Frederic H. Balfour – Translator of the Tao Te Ching

Shawn Conners — Tue, 27 Jan 2009 09:28:36 +0000

Frederic Henry Balfour (fl. 1871–1908) was a British expatriate editor, essayist, author, and sinologist, living in Shanghai during the Victorian era. He is most notable for his translation of the writings known today as the Tao Te Ching. Many of these translations appeared in his 1884 treatise: Taoist Texts: Ethical, Political and Speculative, also known simply as Taoist Texts. Although later discoveries of supplemental manuscripts have somewhat obscured Balfour’s early sinology, his work is still used as a primary source for many scholars of the Tao Te Ching.

Frederic Balfour followed the Wade-Giles method of transcription favored during the Victorian era. The first rough translations of ancient Chinese texts helped to shape future methods of transliteration.

Frederic H. Balfour also proved to be skeptical that Laozi, sometimes known as Lao Tzu or Lieh Tzu, was the author of the Taoist book Tao Te Ching; notably writing in Leaves from my Chinese Scrapbook that Laozi “is a philosopher who never lived.” Balfour believed that Laozi was an amalgam of wise ministers, or perhaps a literary device which Chuang Tzu used, as he expounded on his philosophy to students; very similar to the academic debate over the greek philosopher Socrates.

Frederic H. Balfour was a prolific religious scholar, and published several volumes discussing the implications of Theism on emerging societies. He also wrote several lengthy discourses on agnosticism. His letters about famine conditions in China, often sent to editors of newspapers abroad, were highly regarded, as little credible news regularly made it out of China during this period. He was also a frequent contributor to Harper’s Magazine, for which he wrote articles on travel in China. Balfour published several fiction novels; under his own name, as well as under the pseudonym Ross George Dering. For most of his time in China, Balfour worked as editor-in-chief for North China Daily News, The Shanghai Evening Courier, and The Celestial Empire newspapers.

Published Translations:

Waifs & Strays from the Far East (1876)
The Divine Classic of Nan-hua: Being the Works of Chuang Tsze, Taoist Philosopher (1881)
Idiomatic Dialogues in the Peking Colloquial (1883)
Taoist Texts: Ethical, Political and Speculative (1884)
Leaves from my Chinese Scrapbook (1887)

Published Novels:

Writing as Frederic H. Balfour

The Expiation of Eugene (1904)
Austin And His Friends (1906)

Writing as Ross George Dering^[6]

Giraldi (1889)
The Virgin’s Vengeance (1889)
The Undergraduate (1891)
Dr. Mirabel’s Theory (1893)

Published Essays:

Preaching The Gospel (1872)
Sermons Never Preached (1879)
The Principle of Nature (1880)
The Song Of Songs (Which Is Solomon?) (1893)
Cherryfield Hall (1895)
Unthinkables (1897)
The Higher Agnosticism (1897)
Religious Systems of the World (1901)
The Relation of Spiritualism to Orthodoxy (1905)
A Curious Physical Phenomenon (1906)
A Patagonia Mage (1907)

Reflections on Chinese Philosophy

Shawn Conners — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 03:06:26 +0000

Lao Tzu was the father of Taoism. In his Tao Te Ching, Lao Tzu outlined the basic concept of Tao.

Chuang Tzu and Lieh Tzu were Lao Tzu’s most important followers who expounded and expanded the basic principles set forth by Lao Tzu.

The translations of the works of these ancient Chinese sages by Lionel Giles and Herbert Giles are very highly regarded and considered by many to be the definitive English translations.

Tao – The Way – Special Edition ISBN 1934255130

Lionel’s translation of The Sayings of Lao Tzu (1905), taken from the Tao Te Ching and logically re-ordered, is remarkable for its clarity of expression, particularly given the complexity of the subject. Herbert’s translation of The Sayings of Chuang Tzu, presented here, with an introduction by Lionel, was originally published as Musings of a Chinese Mystic (1906). Lionel’s translation of The Sayings of Lieh Tzu was originally published as The Book of Lieh Tzu, or Teachings in Taoism (1912).

These collected works represent a major portion of the philosophy of Tao as we understand it today.

From Tao – The Way – Special Edition, p 74-75, The Sayings of Chuang Tzu:

How do I know that love of life is not a delusion after all? How do I know but that he who dreads to die is as a child who has lost the way and cannot find his home?

The lady li Chi was the daughter of Ai Feng. When the Duke of Chin first got her, she wept until the bosom of her dress was drenched with tears. But when she came to the royal residence, and lived with the Duke, and ate rich food, she repented of having wept. How then do I know but that the dead repent of having previously clung to life?

Those who dream of the banquet wake to lamentation and sorrow. Those who dream of lamentation and sorrow wake to join the hunt. While they dream, they do not know that they dream. Some will even interpret the very dream they are dreaming; and only when they awake do they know it was a dream. By and by comes the Great Awakening, and then we find out that this life is really a great dream. Fools think they are awake now, and flatter themselves they know if they are really princes or peasants. Confucius and you are both dreams; and I who say you are dreams – I am but a dream myself. This is a paradox. To-morrow a sage may arise to explain it; but that tomorrow will not be until ten thousand generations have gone by.

Granting that you and I argue. If you beat me, and not I you, are you necessarily right and I wrong? Or if I beat you and not you me, am I necessarily right and you wrong? Or are we both partly right and partly wrong? Or are we both wholly right or wholly wrong? You and I cannot know this, and consequently the world will be in ignorance of the truth.

Who shall I employ as arbiter between us? If I employ some one who takes your view, he will side with you. How can such a one arbitrate between us? If I employ some one who takes my view, he will side with me. How can such a one arbitrate between us? And if I employ some one who either differs from or agrees with both of us, he will be equally unable to decide between us. Since then you, and I, and man, cannot decide, must we not depend upon Another? Such dependence is as though it were not dependence. We are embraced in the obliterating unity of God.

Once upon a time, I, Chuang Tzu, dreamt I was a butterfly, fluttering hither and thither, to all intents and purposes a butterfly. I was conscious only of following my fancies as a butterfly, and was unconscious of my individuality as a man. Suddenly I awaked, and there I lay, myself again. Now I do not know whether I was then a man dreaming I was a butterfly, or whether I am now a butterfly dreaming I am a man. Between a man and a butterfly there is necessarily a barrier. The transition is called metempsychosis.

Special Edition Books » Tao Te Ching

Frederic H. Balfour – Translator of the Tao Te Ching

Reflections on Chinese Philosophy