Is called the root from which grew heaven and earth.
Long and unbroken does its power remain,
Used gently, and without the touch of pain.
, 'The Completion of Material Forms.' This title rightly expresses the import of this enigmatical chapter; but there is a foundation laid in it for the development of the later Toism, which occupies itself with the prolongation of life by the management of the breath ( ) or vital force.
'The valley' is used metaphorically as a symbol of 'emptiness' or 'vacancy;' and 'the spirit of the valley' is the something invisible, yet almost personal, belonging to the To, which constitutes the Teh ( ) in the name of our King. 'The spirit of the valley' has come to be a name for the activity of the To in all the realm of its operation. 'The female mystery' is the To with a name of chapter 1, which is 'the Mother of all things.' All living beings have a father and mother. The processes of generation and production can hardly be imaged by us but by a recognition of this fact; and so Lo-dze thought of the existing realm of nature--of life--as coming through an
p. 52
evolution (not a creation) from the primal air or breath, dividing into two, and thence appearing in the forms of things, material and immaterial. The chapter is found in Lieh-dze (I, 1 b) quoted by him from a book of Hwang-T; and here Lo-dze has appropriated it, and made it his own. See the Introduction, p. 2.