Chuang Tzu: Mystic, Moralist, and Social Reformer

...people who are dominated by a religious craving for something better than mortality will find in his pages much agreeable comfort original: "solace" against the troubles of this world, along with an implied promise of another and a better world to come.

It has been publicly announced that translations of Laozi original: "Lao Tzŭ" and Zhuangzi original: "Chuang Tzŭ" are to appear among the Sacred Books of the East.¹

Now, to include the Daodejing original: "Tao-Tê-Ching" in such a series would already be a questionable step. Aside from its doubtful authenticity original: "spuriousness", it can only be called a "sacred book" by a severe stretch of courtesy. It undoubtedly contains many of Laozi’s sayings, but it also undoubtedly contains much that Laozi never said and never could have said. It illustrates, instead, that period when the pure Way original: "Tao" of Laozi began to be corrupted by alchemical research and the search for the elixir of immortality original: "elixir of life". It was probably compiled in self-defense against the spread original: "encroachments" of Buddhism during those early days of religious struggle when China was first flooded with the "sacred books" of the West referring to India, the source of Buddhist scripture. It is not seriously recognized as the official scripture original: "Canon" of ancient Taoism. Among the Taoists of today, not one in ten thousand has more than heard its name. For modern Taoism is nothing but a hybrid superstition—a mixture of ancient nature-worship and Buddhist ceremony, using the Way original: "Tao" as a brand name original: "style of the firm". Its teachings are further removed from the Way of Laozi than high-church Ritualism is from the original Christianity of Christ.

As to Zhuangzi, his work can in no sense be called "sacred"—unless, indeed, we somewhat modify the...

¹ The China Review, volume 16, page 195.