“When the word is translated Way of Nature—her processes, her methods, and her laws; when translated Reason, it is the same as li —the power that works in all created things, producing, preserving, and life-giving—the intelligent principle of the world; when translated Doctrine, it refers to the true doctrine respecting the laws the mysteries of Nature.” He calls attention also to the point that “he uses nature in the sense of Natura naturans , while the Chinese expression wan wu (= all things) denotes Natura naturata .” But this really comes to the metaphorical use of nature which has been touched upon above. It can claim as its patrons great names like those of Aquinas, Giordano Bruno, and Spinoza, but I have never been able to see that its barbarous phraseology makes it more than a figure of speech.
The term Nature, however, is so handy, and often fits so appropriately into a version, that if Tao had ever such a signification I should not hesitate to employ it as freely as Mr. Balfour has done; but as it has not that signification, to try to put a non-natural meaning into it, only perplexes the mind, and obscures the idea of Laozi.
Mr. Balfour himself says, “The primary signification of Tao is simply ‘road.’ ” Beyond question this meaning underlies the use of it by the great master of Taoism and by Chuang-tzŭ. Let the reader refer to the version of the twenty-fifth chapter of Lao’s treatise, and to the notes subjoined to it. There Tao appears as the spontaneously operating cause of all movement in the phenomena of the universe; and the nearest the writer can come to a name for it is “the Great Tao .” Having established this name, he subsequently uses it repeatedly; see chh. xxxiv and liii . In the third paragraph of his twentieth chapter, Chuang-tzŭ uses a synonymous phrase instead of Lao’s “Great Tao ,” calling it the “Great Tʽu ,” about which there can be no dispute, as meaning “the Great Path,” “Way,” or “Course.” In the last paragraph his twenty-fifth book, Chuang-tzŭ again sets forth the metaphorical origin of the name Tao . “ Tao ,” he says, “cannot be regarded as having a positive existence;