36 DESTINY, FATE 



explain these mysteries of life. He therefore substitutes his 

 own view. The end of these men is not to be explained by 

 the theory of destiny, but by the starry fluid that constituted 

 their physical life. 



This star emanation, he explains, composes an indivi- 

 dual's vitality. Hence a person's fate and destiny is written 

 in his countenance. It is seen in the structure, size, shape 

 of the bones of the frame. Hence a fortune teller is found 

 with a chart and map of the human body. A comparison of 

 the enquirer's bones and contour of person with the standard 

 will help to diagnose his destiny and fate. 



Mr. Wang says, therefore, it is the constitution of the 

 physical nature that determines a person's fate. A distinc- 

 tion, he says, may be made in the nature and disposition of a 

 person. So we have the Constant, Consequent and Fortui- 

 tous nature. The constant nature ensures an endowment of 

 the Five Worths: — Jen, I, Li, Chih, Hsin. The consequent 

 nature is conditional on the parental quality, the adverse 

 dependent on untoward phenomena. Hence the pregnant 

 mother gives birth to a hare-lip if she eat a hare during 

 pregnancy. So in the Book of Seasons in the Li f)hi minute 

 instructions are given to women. As fate and nature become 

 inherent through human instrumentality, women with child 

 are stringently warned what to do. For instance she must 

 not sit down before a table not quite straight, she must not 

 look on any incorrect colour, nor must she listen to any 

 sounds unceremonially unclean. A shock from thunder is 

 specially dangerous. Thus as a man is endowed so will his 

 fate be. 



In another essay that on Destiny and Fortune discussing 

 the same proposition, he reaches the same conclusion, that 

 the heaven born nature is like fate. King I of Yueh, he says, 

 escaped into the mountains, earnestly desiring not to be 

 made a king. But the people of Yueh smoked him out, he 

 could not escape the throne. By Heaven's fate it had to be 

 so. That is to sav, by his own nature. 



To sum up, Wang Ch'ung says, "Men's lives in this 

 world have propitious and unpropitious natures, and this 

 Fate determines happiness and adversity, prosperity and 

 ruin. In addition it is the lot of man to> meet with chance 

 and accident which dog him from birth to death. That he 

 should finish his good intentions and attain his heart's 

 desire is very difficult." 



Thus, then, broadly speaking we have the Taoist and the 

 two Confucian views outlined in the preceding pages co- 

 existing in Chinese thought. On the one hand there is the 

 school of Mei Tzu which denies Destinv. On the other hand. 



