In 1884 Mr. F. H. Balfour published at Shanghai a version of Taoist Texts, Ethical, Political, and Speculative . His Texts were ten in all, the Tao Te Ching being the first and longest of them. His version of this differed in many points from all previous versions; and Mr. H. A. Giles, of H.M. ’s Consular Service in China, vehemently assailed it and also Dr. Chalmers’s translation, in the China Review for March and April, 1886. Mr. Giles, indeed, occasionally launched a shaft also at Julien and myself; but his main object in his article was to discredit the genuineness and authenticity of the Tao Te Ching itself. “The work,” he says, “is undoubtedly a forgery. It contains, indeed, much that Laozi did say, but more that he did not.” I replied, so far as was necessary, to Mr. Giles in the same Review for January and February, 1888; and a brief summary of my reply is given in the second chapter of the Introduction in this volume. My confidence has never been shaken for a moment in the Tao Te Ching as genuine relic of Laozi, one of the most original minds of the Chinese race.
In preparing the version now published, I have used:—
First, The Complete Works of the Ten Philosophers ;—a Suzhou reprint in 1804 of the best editions of the Philosophers , nearly all belonging more or less to the Taoist school, included in it. It is a fine specimen of Chinese printing, clear and accurate. The Treatise of Laozi of course occupies the first place, as edited by Kuei Yu-kuang (better known as Kuei Chên-chʽuan) of the Ming dynasty. The text and commentary are those of Ho-shang Kung ( Introd. , par. 7 ), along with the division of the whole into parts and eighty-one chapters, and the titles of the several chapters, all attributed to him. Along the top of the page, there is a large collection of notes from celebrated commentators and writers down to the editor himself.