Chapter 25
"There was something undefined and complete, coming into existence before Heaven and Earth.
How still it was and formless, standing alone, and undergoing no change, reaching everywhere and in no danger of being exhausted!
It may be regarded as the Mother of all things.
I do not know its name, and I give it the designation of the Tao.
Making an effort to give it a name, I call it The Great.
Great, it passes on in constant flow.
Passing on, it becomes remote.
Having become remote, it returns.
Therefore the Tao is great, Heaven is great, Earth is great, and the sage king is also great.
In the universe there are four that are great, and the sage king is one of them.
Man takes his law from the Earth.
Earth takes its law from Heaven.
Heaven takes its law from the Tao.
The law of the Tao is its being what it is."
- Translated by James Legge, 1891, Chapter 25
"There is a Being wondrous and complete. Before heaven and earth, it was.
How calm it is! How spiritual!
Alone it standeth, and it changeth not; around it moveth, and it suffereth not; yet therefore can it be the world's mother.
Its name I know not, but its nature I call Reason.
Constrained to give a name, I call it the great.
The great I call the departing, and the departing I call the beyond.
The beyond I call home.
The saying goes: "Reason is great, heaven is great, earth is great, and royalty also is great.
There are four things in the world that are great, and royalty is one of them.
Man's standard is the earth.
The earth's standard is heaven.
Heaven's standard is Reason.
Reason's standard is intrinsic."
- Translated by Daisetsu Teitaro Suzuki and Paul Carus, 1913, Chapter 25
"Before Heaven and Earth existed there was in Nature a primordial substance.
It was serene, it was fathomless.
It was self-existent, it was homogeneous.
It was omnipresent, nor suffered any limitation.
It is to be regarded as the universal mother.
I do not know its name, but I call it Tao.
If forced to qualify it, I call it the boundless.
Being boundless, I call it the inconceivable.
Being inscrutable, I call it the inaccessible.
Being inaccessible, I call it the omnipresent.
Tao is supreme, Heaven is supreme, Earth is supreme, the King is supreme.
There are in the universe four kinds of supremacy, and their rulership is one.
Man is ruled by the Earth, the Earth is ruled by Heaven, Heaven is ruled by Tao, and Tao is ruled by itself."
- Translated by Walter Gorn-Old, 1904, Chapter 25
"There was something formless yet complete,
That existed before heaven and earth;
Without sound, without substance,
Dependent on nothing, unchanging,
All pervading, unfailing.
One may think of it as the mother of all things under heaven.
Its true name we do not know;
Were I forced to say to what class of things it belongs
I should call it Great (ta)
Now ta also means passing on,
And passing on means going Far Away,
And going far away means returning.
Thus just as Tao has “this greatness” and as earth has it and as heaven has it,
So may the ruler also have it.
Thus “within the realm there are four portions of greatness”,
And one belongs to the king.
The ways of men are conditioned by those of earth.
The ways of earth, by those of heaven.
The ways of heaven by those of Tao, and the ways of Tao by the Self-so."
- Translated by Arthur Waley, 1934, Chapter 25
Chapter and Thematic Index to the Tao Te Ching
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