao literally means a Path. It has been severally translated
as the Way, the Absolute, the Law, Nature, Supreme Reason,
the Mode. These renderings are not incorrect, for the use of
the term by the Taoists differs according to the subject-matter
of the inquiry. Laotse himself spoke of it thus: "There is a thing
which is all-containing, which was born before the existence
of Heaven and Earth. How silent! How solitary! It stands alone
and changes not. It revolves without danger to itself and is the
mother of the universe. I do not know its name and so call it
the Path. With reluctance I call it the Infinite. Infinity is the
Fleeting, the Fleeting is the Vanishing, the Vanishing is the
Reverting." The Tao is in the Passage rather than the Path. It
is the spirit of Cosmic Change,--the eternal growth which returns
upon itself to produce new forms. It recoils upon itself like
the dragon, the beloved symbol of the Taoists. It folds and
unfolds as do the clouds. The Tao might be spoken of as the
Great Transition. Subjectively it is the Mood of the Universe.
Its Absolute is the Relative.

It should be remembered in the first place that Taoism, like its
legitimate successor Zennism, represents the individualistic
trend of the Southern Chinese mind in contra-distinction to the
communism of Northern China which expressed itself in
Confucianism. The Middle Kingdom is as vast as Europe and
has a differentiation of idiosyncrasies marked by the two great
river systems which traverse it. The Yangtse-Kiang and Hoang-
Ho are respectively the Mediterranean and the Baltic. Even
to-day, in spite of centuries of unification, the Southern