Page:Elementary Chinese - San Tzu Ching (1900).djvu/23

Rh means to ascend. The whole character originally meant to ascend, then to move from a given position, a departure from the norm, etc.

Chiao see.

Chih see. [It is unnecessary here to regard chih as a sign of the possessive. The root idea may be developed as follows:—"In the matter of teaching, we reach the right method by, etc."]

Tao is composed of the walking radical and 首  shou head. It originally meant that which passes through, a road to be walked upon, and then by extension a road or method to be followed, as in philosophy, and even in stealing. Hence Taoism, the Doctrine of the Way, as taught by Lao Tzŭ, in antagonism to the Way taught by Confucius. 道人 tao jen was a term for Buddhists down to the end of the 5th cent. A.D., and Mr. T. W. Kingsmill has identified tao with the Buddhist mârga, the path which leads to Nirvâna.

Kuei is composed of 貝 pei, a picture under its old form of a pearl-oyster, once a circulating medium in China; hence, precious, honourable, as radical, with a corruption of 臾 a basket as phonetic.

I under its old form was the horary character 巳 ssŭ turned back to front, and its original meaning was to use, to take.

Chuan is composed of 寸 ts'un an inch as radical, and a phonetic which, with the ts'un added, forms another important phonetic. Its