《老子》一書歷記成敗、禍福、存亡、古今之道，書中以「觀復」的超越眼光，將歷史文化上提至對「常道」的邏輯觀察，與德國文化哲學家史賓格勒提出的「歷史型態學」頗見異曲同工。透過對史賓格勒筆下之中國文化的「基本象徵」進行觀察與反省，以及老子所言「道」之中蘊含的史氏提出的「時間」意識問題分析，本文試圖析就老子「觀復」之型態學與史式「觀相」的型態學之間，具有深刻的史觀差異，以此證明史氏之文化周期斷滅論所詮釋的文明歸宿，與老子「大道廢，有仁義」的循環史觀，存在著「定命」與「造命」的不同思維向度。

The “Lao-Tzu＂ discussed about the rule of success or fail, disaster or fortune, survive or perish. The viewpoint in this book observed the return of the universe, and expanded the contexts of history and culture to be the revolution logic of the “Tao＂. It is similar to the “Historical Morphology＂ posed by Spengler, who is the cultural philosopher of Germany in twenty century. Reviewing the “Prime Symbol＂ of Chinese culture described by Spengler, and analyzing the problem about time consciousness in Lao-Tzu's “Tao＂ which also mentioned by Spengler that display the important difference between Lao-Tzu's morphology of the return and Spengler's Physiognomic morphology. It is observable to prove the cultural periodicity life that described the end of the human civilization by Spengler and the Lao-Tzu's historical aspect about the revolution of the universe, “When the great Tao perishes. There is jen and justice＂, that there are two kinds of thinking logic about human civilization in Spengler's “Destiny＂ and Lao-Tzu's “Return＂.