5. ‘He [tries to] move the flesh along the spine above the heart’—his aim is trivial.
6. ‘He moves his jaws and tongue’—he [only] talks with loquacious mouth.
Sixth Wing (‘Appended Sentences’).—Chapter I.—1. The eight trigrams having been completed in their proper order, there were in each the [three] emblematic lines. They were then multiplied by a process of addition till the [six] component lines appeared.
2. The strong line and the weak push themselves each into the place of the other, and hence the changes [of the diagrams] take place. The appended explanations attach to every form of them its character [of good or ill], and hence the movements [suggested by divination] are determined accordingly.
3. Good fortune and ill, occasion for repentance or regret, all arise from these movements ... etc., etc.
The hundreds of fortune-tellers seen in the streets of Chinese towns, whose answers to their perplexed customers are more or less founded on these cabala, indicate their influence among the illiterate; while among scholars, who have long since conceded all divination to be vain, it is surprising to remark the profound estimation in which these inane lines are held as the consummation of all wisdom—the germ, even, of all the truths which western science has brought to light! Each hexagram is supposed to represent, at any given time, six different phases of the primordial kí. “As all the good and evil in the world,” observes McClatchie, “is attributed by the Chinese philosophers to the purity or impurity of the animated air from which the two-fold soul in man is formed, a certain moral value attaches to each stroke, and the diviner prognosticates accordingly that good or evil luck, as the case may be, will result to the consulter of the oracle with regard to the matter on which he seeks it. Nine is the number of Heaven, or the undivided stroke, and six is the number of Earth, or the divided stroke, and hence each stroke has a double designation. The first stroke, if undivided, is designated ‘First-Nine,’ but if divided it is designated ‘First-Six,’ and so on. The second and fifth strokes in each diagram are important, being the centre or medium strokes of their respective lesser diagrams. The fifth stroke, however, is the most important in divination, as it represents that portion of the air which is the especial throne of the imperial power, and is the ‘undeflected due medium.’ Nothing but good luck can follow if the person divining with the straws obtains this stroke. Tao, or the Divine Reason, which is the supreme soul of the whole Kosmos, animates the air, pervading its six phases, and thus giving power to the diagrams to make known future events to mankind.”
Of course anything and everything could be deduced from such a fanciful groundwork, but the Chinese have taken up the discussion in the most serious manner, and endeavored to find the hidden meaning and evolutions of the universe from this curious system. The diagrams have, moreover, supplied the basis for many species of divination by shells, letters, etc., by which means the mass of the people are deluded into the belief of penetrating futurity, and still more wedded to their superstitions. The continued influence of such a work as the Yih illustrates the national penchant for laws and method, while equally indicating the general indifference to empirical research and the facts deduced from study of natural history. If, from a philosophical standpoint, we consider the barrenness of its results, there is little, indeed, to say for the Yih King, save concurrence in Dr. Gustave Schlegel’s epithet, “a mechanical play of idle abstractions;” nevertheless, this classic contains in its whimsical dress of inscrutable strokes much of practical wisdom, giving heed to which it is not hard to agree with Dr. Legge in concluding that “the inculcation of such lessons cannot have been without good effect in China during the long course of its history.”[303]
THE SHU KING, OR BOOK OF RECORDS.
The second section of the Imperial Catalogue contains treatises upon the Shu King, or ‘Book of Records.’ This classic, first in importance as it is in age among the five King, consists of a series of documents relating to the history of China from the times of Yao down to King Hiang, of the Chau dynasty (B.C. 2357-627). Its earlier chapters were composed at periods following the events of which they relate, but after the twenty-second century B.C. the Shu comes to us, though in a mutilated condition, as the contemporary chronicle of proclamations, addresses, and principles of the early sovereigns. Internal evidence leads to the conclusion that Confucius acted chiefly as editor of documents existing in his day; he probably wrote the preface, but what alterations it received at his hand cannot now be ascertained. When it left his care it contained eighty-one documents in one hundred books, arranged under the five dynasties of Yao, Shun, Hia, Shang, and Chau, the last one coming down to within two hundred and twenty-one years of his own birth. Most of these are lost, and others are doubted by Chinese critics, so that now only forty-eight documents remain, thirty of them belonging to the Chau, with the preface ascribed to Confucius. He showed his estimate of their value by calling the whole Shang Shu, or the ‘Highest Book,’ and we may class their loss with that of other ancient works in Hebrew or Greek literature. The Shu King now contains six different kinds of state papers, viz., imperial ordinances, plans drawn up by statesmen as guides for their sovereign, instructions prepared for the guidance of the prince, imperial proclamations and charges to the people, vows taken before Shangtí by the monarch when going out to battle, and, lastly, mandates, announcements, speeches, and canons issued to the ministers of state.[304]