"Whence then," enquired Shao Chih, "comes the vitality of all things between the four points of the compass, between heaven above and earth beneath?"
"The Positive and Negative principles," answered T'ai Kung Tiao, "influence, act upon, and regulate each other. The four seasons alternate with, give birth to, and destroy one another. Hence, loves and hates, and courses rejected and courses adopted. Hence too, the intercourse of the sexes.
"States of peril and safety alternate. Good and evil fortune give birth to one another. Slowness and speed are mutually exclusive. Collection and dispersion are correlates. The actuality of these may be noted.
There is the name and the embodiment.
The essence of each can be verified. There is regular movement forward, modified by deflection into a curve. Exhaustion leads to renewal. The end introduces a new beginning. This is the law of material existences. The force of language, the reach of knowledge, cannot pass beyond the bounds of such material existences. The disciple of Tao refrains from prying into the states after or before. Human speculation stops short of this."
"Chi Chên," said Shao Chih, "taught Chance; Chieh Tzŭ taught Predestination.
"Two Sages." Comm.
In the speculations of these two schools, on which side did right lie?"
"The cock crows," replied T'ai Kung Tiao, "and the dog barks. So much we know. But the wisest of us could not say why one crows and the other barks, nor guess why they crow or bark at all.
"Let me explain. The infinitely small is inappreciable; the infinitely great is immeasurable. Chance and Predestination must refer to the conditioned. Consequently, both are wrong.