Page:Sacred Books of the East - Volume 16.djvu/63

 is now vigorous and abundant, and now dull and void, growing and diminishing according to the seasons, that constitutes the traces of making and transformation; why should the writer further speak of the ?' He replied, 'When he uses the style of "heaven and earth," he is speaking of the result generally; but in ascribing it to the , he is representing the traces of their effective interaction, as if there were men (that is, some personal agency) bringing it about .' This solution merely explains the language away. When we come to the fifth Appendix, we shall understand better the views of the period when these treatises were produced.

The single character  is used in explaining the   on , the twentieth hexagram, where we read:—

'In undefined we see the spirit-like way of heaven, through which the four seasons proceed without error. The sages, in accordance with (this) spirit-like way, laid down their instructions, and all under heaven yield submission to them.'

The author of the Appendix delights to dwell on the changing phenomena taking place between heaven and earth, and which he attributes to their interaction; and he was penetrated evidently with a sense of the harmony between the natural and spiritual worlds. It is this sense, indeed, which vivifies both the  and the explanation of them.

We proceed to the second Appendix, which professes to do for the duke of Kâu's symbolical exposition of the several lines what the  does for the entire figures. The work here, however, is accomplished with less trouble and more briefly. The whole bears the name of, 'Treatise on the Symbols' or 'Treatise on the Symbolism (of the Yî).'