Page:Sacred Books of the East - Volume 16.djvu/62

 There is thus before us the apparatus with which the writer of the Appendix accomplishes his task. Let me select one of the shortest instances of his work. The fourteenth hexagram is, called , and meaning 'Possessing in great abundance.' King Wăn saw in it the symbol of a government prosperous and realising all its proper objects; but all that he wrote on it was '  (indicates) great progress and success.' Unfolding that view of its significance, the Appendix says:—

'In undefined the weak (line) has the place of honour, is grandly central, and (the strong lines) above and below respond to it. Hence comes its name of "Possession of what is great." The attributes (of its constituent trigrams, khien and lî) are strength and vigour, elegance and brightness. (The ruling line in it) responds to (the ruling line in the symbol of) heaven, and its actings are (consequently all) at the proper times. Thus it is that it is said to indicate great progress and success.'

In a similar way the paragraphs on all the other 63 hexagrams are gone through; and, for the most part, with success. The conviction grows upon the student that the writer has on the whole apprehended the mind of king Wăn.

in this Appendix. It has not yet, however, received the semi-physical, semi-metaphysical signification which the comparatively modern scholars of the Sung dynasty give to it. There are two passages where it is found;—the second paragraph on, the fifteenth hexagram, and the third on  , the fifty-fifth. By consulting them the reader will be able to form an opinion for himself. The term  denotes specially the human spirit disembodied, and   is used for spirits whose seat is in heaven. I do not see myany [sic] way to translate them, when used binomially together, otherwise than by spiritual beings or spiritual agents.

Kû Hsî once had the following question suggested by the second of these passages put to him:—'undefined is a name for the traces of making and transformation; but when it is said that (the interaction of) heaven and earth