I can only say that I see no other way of studying the history of thought except by first studying the history of words, and such a study would seem to me equally necessary if I were dealing with the Greeks, the Romans, the Egyptians, the Hebrews, or any other people. For example, in reading the Bible, whether for edification or literary pleasure, we do not trouble to enquire whether abstract words like 'righteousness' mean the same thing all through the Old Testament, or whether (as I should certainly expect) they mean something quite different in the more primitive parts of the Pentateuch from what they mean in the later prophets. Nor do we pause to ask what the different words rendered by 'soul', 'spirit' and so on really meant to the people who used them. But anyone studying the history of Hebrew thought would be bound to ask himself these questions, and I cannot think that it is superfluous to ask them with regard to Chinese. (Arthur Waley w swoim wprowadzeniu do przekładu Tao Te Ching – The Way and Its Power. A Study of the Tao Tê Ching and Its Place in Chinese Thought)
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