TXTE.ODUCTION. XIII 



v When darkness dispersed and "light arose, sim, moon and stars moved on their eternal or- 

 bits, and man adored God as the creator of the world and of man. God the creator is, also, 

 therefore, the everlasting light, the eternal law of the world — the everlasting Harmony, 

 Order and Wisdom whioh creates and maintains all. The world was made hecause God the 

 Eternal thonght and spoke; for the thinking and speaking of God is production and creation. 

 The holy word is the godlike f andamen tal thonght and the godlike fandamental word, — the 

 wordofwords, — byvirtue of which the All was created and bom in the beginning by the all- 

 mighty One out of the primary darkness, when He spoke and there was." ( l ) 



This notion of the single and undivided God has been retained through all ages by the Chi- 

 nese. They named Him the Suprème ruler (Shang-ti), ( 2 ) whilst they gave Him as synonyms 

 the names Heaven (Thian), ( 3 ) Old Heaven (Lao thian) ( 4 ) and Sovereign Heaven (Hwang thian) ( 5 ). 

 Some philosophers called Him, also, Li, ( 6 ) or the necessary principle which makes that all 

 things are as they exist, and Tai-hili, ( 7 ) Greatest extreme; whilst they mean to express by 

 all these names what we express by: //Essential truth, sovereign wisdom, eternal and immu- 

 z/table reason which is in All and every where, which subsists by itself and through itself, 

 // which gives to all intelligent beings the excellency of their nature and the sublimity of their 

 understanding." ( 8 ) As father of the universe they called Him Fu-thian, Fatlier Heaven ( 9 ), 

 like the old Germans called Him Allvater. 



God, says the old doctrine, by His almighty breath ( 10 ), gave to the Yin and Yang the fecun- 

 dity of which it was susceptible, by making it pass from the state of rest to the state of mo- 

 tion or work; by letting it tak e, successively, the different forms and modifications which con- 

 stitute the different ways of existence in the production of natural things. ( u ) 



Yin and Yang may be called darkness and light, niglifc and day, motion and rest, cold and 

 heat, male and female, positive and negative : Sun and Heaven are Yang, Moon and Earth 

 are Yin. //So we meet," says Dr. Schanberg, ( 12 ) //in the oldest sacred book of Eastern Asia ( I3 ) 

 the same worldprinciplc of rest and motion, of mutability and immutability, which is expressed 

 in masonry by the two sacred words and pillars Jachin and Boaz." The following fragment 

 of a speech contained in the first volume of Dr. Schauberg's work (p. 850) would not be mis- 

 placed in the mouth of a Chinese philosopher discoursing about the properties of Yin and Yang. 



//These pillars," says the speaker, //have a doublé symbolical meaning; firstly a cosmogonic 

 or physical, and secondly an ethic or moral one. In the cosmogonic or physical sen se, in their 



( : ) Symb. d. Freim. I, 301—302. 



( 2 ) _t % ( 3 ) % ( 4 ) * % ( 5 ) M % 



( 6 ) ^| (") -4^ ^ (8) Memoires concernant les Chinois, T. Il, p. 11. 



( 9 ) •££ ^ C°) g ( n ) Memoires, ibid. p. 12. 



( 12 ) Symb. d. Freim. I, 318. 



( 13 ) In the Yih-king or Book of Changes, composed in prison by Wan-wang, „the litcrary princc", about 

 B. C. 1150. 



