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德 Teh
Chapter 81

1. Sincere words are not fine; fine words are not sincere. Those who are skilled (in the Tâo) do not dispute (about it); the disputatious are not skilled in it. Those who know (the Tâo) are not extensively learned; the extensively learned do not know it.

2. The sage does not accumulate (for himself). The more that he expends for others, the more does he possess of his own; the more that he gives to others, the more does he have himself.

3. With all the sharpness of the Way of Heaven, it injures not; with all the doing in the way of the sage he does not strive.

八 十 一 章

信 言 不 美 ,
美 言 不 信 。
善 者 不 辯 ,
辯 者 不 善 。
知 者 不 博,
博 者 不 知 。
聖 人 不 積 ,
既 以 為 人 己 愈 有 ,
既 以 與 人 己 愈 多 。
天 之 道 ,
利 而 不 害 。
聖 人 之 道 ,
為 而 不 爭 。

Key Terms

Observations and Comments

Legge Translation Notes

###, 'The Manifestation of Simplicity.' The chapter shows how quietly and effectively the Tâo proceeds, and by contraries in a way that only the master of it can understand. The author, says Wû Khäng, 'sums up in this the subject-matter of the two Parts of his Treatise, showing that in all its five thousand characters, there is nothing beyond what is here said.'

Par. 2 suggests to Dr. Chalmers the well-known lines of Bunyan as an analogue of it:-

'A man there was, though some did count him mad,
The more he gave away, the more he had.'

Wû Khäng brings together two sentences from Kwang-dze (XXXIII, 21 b, 22 a), written evidently with the characters of this text in mind, which, as from a Tâoist mint, are a still better analogue, and I venture to put them into rhyme:—

Amassing but to him a sense of need betrays;
He hoards not, and thereby his affluence displays.'

I have paused long over the first pair of contraries in par. 3 (### and ###). Those two characters primarily mean 'sharpness' and 'wounding by cutting;' they are also often used in the sense of I being beneficial,' and 'being injurious;'—'contraries,' both of them. Which 'contrary' had Lâo-dze in mind? I must think the former, though differing in this from all previous translators. The Jesuit version is, 'Celestis Tâo natura ditat omnes, nemini nocet;' Julien's, 'Il est utile aux êtres, et ne leur nuit point;' Chalmers's, 'Benefits and does not injure;' and V. von Strauss's, 'Des Himmels Weise ist wolthun und nicht beschddigen.'