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320
THE LÎ xi.
BK. XXVIII.
it will go forth in action ; going forth in action, it will produce changes; producing changes, it will effect transformations. It is only he of all under heaven who is entirely perfect that can transform.
24. It is characteristic of him who is entirely perfect that he can foreknow. When a state or family is about to flourish, there are sure to be lucky omens, and when it is about to perish, there are sure to be unlucky omens. They will be seen in the tortoise-shell and stalks 1; they will affect the movements of the four limbs. When calamity or happiness is about to come, the good is sure to be foreknown by him, and the evil also. Hence, he who is entirely perfect is like a Spirit ?.
meaning crooked,' often used as the antithesis of 'straight;' but the title of the first Book in this collection shows that it need not be used only of what is bad. In that case, the phrase Ek ih would mean-carries to the utmost what is bad.' Zottoli's rendering of it by 'promovere declinatam naturam' is inadmissible. Nor can we accept Rémusat's diriger efforts vers une seule vertu,' which Wylie follows, merely substituting 'object' for 'vertu.' See the introduction on the title of the first Book. Very much to the point is an illustration by the scholar Pâi Lü:-'Put on stone on a bamboo shoot, or where it would show itself, and it will travel round the stone and come out crookedly at its side. So it is with the good nature, whose free and full development is repressed.
1 These were the two principal methods of divination practised from very ancient times. The stalks were those of the Ptarmica Sibirica; of which I possess a bundle brought from the tomb of Confucius in 1873. It is difficult to say anything about 'the four limbs,' which were to Kång the four feet of the tortoise.
3 The Spirit-man' is, according to Mencius' graduation, an advance on the Sage or Holy man, one whose action is mysterious and invisible, like the power of Heaven and Earth working in nature. Chinese predicates about him could not go farther.
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