Beck | The Way produced the One; the One produced two; two produced three; and three produced all things. |
Blackney | The Way begot one, And the one, two; Then the two begot three And three, all else. |
Bynner | Life, when it came to be, Bore one, then two, then three Elements of things; And thus the three began – Heaven and earth and man – To balance happenings: |
Byrn | The Tao gave birth to One. The One gave birth to Two. The Two gave birth to Three. The Three gave birth to all of creation. |
Chan | Tao produced the One. The One produced the two. The two produced the three. And the three produced the ten thousand things. |
Cleary | The Way produces one; one produces two, two produce three, three produce all beings: |
Crowley | The Dao formulated the One. The One exhaled the Two. The Two were parents of the Three. The Three were parents of all things. |
Hansen | A guide generates ‘one.’ ‘One’ generates ‘two.’ ‘Two’ generates ‘three.’ ‘Three’ generates the ten-thousand natural kinds. |
LaFargue | Tao produced The One The One produced Two Two produced Three Three produced the thousands of things. |
Legge | The Tao produced One; One produced Two; Two produced Three; Three produced All things. |
Lindauer | Tao gives birth to one One gives birth to two Two gives birth to three Three gives birth to the 10000 things. |
LinYutan | Out of Tao, One is born; Out of One, Two; Out of Two, Three; Out of Three, the created universe. |
Mabry | The Tao gives birth to one. One gives birth to two. Two gives birth to three, And three gives birth to all things. |
McDonald | Dao gave birth to the one; the one gave birth successively to two things, three things, up the everything, everybody and the whole world we know. |
Merel | The Way bears sensation, Sensation bears memory, Sensation and memory bear abstraction, And abstraction bears all the world; |
Mitchell | The Tao gives birth to One. One gives birth to Two. Two gives birth to Three. Three gives birth to all things. |
Muller | The Tao produces one, one produces two. The two produce the three and the three produce all things. |
Red Pine | The Tao gives birth to one one gives birth to two two gives birth to three three gives birth to ten thousand things |
Ta-Kao | Tao begets One; one begets two; two begets three; three begets all things. |
Walker | Nonbeing gives birth to the oneness. The oneness gives birth to yin and yang. Yin and Yang give birth to heaven, earth, and beings. Heaven, earth, and beings give birth to everything in existence. |
Wayism | |
Wieger | When the Principle has emitted its virtue, the latter begins to evolve according to two alternating modalities. This evolution produces (or condenses) the median air (tenuous matter). From tenuous matter, under the influence of the two modalities yin and yang, all sentient beings are produced. |
World | Infinity is oneness. Infinity is the potential of all things. All things are one with Infinity. Distinguishing creates the two |
Wu | Tao gave birth to One, One gave birth to Two, Two gave birth to Three, Three gave birth to all the myriad things. |
Category: Philosophy
The quest for greater unity and truth is achieved by the famous dialectic, positing something (thesis), denying it (antithesis), and combining the two half-truths (synthesis) which contains a greater portion of truth in its complexity.
vitalism
Barthez, Paul (1734-1806) proposed a Vitalism Theory in which humans were composed of three parts: the body (which decayed upon death), the soul (which went to heaven), and the “principle vitale,” or vital principle (which was returned to the universal store).
© 1996-2007 Eric W. Weisstein
Vitalism
(17TH-19TH CENTURIES)
Any of various views insisting, in contrast to mechanism, that life involves a special principle and cannot be explained in terms of physical and chemical properties alone. The theory has its origins in the classification of compounds in 1675 by the French chemist Nicolas Lemery (1645-1715). He considered them as animal, vegetable or mineral according to how they originated. Another French chemist, Antoine Laurent Lavoisier (1743-1794), grouped the animal and vegetable compounds together but still retained the original classification.
By the start of the 19th century, it was believed that definite and fundamental differences existed between ‘organic’ and ‘inorganic’ compounds, as substances had come to be known.
In 1815, the Swedish chemist Johan Jakob Berzelius (1779-1848) proposed that the two classes of compounds were produced from their elements by entirely different laws. Organic compounds were produced under the influence of a vital force and so were incapable of being prepared artificially.
This distinction was ended in 1828 when German chemist Friedrich Wohler (1800-1882) synthesized the organic compound urea from the purely inorganic ammonium cyanate. In philosophical terms, the life principle involved may take the form of entelechies within living things, which are responsible for their growth and development (according to Hans Driesch (1867-1941)); or of a general life force like the elan vital of Henri Bergson (1859-1941), who rejected the kind of vitalism that postulated individual entelechies.
Compare with: reductionism
Also see: emergence theories, holism, CONCEPT OF HUMORALISM
Source:
E Sinnott, The Bridge of Life: From Matter to Spirit (New York, 1966);
H Driesch, The History and Theory of Vitalism (1914);
I L Finar, Organic Chemistry (London, 1973)
Three Marks of Existence
Three marks of existence (Pali, ti-lakkhana; Sanskrit, tri-laksana) in Buddhism is the collective term for anicca, “impermanence,” dukkha, “suffering,” and anatta, “no-self.” Although each comprise a topic of meditation in its own right conceptually they are interrelated: there is “no-self” because there is “impermanence,” and because there is “impermanence” there is “suffering.” The reflection upon dukkha serves to dispel the illusions about the world and of life. A.G.H.
Source:
Bowker, John, The Oxford Dictionary of World Religions, New York, Oxford University Press, 1997, p. 973