Lao Tzu*s influence in China is enormous, in spite of the fact that for nearly two thousand and two hundred years Confucius has had been the only officially installed Ultimate Sage Teacher-the Intellectual Father of the Nation. Lao Tzu*s philosophy, by contrast, has been purposely ignored officially in the past two thousand years. Occassionally, it had even been unfairly attacked by Confucian zealots. Nonetheless, his precepts have been diligently followed by innumerable individuals. Since there had never been any political reward or social gratification for studying Lao Tzu, his thoughts were followed spontaneously. People were drawn to him not because of any kind of enticements; people read his book arduously because Lao Tzu*s thought could shed light on their search for inner strength and self-realization. His bona-fide followers constituted the breed of Chinese intellectuals who would rather live in solitude, poverty and obscurity in order to be truthful to their own selves. Some of them were people who were preoccupied with seeking the truth about self and enormously mysterious cosmos. They were individuals to whom the calling to quest for Virtue and knowledge was as firmly fixed as stars in the sky. Their independence from the socially and officially approved Confucianism has formed a durable under-current; the strength they have drawn from within had supported their unshakable will to live independently in spite of unpredictable changes. From time to time, there were still a few honest and incorruptible individuals who stood out like rocks in the vast sea of plebeian struggles for power and wealth. These were independent individuals who were struggling to reached out for spiritual nobility.

All Lao Tzu*s teachings are embodied in a simple and small book, which was originally called Lao Tzu. However later, under the impact of Confucianism, Buddhism and religious Taoism, it was then renamed Tao Te Ching, a title it is popularly known until this day. From a modern prospective we could say that his deep thoughts were compactly expressed in this book. Even Confucius(551-479 BCE), like many other Chinese, treated sayings originated by Lao Tzu as adages of his time. Throughout history, until this day, it has always been common knowledge among Chinese that Lao Tzu*s saying are full of wisdom and deep thoughts. Many especially valued his teaching on self-reliance and individual freedom. Hardly any punctilious Chinese intellectual, including antagonists of his book, could argue successfully that the whole text does not deserve to be carefully examined. For example, the famous Chinese aphorism "A journey of one thousand miles started out from one single step." was originated by Lao Tzu.

A few Western intellectuals, who first came into contact with the thought of Lao Tzu after the Enlightenment of the eighteenth century AD, had discovered that this is a book of "spiritual simplicity which deals neither in speculative cosmogony nor in popular superstition." In the past twenty six centuries, Lao Tzu*s philosophy, in loose and strict forms alike, has widely impacted Chinese of all walks of life, directly and indirectly. Confucious* influence, by contrast, was confined mainly on mainstream intellectuals and civil servants. However, Lao Tzu*s simple and down-to-earth tone of voice is like a piece of great music which appeals to both farmers and sophisticated scholars forthrightly. The melody his book plays out assures us the worthiness of the pursuit of supreme wisdom, i.e. true knowledge, virtue, and liberty. The unrelenting yearning his writing had emanated, for realistic self-dependence, universal compassion and ascendence of human beings, had strengthened countless sufferring souls. His wisdom glitters especially when the going is tough. Since the Enlightenment Movement, many European intellectuals have showed strong interest in Lao Tzu. For instance, Leo Tolstoy considered it one of a few his most valued books; he has also translated the book into Russian himself. Nietzsche and Eugene O*Neill expressed their admiration too. Quantum physicist Niel Bohr and psychologist Carl Jung were also among Lao Tzu*s admirers.

Personally I know that the greatest philosopher of our century, Sir Karl Popper did have a very strong interest in finding out what did Lao Tzu really say. Like Bertarand Russell he was deeply impressed of something stated by Lao Tzu. Our short five years* acquaintance was held together by our mutual interests in Lao Tzu. For instance, Lao Tzu had advocated open society by saying, "people would not feel their lives are cheap and unbearable if they are not oppressed and restricted." The thought of Lao Tzu is powerful on two fronts-intellectual and emotional. This explains why he was thought to be religious by both Buddhists and Christians. Nevertheless, he was most appropriately described as "a great philosopher", by a Western philosopher named Paul Carus(1852-1919), who was the pioneer of the philosophical wisdom of the East among his peers, as well as a philosopher with profound religious spirit.

Many people, especially in the West, have unwittingly confused two kinds of Taoism as one and the same, namely religious Taoism and philosophical Taoism. Even though these two have being been unfortunately sharing the same name, they are in truth as drastically different as day and night. Half century ago, staff writers on Taoism(aka Daoism) of The Encyclopedia Britainica have already crucially discerned the sharp distinctions between the philosophical Taoism and the religious Taoism as follows:

Among all meant-to-be proliferation of Lao Tzu*s original Taoism, religious Taoism offers the most churlish contortions. Differs from both Lao Tzu*s philosophy and Confucius* philosophy, its theme is but an accumulation of folklore, superstition and shamanism. Both Confucianism and Lao Tzu*s teaching are based on rationalism; they were created after their arduous intelligent observation and thinking. In fact the original Confucianism and the original Taoism are reciprocal; understanding of one enhance the comprehension of the other, and vice versa. Both are accountable for the longevity, stability and endurance of the Chinese civilization and nation, while the religious Taoism move people backward to the road of regress. The only thing the religious Taoism has kept of the original Lao Tzu*s thought was his egalitarianism. Even so, its merit to the Chinese civilization is a mixed bag: its shallowness is counter-productive to the advancement of knowledge, but its popularity exemplifies what people want, good or bad alike.

