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264
THE TEXTS OF TÂOISM.
APP. II.
is a wonderful machinery, by which all the heavenly bodies are produced, the eight diagrams, and the sexagenary cycle; spirit-like springs of power, and hidden ghostlinesses ; the arts of the Yin and Yang in the victories of the one over the other all these come brightly forward into visibility.
I cannot say that I fully understand this concluding paragraph of the Yin Fû King. One thing is plain from it,-how the Yi King was pressed into the service of the Taoism that prevailed when it was written. I leave it with the judgment on it, quoted by Lî Hsî-yueh from a La Zhien-hsü. "The subject-matter of the Yin Fû and Tão Teh is all intended to set forth the action by contraries of the despoiling powers in nature and society. As to finding in them directions for the government of states, the conduct of war, and the mastery of the kingdom, with such expressions as those about a wonderful machinery by which the heavenly bodies are produced, the eight diagrams, the cycle, spirit-like springs, and hidden ghostlinesses :--they all have a deep meaning, but men do not know it. They who go to the Yin Fa for direction in war and use Lào-ze for guidance in government go far astray from the meaning of both.'
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