15 之厥其是敷日其其道反 敷庶訓訓言皇有有 無 言民○于是極極極直側 是極凡帝彝之○歸會王 Without perversity, without one-sidedness, The Royal path is right and straight. Seeing this perfect excellence, Turn to this perfect excellence." He went on to say, "This amplification of the Royal perfection contains the unchanging rule, and is the great lesson; yea, it is the 16 lesson of God. All the multitudes, instructed in this amplification of the perfect excellence, and carrying it into practice, will approxi element in itself. nounced so; and, in fact, is the phonetic ‘a term of introduction'; Hea Seuen, 更 Këang Shing edits—|端辭 ‘a term indicating a change in the 無偏無頗遵王之誼. The dict. discourse or argument. 皇極之敷 also says that was the reading of the old the diffuse discourse of Royal perfectext. I have not found any authority for this. tion.' We must understand all the amplification Teae observes that 偏陂好 and in the first three couplets, are descriptiveof descriptive of the manifestations of selfishness between and in this way:- is the , which the viscount had given of the phrase 皇極是彝-4一常;'it is constant, invariable.'是訓‘it is the lesson' for all. 于帝其訓from God is its lesson.' We must wish that the language of this par. had been more explicit. I will here again make use of the words of Ch'in Ya-yen, while confessing my own want of appreciation of what awakens so much enthusiasm in him, right(以其爲事物之當然日 and other Chinese critice:一聖人在上 道);路 is that course, as it is to be actually trodden by all (以其為天下之共 復敷言而以言教于天下 旣建極而以身教于天下 由日路) 王道平平一手 is read preen, to rhyme with偏. The phraseis 蓋身教者示以躬行踐履 explained by 平易 之實言教者使其歌吟 會其有極 歸其有極-Lin Che-k'e says on this: 詠而得二者不可偏廢也 一建極者如北辰之居所 天下惟理為至常惟理為 而會其極歸其極者則如至大皇極之敷言純乎 衆星之拱北辰也,The per- 理,故謂之常理,故謂之大 fection, set up, is like the north pole-star 訓是理也本之於天惟皇 occupying its place. Meeting with the perfec-上帝降衷之理也言而不 tion and turning to it, is like all the other stars moving towards-doing homage to the pole 異於降衷之理是豈可以 star.’ Pp: 15, 16. The viscount of Ke celebrates the 君之訓視之哉乃天 description which he has given of the Royal perfec- 也天者其不言 tion, and the glorious issue to which it leads. 15. The 日, at the beginning, must have 箕人者其能言之 子 for its subject. Ta'ae calls it 起語 者也 16. 極 高明柔克 克曰德天作子訓 民之是 友平剛 王光行 克友 沈岡 克濳克正 O剛瘦 直日直六以天近 惟克友彊柔二三為子天 mate to the glory of the son of Heaven, and say, 'The son of Heaven is the parent of the people, and so becomes the sovereign of the empire.' 17 [vi.]“Sixth, of the three virtues. The first is called correctness and straightforwardness; the second, strong government; and the third, mild government. In peace and tranquillity, correctness and straightforwardness must sway; in violence and disorder, strong government must sway; in harmony and order, mild government must sway. For the reserved and retiring there is the strong rule; for the lofty and intelligent there is the mild rule. 之敷言 is of course 皇極之敷| character. 17. 正直,一see in p. 14, 言: Medhurst erroneously translates the 王道正直 This is the course that the clause-carry out these wide-spread instruc- perfect sovereign will naturally and usually tions.' The people are supposed to repeat and take. croon over the amplification,-especially the song, teaching themselves and one another, and to be aroused to carry the lessons into practice, 剛克‘strong subduing. This is the course of the perfect sovereign, when it is necessary for him to put on his terrors. till they attain to a perfection in their degree, mild subduing.' This is his course, equal to that of the sovereign in this. when it is proper for him to condescend to 天子云云,the people are the subject weaker natures. 彊弗友友, of the here. Hea Seuen would refer it to 箕子, like the 日 in the last par.. but he must be wrong. 天子,‘the Son of Heaven;'-see Part III., Bk. IV., 5. Pp.17–19. Of the three virtues. The three virtues are characteristics of the imperial rule; –they are not personal attributes of the sovereign, but the manifestations of the perfection which is supposed to have been described in the 'friendly,' 'disposed to be friendly,' must here -the former of these characters signifies to bination is used in the text to denote individuals who are reserved and retiring, wanting in force last Division. Their names are 正直,剛 of character. In 高明,(the high and in 克 and 柔克 Ts'ae makes the names 正面剛, and柔; but the omission of the in the case of the second and third gives them too much the appearance of personal attributes. The second and third are chiefly dwelt on, this division being supplementary to the last, to show how the Royal perfection will deal with times and cases of an abnormal telligent,' we have the opposite of them, those in whom the forward element predominates. The 'strong rule' must be applied to the former class,-to encourage them, and the 'mild rule' to the latter,-to repress them. The use of the virtues' is thus different from what it appears to be in the clauses that precede. Chinese critics do not venture to find fault with this;-to me it makes the text perplexing and enigmatical. о 頗于其作玉無威 威辟 七僻而害福食有惟 擇僭用家玉之作食辟 18 "It belongs only to the prince to confer favours, to display the 19 terrors of majesty, and to receive the revenues of the empire. There should be no such thing as a minister conferring favours, displaying the terrors of justice, or receiving the revenues of the country. Such a thing is injurious to the families, and fatal to the States of the empire;―small officers become one-sided and perverse, and the people commit assumptions and excesses. 