In modern days, Lao Tzu*s egalitarian attitude might be instrumental for the overturn of the traditionally extremely authoritarian feudal government, the speedy take-over of Marxist Communism in China, as well as its subsequent various economical experiments. All these do not, however, imply that the music played out was in tone with the original. Prior to the infusion of Marxists* influence, educated reactionary Chinese intellectuals instigated the impressive New Culture Movement in 1919. Even though the theme of this movement was for modernization, it also went against the authoritarian Confucianism. In spite of this, Confucianism is still running its course until this day with considerable momentum. Before Confucianism was singled out for exaltation in the second century BC, the exercise of Lao Tzu*s principle of non-interference(wu wei) and frugality did have brought peace and prosperity to the nation. His thoughts spell out, with an illusion-free tone, the most ideal Communism, i.e. the brotherhood of all the people, fair distribution of goods, and minimization of disparities of wealth and power. Nevertheless, the negligence of his advocacy of individualism would commit sacrilege to his philosophy and repeat the unfortunate mistake made in the fourth century BC by the first interpreter and commentator of Lao Tzu the Legalist Hanfei Tzu. Being popularly admired in his lifetime as an outstanding man of wisdom, who had known himself well and was able to keep his serenity in vicissitudes, Lao Tzu had influenced a wide spectrum of not-too-distant posterity. His imprint can also be found in practices like medicine, military strategies, martial arts (Kung Fu), and folklore. The respect for him had literately been overblown into idolatry in the Taoist religion in the second century CE when it emerged. There was talk that Lao Tzu*s origin was some kind of virgin-birth. The story was that his mother conceived him while she had dreamt that a bright star had flown into her mouth. Consequently he was further mythologized as a god.

As it will be discussed later in this paper, more than anything else, Lao Tzu was a genuine pioneer in philosophy. His overall thought embodies a framework. His quest for the true self fathomed deeply into his meditation and ascended way high up, touching the topics about our relation with the vast cosmos. Historically, his thoughs serve as landmark which marks the difference between philosophy and theology. Unlike his predecessors, i.e. court interpreters of I Ching, he pointed out that seemingly inexplicable T*ien (Heaven; Nature) is to be understood through rational knowledge, rather than through emotionally charged subjective speculations. In Lao Tzu*s thoughts "T*ien" was no longer humanized but analyzed and abstracted. Lao Tzu*s thought is a milestone of the achievement of the ancient Chinese civilization: When literacy was first popularized among common people that scholarly knowledge were released to people of all walks of life. When scholars were no longer under the strict control of the government, a new breed of men of learning among common people emerged. The sudden burst of intellectuals had weakened the government control of intellectual properties and thus enabled people achieve more freedom of speech. It was like a revival of the originally practiced egalitarianism in the antiquity before government was brought in. It was believed, as expressed by both Confucius and Mencius, that in good old days, leaders* duty was to help people to survive and live decently. Aristocracy was established for the people by the people; common people could, through self-education, become men of wisdom-Sages. This period of re-awakening is described in Chinese history as the era of "blooming of hundred flowers, and speaking-out of hundred schools."(551-233 BC), the only golden era in which individuals, particularly intellectuals, could enjoy freedom of speech in China. Among all creative intellectuals flourishing around this period, two most vigorous and influential thinkers of China, Lao Tzu and Confucius rose among the most intelligent of intelligentsia. Confucius was unquestionably the greatest educator, who had single-handedly accomplished so much in educating the public. His achievement perhaps will never be surpassed. Nevertheless, Lao Tzu was the first independent and original philosopher in China.

