Text of Confucianism Part 02

SR No.: 007676
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: James Legge
Publisher: Oxford
Publication Year: 1882
Total Pages: 2405
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 43 MB

Page 259

232
THE APPENDIXES.
SECT. I.
XXIII. 1. Po denotes overthrowing or being overthrown. We see in the figure) the weak lines (threatening to) change the (last) strong line (into one of themselves).
2. That "it will not be advantageous to make a movement in any direction whatever' appears from the fact that the small men are (now) growing and increasing. The superior man acts according to (the exigency of the time), and stops all forward movement, looking at the significance of the) symbolic figures in the hexagram). He values the processes of decrease and increase, of fulness and decadence, (as seen in the movements of the heavenly bodies.
service of the doctrine of changing the figures by divining manipulation; see p. 219, on paragraph 2 of the Thwan of hexagram 6. But as the Khang-hsî editors point out, the weak line coming and ornamenting the two strong lines' simply indicates how substantiality should have the help of ornament, and the strong line above (or ascending) and ornamenting the two weak lines' indicates. that ornament should be restrained by substantiality. Ornament has its use, but it must be kept in check.--The closing sentence has no connexion with what precedes. Some characters are wanting, to show how the writer passes on to speak of the ornamental figures of the sky.' The whole should then be joined on to paragraph 3. The figures of the sky' are all the heavenly bodies in their relative positions and various movements, producing day and night, heat and cold, &c. The observances of society are the ceremonies and performances which regulate and beautify the intercourse of men, and constitute the transforming lessons of sagely wisdom.
XXIII. The symbolic figures in the hexagram' are Khwăn, below, the representative of docility, acting as circumstances require; and Kån, the representative of a mountain, which arrests the progress of the traveller. The superior man of the topmost line thus interprets them, and acts accordingly. Yet he is not left without hope. Winter is followed by spring ; night is
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