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308
THE LÎ ki.
BK. XXVIII.
cause all under Heaven to fast and purify themselves, and to array themselves in their richest dresses in order to attend at their sacrifices. Then, like overflowing water, they seem to be over the heads, and on the left and right (of their worshippers). 46. It is said in the Book of Poetry (III, iii, ode 2, 7), “The Spirits come, but when and where, No one beforehand can declare. The more should we not Spirits slight,
But ever feel as in their sight.” 47. Such is the manifestness of what is minute. Such is the impossibility of repressing the outgoings of sincerity!'
48. The Master said, 'How greatly filial was Shun! His virtue was that of a sage; his dignity was that of the son of Heaven; his riches were all within the four seas; his ancestral temple enjoyed his offerings; his descendants preserved (those to) himself. 49. Thus it was that with his great virtue he could not but obtain his position, his riches, his fame, and his long life. 50. Therefore Heaven, in
statement that the path cannot be left.' They bear rather on the next statement of the first chapter, the manifestness of that which is most minute, and serve to introduce the subject of sincerity,' which is dwelt upon so much in the last part of the Treatise. But what are the Spirits or Spiritual Beings that are spoken of? In paragraphs 45, 46, they are evidently the spirits sacrificed to in the ancestral temple and spirits generally, according to our meaning of the term. The difficulty is with the name in paragraph 44, the Kwei Shăn there. Rémusat renders the phrase simply by 'les esprits,' and in his Latin version by 'spiritus geniique,' as also does Zottoli, Wylie gives for it the Spiritual Powers.' Of course Kâu Hss and all the Sung scholars take it, according to their philosophy, as meaning the phenomena of expansion and contraction, the displays of the Power or Powers, working under Heaven, in nature.
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