548 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1911. 
Truth and as the essence of things. It is after all nothing else than 
our conception of God. 
In this unfathomable first cause two forces are acting, equal and 
opposite, above and below, white and black, but supplementing one 
another to establish that unity which they constitute and are, being 
inseparable from it and from one another. This is the male and 
female principle. It is the active, creative energy, conceived as two 
and subsequently embodied as the dragon. ‘Thus, from one we have 
two, and from three, the triad, the trinity. 
The masculine is distinguished by one stroke as odd and the 
feminine by two strokes as even. The combination constitutes an 
clement, to which another stroke is added, to designate the divine 
existence of the Tao, so that a triad arises. These strokes are varied, 
interchanged, and repeated to give eight variations, the masculine 
or the feminine predomi- 
nate in each of the varia- 
tions, they never balance. 
This number 8 forms the 
harmonic basal number for 
all further philosophical 
investigations. The entire 
universe is represented by 
the eight elements. By 
mathematical means the 
world of phenomena is thus 
delineated in its funda- 
mental constituents. There 
are no more either on the 
surface or in the theory of 
numbers. The multitude 
of the other phenomea is 
formed by the combinations of the elements. When doubled to six 
elements the resultant is the number 64 as in the accompany illustra- 
tion (fig. 2). ie. 
One must closely study this cogent metaphysical interpretation of 
the number 64 to comprehend the profundity of chess, by which we 
also endeavor to find the eternal truth, that round central figure which 
gives the solution of the riddle. But as every chess player knows 
that a perfect game does not exist, likewise everyone knows that this 
ideal, perfect truth, is forever unattainable in this life but. is always 
effective in the various endeavors to attain it. 
The Buddhist conception here accords with that of the Chinese. 
The Buddhist triad shows Buddha between the two main radiations 
of his being. To the Chinese mind this trinity signifies, in the center, 
merely a personification of the essence of things and on the sides, the 
Fic. 2.—The 64 trigrams. 
