Page:Sacred Books of the East - Volume 16.djvu/79

 of Chinese critics that Wăn purposely altered the earlier and established arrangement, as a symbol of the disorganisation and disorder into which the kingdom had fallen. But it is hard to say why a man did something more than 3000 years ago, when he has not himself said anything about it. So far as we can judge from this Appendix, the author thought that king Wăn altered the existing order and position of the trigrams with regard to the cardinal points, simply for the occasion,—that he might set forth vividly his ideas about the springing, growth, and maturity in the vegetable kingdom from the labours of spring to the cessation from toil in winter. The marvel is that in doing this he brings God upon the scene, and makes Him in the various processes of nature the 'all and in all.'

The 8th paragraph says:—

'God comes forth in  (to his producing work); He brings (His processes) into full and equal action in  ; they are manifested to one another in  ; the greatest service is done for Him in  ; He rejoices in  ; He struggles in  ; He is comforted and enters into rest in  ; and he completes (the work of) the year in  .'

God is here named, for which P. Regis gives the Latin 'Supremus Imperator,' and Canon McClatchie, after him, 'the Supreme Emperor.' I contend that 'God' is really the correct translation in English of Tî; but to render it here by 'Emperor' would not affect the meaning of the paragraph. Kû Hsî says that 'by  is intended the Lord and Governor of heaven;' and Khung Ying-tâ, about five centuries earlier than Kû, quotes Wang Pî, who died