20 [vii.] "Seventh, of the examination of doubts.-Having chosen and 18, 19. The prerogatives of the ruler must be strictly maintained. Some critics would remove these paragraphs to the last Division. One certainly does not readily perceive what connection they have with the three virtues that have just been spoken of. We can hardly venture on the step of removing them, however, and putting them in another place; we must be content with them where they are, acknowledging the vexation which their inconsequence occasions us. Only the prince 'rouses up, enploys, the various happinesses;' i.e., he is the source of all favours and dignities. In the same way he only is the source of all punishments and degradations. E = rulers (). He must 玉食美食不言王者關諸 on the point; but Ying-tă, in his gloss on the H. Gan-kwo does not speak distinctly -only the prince the gemmeous food.' -, 'the pearly or precious food,' each grain of rice or other corn being spoken of as a gem or pearl. There is no 1, it will be seen, between and E, and we must therefore supply another verb, and one, it seems to me, of a different meaning. Lin Che k'e, without repeating the 1, or supplying any other verb, yet understands the clause according to the analogy of the two preceding ones, and takes the Eas meaning all the badges of distinction and favour conferred by the sovereign on his princes and ministers. There first clause, 1, and this. grain,' is what the people contribute to their observing that, as the princes, in their several States, had the power of rewards and punishments, and, he might have added, the right to the revenue, this interpretation is perhaps correct. It does seem strange thus to pass from the person and govt. of the emperor; but so it is. other's annotation, refers to Wang Suh's view, 其害于而家凶于而國 is the same difficulty in determining the meaning. The two last clauses show how the injury and ruin will arise. There will be a general disorganization of social order, each lower rank trying to usurp the privileges of that above it; comp. Mencius I., Bk. I., i., 4. and R are again opposed to each other, as in the 10th and other paragraphs. Pp. 20-31. Of the examination of doubts. The course proposed for the satisfaction of doubts shows us at how early an age the Chinese had come under the power of absurd supersti 從筮立用凡曰曰雨命立 時二七貞驛日下下 三人占則 二人之言 言。 人人 appointed officers for divining by the tortoise and by the milfoil, 21 they are to be charged on occasion to perform their duties. In doing this, they will find the appearances of rain, clearing up, cloudiness, 22 want of connection and crossing; and the symbols, solidity, and re23 pentance. In all the indications are seven;-five given by the tortoise, and two by the milfoil, by which the errors of affairs may be 24 traced out." These officers having been appointed, when the operations with the tortoise and milfoil are proceeded with, three men are to obtain and interpret the indications and symbols, and the consenting words of two of them are to be followed. tions. In the Counsels of Yu,' p. 18, that sage proposes to Shun to submit the question of who should be his successor on the throne to divination, and the emperor replies that he had already done so. There is no reason to doubt, therefore, the genuineness of the great Plan, as a relic of the Hea times, from the nature of this part of it. As soon as the curtain lifts from China, and we get a glimpse of its greatest men about four thousand years ago, we find them trying to build up a science of the will of Heaven and issues of events, from various indications given by the shell of a tortoise and the stalks of the milfoil! Gaubil observes that according to the text the tortoise and milfoil were consulted only in doubtful cases. But we may be sure and the plant will yield, when a hundred years old, a hundred stalks from one root, and is also a spiritual and intelligent thing. The two divinations were in reality a questioning of spiritual beings, the plant and the tortoise being employed, because of their mysterious intelligence, to indicate their intimations. The way of divination by the tortoise was by the application of fire to scorch the tortoise-shell till the indications appeared on it; and that by the stalks of the plant was to manipulate in the prescribed ways forty-nine of them, eighteen different times, till the diagrams were formed' that if such was the practice of the sages" (龜歲久則靈著生百歲 superstitious observances entered largely as a depraving and disturbing element into the life of the people. They do so at the present day. The old methods of divination have fallen into 本百莖亦物之神靈者 fallen into 卜筮實問鬼神,以著龜神 disuse, and I cannot say how far other methods are sanctioned by the government, but the di- 靈之物故假之以其卦兆 viners and soothsayers, of many kinds, form a considerable and influential class of society. 