Book Title: Text of Confucianism Part 01
Author(s): James Legge
Publisher: Oxford

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Page 2737
________________ CH. I. HARMONY OF THE SEEN AND UNSEEN. 257 he must think of him as another Kwang Khăng-zze; but this is no answer to the charge of forgery. As to the name of the Treatise, the force of Fû has been set forth in vol. xxxix, p. 133, in connexion with the title of Kwang-jze's fifth Book. The meaning which I have given of the whole is substantially that of Li Hsi-yueh, who says that the Yin must be understood as including Yang, and grounds his criticism on the famous dictum in the Great Appendix to the Yî King (vol. xvi, p. 355), “The successive movement of the Yin and Yang their rest and active operation) constitutes what is called the course (of things).' Mr. Balfour translates the title by 'The Clue to the Unseen,' which is ingenious, but may be misleading. The writer reasons rather from the Unseen to the Seen than from the Seen to the Unseen. Mr. Wylie gives his view of the object of the Treatise in these words :—*This short Treatise, which is not entirely free from the obscurity of Taoist mysticism, professes to reconcile the decrees of Heaven with the current of mundane affairs.' To what extent the Book does this, and whether successfully or not, the reader will be able to judge for himself from the translation which will be immediately subjoined. Li Hsi-yueh, looking at it simply from its practical object, pronounces it ‘hsiû lien kih Sha, a Book of culture and refining?' This language suggests the idea of a Taoist devotee, who has sublimated himself by the study of this Book till he is ready to pass into the state of an Immortal. I must be permitted to say, however, that the whole Treatise appears to me to have come down to us in a fragmentary condition, with passages that are incapable of any satisfactory explanation. Ch. 1. 1. If one observes the Way of Heaven", and maintains Its doings (as his own) ?, all that he has to do is accomplished. hit or le total'as meaning * Dr. Williams explains “hsid lien ( becoming religious, as a recluse or ascetic.' [40] Digitized by Google

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