De
德 (dé)
The *de* is not moral virtue in the sense of merit or conformity to a law. It is the inherent power-efficiency of a being: what the Tao deposits within it and causes it to grow according to what it is. The Tao produces, the *de* nourishes. Virtue in the ancient sense of the force that enables— the sap that allows a thing to fully become itself.
Le Tao produit les êtres, la Vertu les nourrit.
The word that carries everything is nourrir. The Tao gives rise to beings (道生之), de nourishes them (德畜之): between the source and the thing, de is what passes through and sustains. Julien renders it as “Virtue,” but his commentary immediately corrects the misunderstanding—“the Virtue spoken of here is the Tao’s manifestation in creatures.” Not a quality an being bestows upon itself, but a power it receives and unfolds.
Each being has its de: water has the power of water, the tree that of the tree. This efficacy is not earned; it is conferred and held as one’s own—“no one has granted the Tao its dignity, nor Virtue its nobility: they possess them eternally within themselves.” De is thus less about what one does well than what one is capable of doing while remaining true to one’s own nature.
De (the power received, unfolded within the being) is not the Tao, the source-path from which it flows: the Tao is the upstream, de is what descends from it into each thing. And de is ≠ Western moral virtue, merit, or obedience to a rule: one does not earn de, one embodies it. The Tao is the river; de, the force of the current in every inlet.