下法以明火爇柴灼龜為 Pp. 20–24 contain some hints as to the manner in which divination was practised. The same subject is treated in the Chow Le, Bk XXIV; but it is hardly possible to get the two accounts into one's mind so as to understand and be able distinctly to describe the subject. 20. Two kinds of divination and the appointment of officers to superintend them. The two kinds of divination were-first, that by means of the tortoise, or tortoise-shell rather, called; and that by means of the stalks of the plant, called 乐. The tortoise,' says Choo He, * after great length of years becomes intelligent; 兆法以四十九蓍分掛 揲凡十有八變而成卦). See the Chapter on Divination in the 'Historical Records' (龜策列傳第六十八). Medhurst says the was one of the class of plants called Achillea millefolium. Williams calls leading us to think of the holy herb of Dioit‘a sort of labiate plant, like verbena, thereby scorides, the verbena officinalis. The correctness, however, of both these accounts may be doubt 6 ed. There is a figure of the plant in the 本草綱目(草部隰草類上); the wood;' and the, or the observers and interpreters of the prognostics.' They were all, observe the critics, required to be men far but the text shows that the manipulation of Fuh-he's lines, and the derivation of meanings from the combination of them were practised, at least to some extent, in the earlier times. The meaning of the names 貞 and 悔 is very much debated; and instead of entering on the discussion here, I will content myself with the words of Heang Gan-she; Sung dyn.), one of the most voluminous writers on the Yih,-'We only know that the inner diagram ; we do not know what was intended by those designations.' 23. We have here a resume of the two last parr. with the addition of the enigmatical phrase was and the outer悔; removed from the disturbing influence of passion at the end. 卜五占用二, and prejudice. Only such could be associated with the methods of communication between higher intelligences and men. —we must understand a first between and Pp. 21-23. The various indications. 21. 五. The卜占here is equivalent to 卜筮 The appearances here described were those made on the shell of the tortoise. The way in in p. 20, so that is exchanged for . 衍 which they were obtained seems to have been, to infer,' 'to push or carry out;' or may be taken as either, ‘error,' .Ts'ae adopts the former meaning, and interprets-By this means the errors of human affairs may be traced out,' that is, may be indicated before they occur, and so be avoided. The Daily Explanation,' expanding this view, this. The outer shell of the tortoise was taken off, leaving the inner portion on which were the marks of the lines of the muscles of the creature, &c. A part of this was selected for operation, and smeared with ink. The fire was then applied beneath, and the ink, when it was examined, according as it had been variously dried by the heat, gave the appearances mentioned. is defined as 齊 雨止‘rain says-所謂推衍者推衍于未 stopping,' 'the weather clearing up.' 蒙 有過差之先,非遲廻顧慮 于已然之後. Choo He adopted = -, cloudiness, obscurity.' 卒 for which K'ung-shing and others have is understood to mean certain marks scattered about, without connection or relation ;see the remarks, by the editors of Yung-ching's Shoo, on Gan-kwo's definition of the term by , and Ts'ae's by , meaning lines or cracks in the ink crossing each other. Ts'ae says these appearances belonged severally to the different elements.-that of rain to water, of cloudiness to wood, &c. The whole operation was a piece of absurdity, and we have too little information to say anything certain about it. 22. 貞 and悔 were the names given to the diagrams formed by the manipulation of the stalks of the she. In a complete diagram, composed of two of the eight primary ones, the lower figure is called 'the inner diagram' , and was styled ; the upper figure is called 'the outer diagram'), and was styled. There were also other conditions according to which these names of and were applied to the different figures. How far, however, they obtained in the Hea and Shang dynasties we cannot tell. Our present Yih King is entirely a book of the Chow dynasty; the former meaning, and interpreted-' every changing form of indication and symbol being traced out and determined.' See the quotation from him in the ; still, when the operations, thus many times varied, had been concluded, the object would be to obtain the guidance of their results in the conduct of affairs. Woo Ching and many others prefer to say that they do not understand the phrase at all. 24. Care to be taken in performing the divina tion. 立時人作卜筮時 是, and the whole=旣立是所擇 之人,以作卜筮之官,‘Having appointed the men thus selected to be the officers of divination,' 三人占,—we are to sup pose that they have been charged to perform their duties, p. 20), and then three men divine in each way. in the last par. was -4; here it is used both for and 4, including not only the various manipulations, but also the interpreting the results obtained. It is supposed that each man went through his operation further on a different method. |