The Editor: Adrian Hsia studied English and German Literature, Philosophy and Sociology in Cologne and Berlin, Germany, and Basel, Switzerland. He obtained his Dr. phil. degree at the Free University, Berlin, in 1965. Since 1968 he has been teaching at the Department of German, McGill University in Montréal, Canada. His publications include books on D.H. Lawrence, the Chinese Cultural Revolution, Hermann Hesse, Goethe, German Thinkers on China, and some 60 articles. He mostly published in German, and some books and essays have been translated into Dutch and English, Chinese and Japanese.

Tao is the metaphysical soul of China. At the same time, it is more accessible to the Western mind than any other tenets of the Chinese culture. The present collection of essays reflects this fact. It examines the temporal and cultural transfer of concept in China and the West. The articles analyze the style of Chuang Tzu, the self in Tao De Ching , the European interpretation of Tao in the 17th and 18th centuries, the problems of translation into several Western languages, its impact on the contemporary literary production in both Beijing and Taipei, and also on Western philosophers, novelists, and playwrights. The contributors are from 3 continents. They are also from 3 age groups: from young scholars to those with established international fame, including Owen Aldridge (US), Wolfgang Bauer (Germany), and Marian Galik (Slovakia). The articles are in English, French, and German. For the convenience of the readers, the volume includes a Chinese text of Tao De Ching .