At the head of the ‘Five Classics’ (Wu King) is placed the Yih King, or ‘Book of Changes,’ a work which if not—as it has been repeatedly called—Antiquissimus Sinarum liber, can be traced with tolerable accuracy to an origin three thousand years ago. It ranks, according to Dr. Legge, third in antiquity among the Chinese classics, or after the Shu and portions of the Shí King; but if an unbounded veneration for enigmatical wisdom supposed to lie concealed under mystic lines be any just claim for importance, to this wondrous monument of literature may easily be conceded the first place in the estimation of Chinese scholars.

While following Dr. Legge in his recent exposition of this classic,[302] a clearer idea of its subject-matter can hardly be given than by quoting his words stating that “the text may be briefly represented as consisting of sixty-four short essays, enigmatically and symbolically expressed, on important themes, mostly of a moral, social, and political character, and based on the same number of lineal figures, each made up of six lines, some of which are whole and the others divided.” The evolution of the eight diagrams from two original principles is ascribed to Fuh-hí (B.C. 3322), who is regarded as the founder of the nation, though his history is, naturally enough, largely fabulous. From the Liang Í, or ‘Two Principles’ (⚊) (⚋), were fashioned the Sz’ Siang, or ‘Four Figures,’ by placing these over themselves and each of them over the other, thus:

⚌ ⚍ ⚎ ⚏

The same pairs placed in succession under the original lines formed eight trigrams called the

PAH KWA of FUH-HÍ.

☰☱☲☳☴☵☶☷
kientuilíchinsiuenkankănkwăn
Heaven, the Sky.Water collected, as in a marsh or lake.Fire, as in lightning; the Sun.Thunder.The Wind; Wood.Water, as in rain, clouds, springs, streams, and defiles. The Moon.Hills or Mountains.The Earth.
S.S.E.E.N.E.S.W.W.N.W.N.
Untiring strength; power.Pleasure; complacent satisfaction.Brightness; elegance.Moving; exciting power.Flexibility; penetration.Peril; difficulty.Resting; the act of arresting.Capaciousness; submission.

ITS PHILOSOPHICAL SYSTEM.

The table furnishes us with the natural objects that these figures are said to represent, the attributes which should seem to be suggested by them, and which, with the application of the eight points of the compass, together form the material for a cabalistic logomancy peculiarly pleasing to Chinese habits of thought. The trigrams furnish, moreover, the state and position, at any given place or time, of the twofold division of the one primordial kí, or ‘Air,’ called Yang and Yin, and have thus become the source from whence the system of Fung-shui is derived and on whose changes it is founded. This substance kí answers sufficiently closely to the animated air of the Grecian philosopher Anaximenes; its divisions are a subtle and a coarse principle which, acting and reacting upon each other, produce four siang, or ‘forms,’ and these again combine into eight kwa, or trigrams. Fuh-hí is thus said to have arranged the first four of the Pah Kwa under the Yang (strong or hard) principle, and the last four under the Yin (weak or soft) principle; the former indicate vigor or authority, and it is their part to command, while of the latter, representing feebleness or submission, it is the part to obey.

It was probably Wăn Wang, King Wăn, chief of the principality of Chau in 1185 B.C., who when thrown into prison by his jealous suzerain Shau, the tyrant of Shang, arranged and multiplied the trigrams—long before his time used for purposes of divination—into the sixty-four hexagrams as they now occur in the Yih King. His was a wholly different disposition, both of names, attributes, and the compass points, from the original trigrams of Fuh-hí; again, he added to them certain social relations of father, mother, three sons, and three daughters, which has ever since been found a convenient addition to the conjuring apparatus of the work. “I like to think,” says Dr. Legge, “of the lord of Chau, when incarcerated in Yu-lí, with the sixty-four figures arranged before him. Each hexagram assumed a mystic meaning and glowed with a deep significance. He made it to tell him of the qualities of various objects of nature, or of the principles of human society, or of the condition, actual and possible, of the kingdom. He named the figures each by a term descriptive of the idea with which he had connected it in his mind, and then he proceeded to set that idea forth, now with a note of exhortation, now with a note of warning. It was an attempt to restrict the follies of divination within the bounds of reason.... But all the work of King Wăn in the Yih thus amounts to no more than sixty-four short paragraphs. We do not know what led his son Tan to enter into his work and complete it as he did. Tan was a patriot, a hero, a legislator, and a philosopher. Perhaps he took the lineal figures in hand as a tribute of filial duty. What had been done for the whole hexagram he would do for each line, and make it clear that all the six lines ‘bent one way their precious influence,’ and blended their rays in the globe of light which his father had made each figure give forth. But his method strikes us as singular. Each line seemed to become living, and suggested some phenomenon in nature, or some case of human experience, from which the wisdom or folly, the luckiness or unluckiness, indicated by it could be inferred. It cannot be said that the duke carried out his plan in a way likely to interest any one but a hien shăng who is a votary of divination and admires the style of its oracles. According to our notions, a framer of emblems should be a good deal of a poet; but those of the Yih only make us think of a dryasdust. Out of more than three hundred and fifty, the greater number are only grotesque. We do not recover from the feeling of disappointment till we remember that both father and son had to write ‘according to the trick,’ after the manner of diviners, as if this lineal augury had been their profession.”