Wei

The difference will be better understood after a brief sketch of the gradual development in the meaning of the word.

the first meaning of tao is road or way and in very early times it was used by a figure of speech for the way or method of doing a thing thus it came to denote a rule of right conduct moral action or the principle underlying it there also grew up in common speech a natural antithesis between the way of heaven the endow and the way of man the former expression signifying the highest standard of wisdom and moral excellence as opposed to the blind groping after truth here below finally the dien was dropped and tao stood alone for the great unseen principle of good dominating and permeating the universe the transition is visible in lao tzu who was probably the first to employ the term in its transcendental sense but who also retains the older expression In one of his sayings, Dian Dao is practically equivalent to the Dao, the first cause, and must therefore be translated not the Wei, but the Dao of Heaven.

This brings us to the next stage, of which Zhuangzi is a representative.

In his writings, Dao never seems to mean Wei, but he introduces a new element of perplexity by speaking of Dian and Dao as though they were two co-existent, yet perfectly distinct cosmic principles.

he also uses the combination tian tao and it is here that the clue to the difficulty must be sought the tao of heaven is evidently an attribute rather than a thing in itself and it is tian which has now become the first cause it is a less impersonal conception however than lao tzu's transcendental tao and in fact closely approximates to our own term god what then is chuang tzu's tao though by no means always clear and consistent on the subject he seems to regard it as the virtue or manifestation of the divine first principle it is what he somewhere calls the happiness of god which to the taoist of course means a state of profound and passionless tranquillity a sacred everlasting calm now lao tzu speaks of tao as having existed before heaven and earth heaven he says takes its law from tao but the law of tao is its own spontaneity with him therefore tao is the antecedent of dien being what modern philosophers term the unconditioned or the absolute as to his dien the ambiguity which lurks therein makes it doubtful whether he had any definite conception of it at all he simply appears to have accepted the already existing chinese cosmogony oblivious or careless of its incompatibility with his own novel conception of tao to some extent removes his ambiguity by reverting to the older usage he deposes tao from its premier position as the absolute and puts tien in its place tao becomes a mystic moral principle not unlike lao tzu's d or virtue and the latter term when used at all has lost most of its technical significance thus broadly stated some such explanation will prove helpful to the reader though he may still be baffled by a passage like the following A man looks upon God.

Grainger knows.

In the second there was, because in the first case the boat was empty, and in the second it was occupied.

And so it is with man.