Tao te Ching: 51

Tao produces them (the ten thousand things).
Virtue fosters them.
Matter gives them physical form.
The circumstances and tendencies complete them.
Therefore the ten thousand things esteem Tao and honor virtue.
Tao is esteemed and virtue is honored without anyone's order.
They always come spontaneously.
Therefore Tao produces them and virtue fosters them.
They rear them and develop them.
They give them security and give them peace.
They nurture them and protect them.
(Tao) produces them but does not take possession of them.
It acts, but it does not rely on its own ability.
It leads them but does not master them.
This is called the profound and secret virtue.

And now we return to hsüan-te, the profound and secret virtue from Chapter 10. This is the mysterious and secret virtue that has Tao inherent in it. The one produces the two, the two produce the three, and the three produce the ten thousand things. Yet, these ten thousand things do not exist on their own nor as a collective. These ten thousand things are us, the animals, plants, everything we can point to and many things we can't.

These ten thousand things are from Tao, and te (virtue) fosters them. What does it mean that virtue fosters them? It means that it allows them to grow. And they do grow. Why is it virtue? Because it is the thing that proceeds from Tao without being named. The great virtue and the specific virtue. Quiddity and haecceity. This was in Chapter 21, and is opposed to the cultivated virtue of Confucianism and other systems that attempt to find te because they do not follow Tao.

This chapter reminds that hsüan-te is not one of the ten thousand things, but rather more of it and a part of all of them. It reminds us that Tao and te are not matter on their own, and that they do not have matter except through the ten thousand things.