148 CHINESE PUZZLEDOM 



1. Ch'ien ($£) Heaven; 2. Tui(ft)Seas; 



3. Li ( ffi ) Fire; 4. Chen (fc ) Thunder; 



5. Hsun ( H ) Wind; 6. K'an ( #) Water; 



7. Ken ( & ) Mountains; 8. K'un (*$ ) Earth.* 



Out of Chaos these several parts emerged, and four of 

 them are Male and four Female,! which brings in the subject 

 of Yi?i and Yang, or the Dual Principles of Nature. J Con- 

 fucius ruled that "Heaven" is Father; "Earth" is Mother; 

 "Thunder," the eldest Son; "Wind," the eldest Daughter; 

 "Fire" the second Son; "Water" the second Daughter; 

 "Mountains" represent the youngest Son, and "Seas" 

 represent the youngest Daughter. In this ogdoad thus per- 

 sonified, it has been pointed out that we have that ancient 

 mariner Noah and his wife with their three sons, and the 

 sons' three wives who issued out of Chaos — the Flood, in 

 their microcosm — the Ark. The weak point in this is that 

 it rather sets aside the prior rights of Adam and Eve. By 

 ringing the changes on the Eight Diagrams the sixty-four 

 permutations are obtained, and out of these all things are 

 evolved; how this comes about exactly nobody knows. The 

 whole work stands as a unique production of a perverse or 

 paradoxical intellect, and Professor Giles, whose verdict is 

 to be respected, says "no one really knows what is meant 

 by the apparent gibberish" it contains. The Chinese them- 

 selves say that he who understands the I Ching understands 

 everything, though they claim that important lessons are to 

 be learned from its pages ; but what those important lessons 

 may be is a mystery. Confucius who wrote a commentary 

 on it declared life too short to elucidate the riddle. Philastre 

 says it is a method of symbolizing the astronomical lore of 

 the ancient Chinese. Canon McClatchie tries to open its- 

 mysteries "by applying the key of comparative mythology." 

 A. Terrien de la Couperie conceives it to be a vocabulary of 

 the language of the Bak tribes, said to be the oldest civilizers 

 of China, who brought the "word-symbols" with them as 

 an inheritance of the Elamc-Babylcnian civilization; but 

 neither Zottoli nor de Harlez agrees with this. Dr. Eiedel 

 insists on it being a lunar calendar. Dr. Paul Carus says 

 it is one of the most enigmatic books on earth. In view 

 of this diversity of opinion it is not astonishing that none 



^According to Fu Hsi ; the order according to Wen Wang is 

 1, 6. 7. 4, 5. 8. 3, 2. 



-(-"Which two great sexes animate the world." Paradise Lost, 

 Book VIII. 



J" An inevitable dualism bisects nature, so that each thing is a 

 half, and suggests another thing to make it whole ; as spirit, matter ; 

 man. woman; odd. even; subjective, objective: in, out; upper, under; 

 motion, rest; yea, nay." Compensation, R. W. Emerson. 



