548 



ANNUAL EEPORT 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). 



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 



Fig. 2.— The 64 trigrams. 



