The Author, Chou Tun-i, whose literary name was Lien-hsi, was the founder of the Sung School of Philosophy, of which Chu Hsi was the final exponent. Lien-hsi was born in the year A.D. 1025. At the age of 30 Ch'êng Hao and Ch'eng I became his pupils. These two brothers handed on the teachings of their Master to posterity in two works which they edited and which are still extant, the one a diagram entitled The Diagram of the Supreme Ultimate, with a monograph entitled The Diagram of the Supreme Ultimate Explained, and the other T'ung Shu, also called T'ung I Shu, or The Complete Interpretation of the Canon of Changes (vide J. P. Bruce, Chu Hsi and His Masters, chap. ii). The selection here given is from the latter of the two works. Both works are published in extenso in the Symposium of Philosophy or in the Digest The T'ung Shu has been translated into French by Ch. de Harlez (L'Ecole Philosophique Moderne de la Chine), and into German by Wilhelm Grube (T'ūng-Sū des Ceū-tsi, mit Cū-Hī's Commentare, etc.).

^{page 100 note 1} The word here translated Truth is the same as that which in the Doctrine of the Mean is translated by Legge as Sincerity. Ku Hung-ming, however, in his translation of the same work, adopts the rendering Truth. It is to the teaching of this work, the Doctrine of the Mean, that Lien-hsi refers, and particularly to the passage in chap, xx, 18, which Ku translates thus: “Truth is the law of God. Acquired truth is the law of man. He who intuitively apprehends truth is one who, without effort, hits what is right, and without thinking understands what he wants to know; whose life is easily and naturally in harmony with moral law. Such a one is what we call a saint or a man of divine nature.” (Ku Hung-ming, Conduct of Life, p. 37.)Google Scholar Compare also chaps, xxii and xxvi of the classic (ibid., pp. 45, 47).

^{page 100 note 2} Ch'ien is the first of the sixty-four hexagrams in the Canon of Changes. Composed entirely of the undivided, strong lines it is symbolical of Heaven as one of the Dual Powers, Earth being represented by K'un, composed entirely of the divided weak lines. In Chou Tzu's Diagram it is represented as the male element in nature. (See Chu Hsi and His Masters, p. 156.)Google Scholar

^{page 100 note 3} By both Grube and de Harlez “Yi” is understood to refer to the classic of that name, the Canon of Changes, as in the closing sentence of the T'ai Chi T'u Shuo (Diagram of the Supreme Ultimate Explained), in which it is undoubtedly the classic that is referred to, and I have myself so translated it in Chu Hsi and His Masters, p. 131. Here, apparently, it is not the classic but the Yi itself that is meant, as is manifestly the case in the sentence following, where the Yi, Change or Flux, is said to be the “source” of the Nature and Decree. Chu Hsi here explains Yi as though referring to the Yi itself, whereas in his commentary on the T'ai Chi T'u Shuo he definitely states that the word there refers to the classic.

^{page 100 note 4} Yi Ching, Imperial edition, bk. ix, f. 1; Sacred Books of the East, vol. xvi, p. 213.Google Scholar

^{page 100 note 5} Yi Ching, Imp. ed., bk. ix, f. 2; Sacred Books of the East, vol. xvi, p. 213.Google Scholar

^{page 100 note 6} Chu Hsi elsewhere (in the ) says: “The source is one, the river flowing from the source divides into streams and rivulets” ( bk. i, f. 18). So the one Absolute Reality is embodied in individual men and things.

^{page 100 note 7} Yi Ching, Imp. ed., bk. xiii, f. 14; Sacred Books of the East, vol. xvi, pp. 355–6.Google Scholar

^{page 100 note 8} Thus the sentence, “The alternation of the negative and positive modes is what is termed Moral Law,” applies to both the statements which precede it, the one concerning Truth as it is at its source, and the other as it is in its accomplishment; while the sentence, “The efflux which ensues is goodness,” explains the former of these two statements only, and the sentence, “The resultant entity is the Nature,” the latter. Hence there are three stages in the evolution of the individual being, the source, the process, and the result. The source is Moral Law, the principle which causes the internal alternating movement in the Absolute. The resultant is the Nature, which is the law of existence inherent in the individual being. The process is the efflux from the Absolute Being ensuing upon its alternating movement, the nexus between the source and the resultant entity. And this efflux–immanent and all-pervading, creative and transforming, life-giving and life-sustaining–is wholly goodness; there is no other Force at work in the evolutionary process but simply goodness.

^{page 100 note 9} Yüan, Hêng, Li, Chêng, are the first four words in the Canon of Changes. They are the four attributes of Heaven as symbolized in the Ch'ien hexagram. Hêng has two meanings, “beauty” and “development” . Here the latter meaning is uppermost. Li is “utility” in the sense of adaptation to the end for which a thing is intended.

^{page 101 note 10} That is, Truth returning upon itself in order to realize itself in the individual being.

^{page 101 note 11} Viz. Love, Righteousness, Reverence, and Wisdom.

^{page 101 note 12} It has been shown that the sentence in the Yi Ching, “The efflux which ensues is goodness,” expresses the all-pervading operation of Heaven's Moral Law, and its impartation to the creature; this is the Decree. The sentence, “The resultant entity is the Nature,” refers to the reception of this same principle by the creature and its embodiment in material form; and in this aspect of it the principle is termed the Nature. And since this principle, which in the one case is called the Decree and in the other the Nature, is the emanation which ensues upon the interchange (Yi) of the Two Modes, the Yi is said to be “the source of the Nature and Decree”.

^{page 103 note 1} Lit. “the hundred varieties of conduct.”

^{page 103 note 2} Lit. “non-existent.”

^{page 103 note 3} Lit. “existent.”

^{page 103 note 4} See Analects of Confucius, xii, 1.Google Scholar

^{page 103 note 5} When Truth is in the state of inertia and unknowable it is in the state of pure being (vide Grube, T'ūng-Sū des Ceū-tsi, p. 13). Ch'êng I says, “Though the eye may not be seeing and the ear not hearing, the faculty of seeing and hearing are there, and when they do see and hear they are the same eye and ear as when in repose; it is not that when in repose they have ceased to be” ( bk. ii, f. 10).

^{page 103 note 6} Doctrine of the Mean, xxv, 2.Google Scholar

^{page 103 note 7} Chu Hsi says elsewhere, “When it is said that Truth is without activity the meaning is the same as in the passage in the Yi Ching, which, referring to the Ti