1830.
Defense of an Essay, &c.
317
and that the earth is named the Mother, who nourishes, nurses, per- fects and consummates all things. However they can not be either the one or the other, the alone, or the first principle of all things; and besides, as we have already said, the absolute first principle is the grand summit, t'ái-kih, which generated the heavens and the earth. In the table of Fuk-hi, there is no mention in any part of it of a first principle of all things; nevertheless, many interpreters formerly took heaven for the grand summit, t'ái kik, and especially its virtue kien
乾;
; no doubt, because heaven is the most grand, most elevated of all
bodies, and because in it the power and splendor of the first principle most shines forth.”
"Heaven and earth unite, and
produced." “Heaven and earth nourish
toán souk
win wuh, all things are
yang, all things
Heaven and earth exert their influences, and all things
wán wuh, are generated." "First, you have heaven and earth,
and then all things are generated,
wán wuh sang."
Heaven and earth are the Father and Mother of all things H 萬物之父母" We must not suppose that heaven and earth
are here used merely by metonomy for the producing power, becausa each does its part. We read - t'ien_yih sang shwowi "heaven is one, and generated water; earth is two 地二生火 and generated fire. We also meet with the phrase رDEŮ
the heart (wish or disposition) of heaven and earth is to generate things." This is one of the instances in which we are quite thrown out by what I mentioned above—the predicating intellectual and moral qualities of material, physical objects. The first thought on reading this sentence is, that the words heaven and earth must be un- derstood metaphorically; but if we will take the trouble to look up the native comment, we shall find that the expression is resolved into the famous word lie. g. Chú-fútsz' gives the following ex planation of the Z, the heart of heaven and earth. 問天地之心天地之理。理是道理心是主宰 底意否。曰心固是主宰底意然所謂主宰者。 即是理也。不是心外别有個理。理外别有個 心 "Should any one ask whether in the phrases, the ' heart of heaven and earth,' and 'the (li) principle of order of heaven and earth,' if the character li does not mean táu li, principle, and sin, heart, mean Ruler; I answer, heart certainly has the meaning of Ruler, but what we call 48
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