# CHAPTER XII. Summary

1. In the Book of Changes it is said: "He is blessed by heaven. Good fortune. Nothing that does not further."

The Master said: To bless means to help. Heaven helps the man who is devoted; men help the the man who is true. He who walks in truth and is devoted in his thinking, and furthermore reveres the worthy, is blessed by heaven. He has good fortune, and there is nothing that would not further.

This is a passage from the body of the commentary on the individual lines, fragments of which appear in chapter VIII, sections 5-11. It serves to amplify the close of section 6 of chapter II, but it does not fit the context here.

2. The Master said: Writing cannot express words completely. Words cannot express thoughts completely.

Are we then unable to see the thoughts of the holy sages?

The Master said: The holy sages set up the images in order to express their thoughts completely; they devised the hexagrams in order to express the true and the false completely. Then they appended judgments and so could express their words completely.

(They created change and continuity, to show the advantage completely; they urged on, they set in motion, to set forth the spirit completely.)

This section gives in dialogue from, after the manner of the Lun Yü [Analects], a judgment on the mode of expression of the Book of Changes. The Master has said that writing never expresses words completely and that words never express thoughts completely. A pupil asks whether one can never gain a clear view of what the sages thought and the Master uses the Book of Changes to show how it may be done. The sages set up the images and hexagrams in order to show the situations, and then appended the words: these, in conjunction with the images, may actually be taken as the complete expression of their thoughts.

The two final statements [in parentheses] have been transposed to this section from some other context, probably because of the similar rhetorical construction (cf. sec. 4, second half, and sec. 7).

3.The Creative and the Receptive are the real secret of the Changes. Inasmuch as the Creative and the Receptive present themselves as complete, the changes between them are also posited. If the Creative and the Receptive were destroyed, there would be nothing by which the changes could be perceived. If there were no more changes to be seen, the effects of the Creative and the Receptive would also gradually cease.

The changes are thought of here as natural processes, practically identical with life. Life depends on the polarity between activity and receptivity. This maintains tension, every adjustment of which manifests itself as a change, a process of life. If this state of tension, this potential, were to cease, there would no longer be a criterion for life--life could no longer express itself. On the other hand, these polar oppositions, these tensions, are constantly being generated anew by the changes inherent in life. If life should cease to express itself, these oppositions would be obliterated by progressive entropy, and the death of the world would ensue.

4. Therefore: What is above form is called tao; what is within form is called tool.

We are shown here that the forces constituting the visible world are transcendent ones. Tao is taken here in the sense of an all-embracing entelechy. It transcends the spatial world, but it acts upon the visible world--be means of the images, i.e., ideas inherent in it, as in set forth more exactly in other passages--and what hereby comes in to being are the objects. An object is spatial, that is, defined by its corporeal limits; but it cannot be understood without knowledge of the tao underlying it.

This section, like section 2, has an addition that reappears in large part, with a slight textual variation, in the closing section:

(That which transforms things and fits them together is called change; that which stimulates them and sets them in motion is called continuity. That which raises them up and sets them forth before all people on earth is called the field of action.)

5. Therefore, with respect to the Images: The holy sages were able to survey all the confused diversities under heaven. They observed forms and phenomena, and made representations of things and their attributes. These were called the Images. The holy sages were able to survey all the movements under heaven. They contemplated the way in which these movements met and became interrelated, to take their course according to eternal laws. Then they appended judgments, to distinguish between the good fortune and misfortune indicated. These were called the Judgments.

This section is a literal repetition of sections 1 and 2 of chapter VIII.

6. The exhaustive presentation of the confused diversities under heaven depends upon the hexagrams. The stimulation of all movements under heaven depends upon the Judgments.

There is some connection between this passage and section 3 of chapter VIII, while the following section contains a parallel to the second half of section 4 above.

7. The transformation of things and the fitting together of them depend upon the changes. Stimulation of them and setting them in motion depend upon continuity. The spirituality and clarity depend upon the right man. Silent fulfillment, confidence that needs no words, depend upon virtuous conduct.

Here, in conclusion, the intermeshing of the Book of Changes and man is set forth. It is only through a living personality that the words of the book ever come fully to life and then exert their influence upon the world.

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