Page:Sacred Books of the East - Volume 16.djvu/40

 natural object it symbolises; but on those attributes we need not enter at present.

The 70th and 71st paragraphs of Section i give another account of the origin of the trigrams:—

'In (the system of) the Yî there is the Great Extreme, which produced the two undefined (Elementary Forms). These two Forms produced the four undefined (Emblematic Symbols); which again produced the eight undefined (or Trigrams). The eight  served to determine the good and evil (issues of events), and from this determination there ensued the (prosecution of the) great business of life.'

The two elementary Forms, the four emblematic Symbols, and the eight Trigrams can all be exhibited with what may be deemed certainty. A whole line and a divided  were the two. These two lines placed over themselves, and each of them over the other, formed the four : ; ; ;. The same two lines placed successively over these, formed the eight  , exhibited above.

Who will undertake to say what is meant by 'the Great Extreme' which produced the two elementary Forms? Nowhere else does the name occur in the old Confucian literature. I have no doubt myself that it found its way into this Appendix in the fifth(? or fourth) century from a Tâoist source. Kû Hsî, in his 'Lessons on the Yî for the Young,' gives for it the figure of a circle,—thus, ○; observing that he does so from the philosopher Kâu ( 1017–1073), and cautioning his readers against thinking that such a representation came from Fû-hsî himself. To me the circular symbol appears very unsuccessful. 'The Great Extreme,' it is said, 'divided and produced two lines,—a whole line and a divided line.' But I do not understand how this could be. Suppose it possible for the circle to unroll