Page:Essays on the Chinese Language (1889).djvu/167

Rh done here the reader will often find renderings given to which he may feel disposed to object, or which he may regard as quite wrong. Even native scholars take at times different and irreconcilable meanings out of a passage, and one can often only guess at what was in the mind of the author. But the student who cares to investigate the subject will be able to correct errors as to matters of fact and mistakes as to interpretation. The authorities quoted to substantiate or illustrate the uses and meanings assigned to the word are not always the highest that could be given; often they are at best only doubtful. They were not examined with a special view to this investigation, nor were they read in any methodical manner. It will be seen also that, though few, they are mixed up in a manner which is perhaps not warranted.

The word selected, tao, is perhaps one of the best that could be found in the language to illustrate the variety of meaning with which a single term can be burdened. But no other word apparently has so many and so different uses, and thus it does not give a fair specimen of the way in which the Chinese employ their vocabulary. The vagueness and uncertainty attached to phrases in which this word occurs are not to be attributed to the language generally. With these prefatory words of caution we may now proceed to the investigation of our term.

The character for tao is at present written 道, which is composed of cho 辵, to go, a classifier of characters relating to motion, and shou 首, meaning head or leader, but here, according to Chalmers and others, phonetic. In the old styles we have the word written 衟 and 𡬹, the former composed of hsing 行, to go, and an archaic form of the above shou; and the latter, of the same character and ts'un, an inch. The pronunciation of the written symbol has varied from time to time and from place to place. It was originally perhaps something like su or tu, and afterwards t'ao, tao. In the time of the T'ang and Sung dynasties it was read in the shang tone; the "Wu-fang-yuan-yin" puts it in the ch'ü; and Kanghsi's Dictionary assigns it to the shang with one set of meanings, and to the ch'ü with another.