I will now state briefly, first, the grounds on which I accept the Tao Te Ching as a genuine production of the age to which it has been assigned, and the truth of its authorship by Laozi to whom it has been ascribed. It would not have been necessary a few years ago to write as if these points could be called in question, but in 1886 Mr. Herbert A. Giles, of Her Majesty’s Consular Service in China, and one of the ablest Chinese scholars living, vehemently called them in question in an article in the China Review for the months of March and April. His strictures have been replied to, and I am not going to revive here the controversy which they produced, but only to state a portion of the evidence which satisfies my own mind on the two points just mentioned.
It has been said above that the year BC 604 was, probably, that of Laozi’s birth. The year of his death is not recorded. Ssŭ-ma Chʽien, the first great Chinese historian, who died in about BC 85, commences his Biographies with a short account of Laozi. He tells us that the philosopher had been a curator of the Royal Library of Chou , and that, mourning over the decadence of the dynasty, he wished to withdraw from the world, and proceeded to the pass or defile of Hangu, leading from China to the west. There he was recognised by the warden of the pass, Yin Hsi (often called Kuan Yin), himself a well-known Taoist, who insisted on his