Action Is Life Itself: the Tireless Pertinacity of Nature Our Example
According to my own individual experience, our first step must be to draw a clear distinction between action and motion. The monosyllabic structure of the Chinese language has occasioned the use of substantival phrases consisting of two words. One of these phrases is hsing-tung (action-motion), which in common parlance often has the meaning properly covered only by the word hsing alone, a word of far deeper and wider meaning than the word tung. In fact, we may say that action is human life itself. An antithesis is commonly implied between the words action and thought, and between word and act. In reality, however, thought and word are processes of action, and are properly to be considered as included within the scope of action, rather than as foreign to it. From birth to death, while he is subject to space and time, a man cannot withdraw himself from the sphere of action; he grows up in action and his character is formed and elevated by action. All saintly and heroic men, like the devoted revolutionary, attain their ends and achieve their nobility of character only through their planned and determined actions.
If we wish to realize the true nature of action we can do no better than take as the point-de-départ for our thinking the words of the I-ching or Book of Changes: "Let the superior man exert himself with the unfailing pertinacity of Nature." For the most obvious thing in the universe, the very principle animating all its phenomena, is the activity of the forces of Nature. The gloss reads: "Day by day the heavens revolve, with a constancy that only a supreme pertinacity could maintain. The superior man models himself upon it in the unceasing exertion of his energies." This pertinacity is something perennially unimpaired and ever changeless, greatest strength united to greatest durability, and moreover an absolute thoroughness and completeness. And we must model ourselves on the activity of nature, on its spontaneous and unremitting flow of energy. If there is this realization of the value and place of human life in the universe, action will appear to us something inevitable, and there will follow as a matter of course single-minded devotion to purpose, a completely natural attitude, and resolute advance with firm strides towards our ends—we shall have achieved, in the words of the Chung-yung, "the highest integrity, unfailing and enduring." Man's existence and progress depend entirely upon his perception of these truths.
Action, therefore, differs from motion. Motion is by no means necessarily action, though action may on occasion include some form of motion. Action is continuous, whereas motion is intermittent; action is essential, whereas motion is accidental; action is spontaneous, whereas motion is usually due to the application of external force. Action is in response to the supreme order of things and in harmony with the nature of man. Motion is impulsive response to some fortuitous external stimulus. Action we may describe as more natural and smoother intrinsically than motion; and extrinsically it is wholly good in its outcome, whereas motion may be good or may be evil. Action unfolds in uninterrupted continuity; motion proceeds by fits and starts. As an illustration, action may be compared to a ceaseless flow of water, in the words of Confucius, "racing on, unpausing day and night." The unremitting and insistent character of positive action may thus be figured forth. Motion on the other hand may be compared to the impact of a stone upon water into which it is thrown. The water is violently agitated and leaps high into the air; its movement is tumultuous while it lasts, but subsides when after a moment or so the extraneous force that caused it is expended. Such motion is, therefore, transitory, simply because its motive force comes from without.