Lão-tsze, a celebrated philosopher of China, generally reputed to have been the founder of Taoism, which at the present day shares the allegiance of the Chinese with Confucianism and Buddhism under the appellation of San Chiào, 'the three doctrines' or 'teachings.'
According to the most likely account, Láo's birth took place in 604 B.C., fifty-four years before that of Confucius. His surname was Lí (meaning 'Plum'), and his name Ér-h (meaning 'Ear'), which after his death gave place to Tan, denoting some peculiarity in the form of his ears. He comes before us as a curator of the royal library in the capital city of Loh, not far from the present city of Loh-yang in Ho-nan. The designation Láo-tsze means the 'old philosopher.' The two Chinese characters may also be translated 'the old son or boy;' and the legendary writers have taken occasion from this to relate that the child was carried in his mother's womb for seventy-eight, some say for eighty-one, years, and that he was born with the white hair of an old man. Confucius and Láo seem to have met several times. One interview at the capital in 517 B.C. is pretty well established. It was not entirely amicable, but left a strong impression on the mind of Confucius. He said at the close of it to his disciples, 'To-day I have seen the Old Philosopher (Láo-tsze), and can only liken him to the dragon who mounts aloft on the clouds, I cannot tell how, and rises to heaven.' So it was that Lí Ér-h came to be denominated 'Láo-tsze.' Nothing certain can be said of the length of Láo's life. Sze-ma-Chien, the historian of ancient China, tells us that he cultivated 'the Tao and its characteristics,' his chief aim being to keep himself unknown; that he resided long at the capital, and then seeing the decay of the dynasty of Cháu, went away to the gate which led out of the royal domain towards the regions of the north-west; that there he was recognised by Yin Hsi, the keeper of the gate, the place of which is shown in the present Shan Cháu of Honan, and was prevailed upon to write out for him the treatise called the Táo Teh King, which has come down to us as the only record of his teaching. Ch'ien adds that after giving this writing to the keeper 'he went away, and it is not known where he died.' Such is the substance of all of importance which the great historian, writing in the 2d century B.C., could tell of Láo-tsze. He says nothing of the pre-existences attributed to him, nor of his subsequent travels in the west, where he became acquainted with the wisdom of India and even Judea. These and other marvels are later and fabulous additions to Chien's brief account, and arose in imitation of the legends of Buddhism and through misconceptions of the meaning of the Táo Teh King.
Some doctrine of the Tao had come down from the most ancient times, and a father, or at least a most important teacher, of it is claimed in Hwang Ti, the mythical sovereign of the 27th century B.C. It served especially as a discipline adapted to promote longevity and to preserve life. Láo-tsze entered into this, and the doctrine assumed in his hands a more subtle character. It is not easy, however, to say what he meant by his Tao. 'It was the originator of heaven and earth: it is the mother of all things.' At the same time it is not a personal being. 'It might appear,' he says, 'to have been before God.' 'It gave,' says Chwang-tsze, the ablest of all Láo's followers, 'their mysterious existence to spirits and to God (or to gods).' The character Tao properly means 'path,' 'course,' or 'way;' and it is in this sense that Láo uses it. His 'great way' is but a metaphorical expression for the way in which things came at first into being out of the primal nothingness, and how the phenomena of nature continue to go on, in stillness and quietness, without striving or crying. Of the same kind should be the influence of the Tao in the conduct of individuals and of government. That things may come to the right and successful issue they must be carried on without effort or purpose. The secret of good government is to let men alone. The appeal to arms is hateful. All learning is injurious. The wisdom of men defeats its own ends. Tao works by contraries, and the secret of its strength is its weakness. In many of these teachings Láo-tsze may seem to be only a visionary dreamer, but he enunciates many lessons of a very high morality. Its fundamental quality is humility, which he compares again and again to water, soft and weak in itself, yet able to attack and overthrow the strongest and firmest things. With humility he associates gentleness and economy, and calls them his 'three precious possessions.' He even rises to the greatest of all moral principles, the returning of good for evil, and enunciates 'recompensing injury with kindness.' He nowhere speaks clearly of the state of man after death; but Chwang-tsze teaches that life and death follow each other in endless succession, or like the sequence of the four seasons. There is nothing about religion or religious worship in the Táo Teh King. The origin of Taoism as a religion cannot be placed earlier than our 1st century. It was not till after Buddhism found its way to China that the other system began to have images, temples, monasteries, and nunneries. The pursuits of alchemy, communications with spirits, concoctions of the elixir vite and pills of immortality are among the phases which it has assumed at different times; but such things have no connection with the teaching of Láo-tsze.
See Stanislas Julien, Le Livre de la Voie et de la Vertu (1842); Chalmers, The Speculations of the Old Philosopher (1848); F. von Strauss, Lao-tse's Tào Tê King (1870); R. von Plänckner, Lao-tse, Tào Tê King, Der Weg zur Tugend (1870); Douglas, Confucianism and Taoism (1879); Legge, Religions of China (1880); Balfour, Taoist Texts (1884); and CHINA, Vol. III. p. 190.