Lao Tzu*s philosophy is unparalleled by any Chinese thoughts throughout history. Had Lao Tzu*s thoughts been given a chance to develop, some great system of inspirational thought like Plato*s, or an well-organized scientific one, like Aristotle*s, might have had a chance to become full-fledged philosophy in China. Unfortunately, only a few centuries later Lao Tzu Taoism was greatly constrained by the political promotion of Confucianism. Furthermore, in the hands of half-hearted religious Taoists, the original Taoism was vulgarized with their fragmented, loosened, and trivialized interpretation of it. Even though Chuang Tzu*s thoughts should serve as a mediator between Lao Tzu*s thoughts and other later self-claimed Taoists, yet Lao Tzu said it well himself: "Even though the great path of Tao is, overall, smooth, yet most people would rather take the bypass." I have, nevertheless, proved in my other paper "The Mystery of Lao Tzu and His Book-Tao Te Ching", that there were other thinkers who were just as close, or even closer, to Lao Tzu than Chuang Tzu. After Lao Tzu*s book having been successively interpreted elliptically by Chuang Tzu*s devotees, its original comprehensiveness, vitality, firmness, and penetration were all clouded by rhetoric-loaded interpretations and comments, at the cost of losing the whole picture. This was instrumental for later interpretations of this book to adopt the practice of fragmentation, i.e. to emphasize the significance of out-of-context statements. Another reason was because the original Taoism was thought to be identical with the easier approachable and more popular Chuang Tzu*s thoughts. Even though Chuang Tzu must not be held responsible, yet vulgar Taoism was extracted from the Taoism expressed in the book Chuang Tzu. Quietly, some scrupulous Chinese started to use the word "Lao-Chuang" to refer to non-vulgar Taoism and "Lao Hsue"(Laoism) to refer exclusively to the veritable thoughts of Lao Tzu.

Since its original introduction to the world, Lao Tzu has been verbally commentated on, time after time, as early as the fourth century BC by Chuang Tzu and a century later literately commented on by Hanfei Tzu. Down to this day, in addition to almost two hundred translations in English alone, there are many more published Chinese commentaries about it in the span of two millennia plus. By comparison, translations in the West share one advantage, which was generally lacking among Chinese publications on this book; that is in lieu of the original text, each sentence in the text was translated correspondingly. Western translators generally share the underlying assumption, that readers would promptly grasp meanings of the original text from their translations. It could work well if the task of translating Lao Tzu was an easy one. Unfortunately, it is immensely difficult to translate this book.

In ancient days, scholarly Chinese seemed have exerted more discreet in handling the matter of re-conveying the original meaning. Mistakes and errors were made mainly due to inadvertent oversight of the overall framework or ignorance of the possibility of inconsistencies of their interpretations. For this reason, my primary pursuit of translating the original text into the modern plain Chinese was itself a risky undertaking. More so was my attempt for an English translation, as it was based on my plain Chinese translation. Furthermore, I am way out from being the likes of T.S.Eliot et al. All in all, the sole aim of my double translations, in both English and plain Chinese, of this book, as well as this research on Lao Tzu, is to seek out the original philosophy-overall system of logic-of Lao Tzu.

The very first step I took, however, was to trace all available traditional Chinese scholars* linguistic and hermeneutic commentaries, which are customarily about word and phrases in this book only. The next step was to determine if their notes confirm the linguistic practice of and before Confucius* time. The most difficult part, however, was to work out a pattern for the configuration of disorderly pieces, i.e. sentences in the text, of the jig-saw puzzle-the framework of Lao Tzu*s philosophy. Unfortunately, this is the only way to begin the long journey of ferreting out the original meaning of Lao Tzu . Translation is primarily a linguistic problem, even provided the translator is sufficiently adept in both languages, there is still no guarantee that a translator can literarily transmit the meaning of the original without understanding it. The fact that a technological text can be better translated by a specialist, who is familiar with the subject in both languages, exemplifies that translation is not a mechanical performance. Another test is about the truthfulness of the translations of Shakespear*s plays; the more adroit a Shakespearean reader the translator is, the more insight he/she would have of the author*s intended meanings. The art of translation is to touch the thought pegged by conventional linguistic uses. The deeper the thought is, the more difficult for a reader to paraphrase it, even if this transparent transformation is made within the same language.

Interpreting Lao Tzu is already a difficult task even for native speakers. Evidently, the difficult in translating this book is unprecedented; it is much more problematic than another great piece of ancient Chinese classics, namely Analects of Confucius. Even so, until this day none of the English translations of the latter is felicitous either. Nevertheless, some knowledge of how ancient Greek philosophies, particularly the magnificent inspirational thoughts of Plato, were grasped by posterity would be helpful. In addition, knowledge of the ancient Chinese history and studies on the problem of the relation between thought and language could shed light on this task. I shall publish my paper on this issue under a different title from the present one. Since very few Western readers are familiar with the ancient Chinese history, detailed information about Lao Tzu*s historical setting and ideological background could be useful. This part will also be published under a different title for academicians. In short, the guideline to recapitulate Lao Tzu*s thought is similar to the way ancient Greek philosophers* were approached, except that their background, ancient Greek history and language are all too familiar to Western readers to be mentioned. The purpose of presenting the following abridged background of Lao Tzu is to assist readers to understand this book. Readers could skip this Introduction, as many Chinese and sinologists might choose to do so, and move to Part Two to read about a more in depth analysis of "The Truth. about Lao Tzu*s Philosophy-The Original Taoism". Even though this introduction is not the main focus of this book, it illuminates the paths readers are most likely bound to sweat through while searching for the Tao of Lao Tzu.