Page:Sacred Books of the East - Volume 16.djvu/46

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18

THE YÎ KING.

CH. II.

kingdom. The accepted representation of this writing is the following:—

But substituting numbers for the number of marks, we have

4	9	2
3	5	7
8	1	6

This is nothing but the arithmetical puzzle, in which the numbers from 1 to 9 are arranged so as to make 15 in whatever way we add them^[1]. If we had the original form of 'the River Map,' we should probably find it a numerical trifle, not more difficult, not more supernatural, than this magic square.

3. Let us return to the Yî of Kâu, which, as I have said above on p. 10, contains, under each of the 64 hexagrams, a brief essay of a moral, social, or political character, symbolically expressed.

↑ For this dissection, which may also be called reductio ad absurdum, of the Lo writing, I was indebted first to P. Regis. See his Y-King I, p. 60. But Kû Hsî also has got it in the Appendix to his 'Lessons on the Yî for the Young.'

[1] For this dissection, which may also be called reductio ad absurdum, of the Lo writing, I was indebted first to P. Regis. See his Y-King I, p. 60. But Kû Hsî also has got it in the Appendix to his 'Lessons on the Yî for the Young.'

[1]