and sometimes even one of them is deemed sufficient. In this way some technical characters appear which are not found in the Text. The lines, for instance, and even whole trigrams are distinguished as kang and zâu, 'hard or strong' and 'weak or soft.' The phrase Kwei-shăn, 'spirits,' or 'spiritual beings,' occurs, but has not its physical signification of 'the contracting and expanding energies or operations of nature.' The names Yin and Yang, mentioned above on pp. 15, 16, do not present themselves.
I delineated, on p. 11, the eight trigrams of Fû-hsî, and gave their names, with the natural objects they are said to represent, but did not mention the attributes, the virtutes, ascribed to them. Let me submit here a table of them, with those qualities, and the points of the compass to which they are referred. I must do this because king Wăn made a change in the geographical arrangement of them, to which reference is made perhaps in his text and certainly in this treatise. He also is said to have formed an entirely different theory as to the things represented by the trigrams, which it will be well to give now, though it belongs properly to the fifth Appendix.
FÛ-HSÎ'S TRIGRAMS.
1 ☰ khien |
2 ☱ tui |
3 ☲ lî |
4 ☳ kăn |
5 ☴ sun |
6 ☵ khân |
7 ☶ kăn |
8 ☷ khwăn |
Heaven, the sky. | Water, collected as in a marsh or lake. |
Fire, as in lightning; the sun. |
Thunder. | The wind; wood. | Water, as in rain, clouds, springs, streams, and defiles. The moon. |
Hills, or mountains. | The earth. |
S. | S.E. | E. | N.E. | S.W. | W. | N.W. | N. |
Untiring strength; power. |
Pleasure; complacent satisfaction. |
Brightness; elegance. |
Moving, exciting power. |
Flexibility; penetration. |
Peril; difficulty. | Resting; the act of arresting. |
Capriciousness; submission. |