III. Fluids, Substances, and Seasons.
Originally the elements were not combined with the Seasons. The
fact that there always have been Five Elements, but Four Seasons, and
that our oldest sources do not allude to such a connexion, tells against it.
On the other side, the term "Wu-hsing" makes it plain that the Five
Elements were conceived already in times immemorial as something more
than simple substances. From the passage of the Tso-chuan where the
elements are mentioned together with the heavenly fluids, which become
the Five Tastes, the Five Colours and the Five Sounds, and even manifest
themselves in human affections (cf. p. 436) we may gather that, at a very
early date, the elements were identified with the heavenly fluids or atmospherical
influences. These are in the Shuking:—rain, sunshine, heat, cold,
and wind. They again, I presume, formed the link with the Four Seasons,
which in the opinion of the Chinese, who did not know the real cause
of the seasons, are the result of the regular changes of the heavenly fluids.
In the Liki elements and seasons are linked together already. Kuan Tse,
XIV, 7 seq. asserts that wind produces wood, the Yang fluid fire, the Yin
fluid metal, and cold, water. Earth has no special fluid.
The Sung philosophers were the first clearly to point out the difference
of substances [OMITTED] and fluids [OMITTED]. Substances are produced, says Chou Tse,
by the interaction and coagulation of the Yin and the Yang, whereas the
Fluids are the regular revolutions of these two primary essences.[1982]
T`sai
Ch`ên [OMITTED], a disciple of Chu Hsi, holds that in heaven the Five Elements
are the Five Fluids:—rain, sunshine, heat, cold, and wind, and on earth
the Five Substances:—water, wood, fire, metal, earth. Of the Five Heavenly
Fluids rain and sunshine are the substances, which seems to imply that
they are more substantial than heat, cold, and wind—and of the Five Substances
of Earth water and fire are the fluids—possessing more the nature of
fluids than of substances, a view held by Chu Hsi also, as we have seen above.[1983]
Another writer maintains that the substances adhere to and have their
roots in the earth, and that the fluids revolve in heaven. The latter
generate, the former complete all organisms,
[1984]
i. e., the fluids give the first
impulse to every new creation and the substances complete it. It may
not be out of place to point out that the afore-mentioned
Agrippa puts
forward quite similar ideas. The elements in the lower worlds he declares
to be coarser and more material, whereas in the higher spheres they
appear only as forces or qualities. (
Lehmann, Aberglaube p. 198.)
This view has again been modified, all elements being held to be
compounded of substance and fluid. There is a difference between the
various elements insomuch as they are more substantial or more etherial.
"Fire and water have much fluid and little substance, wherefore they
were produced first. Metal and wood have much substance and little fluid,
and for this reason were created later. In earth substance and fluid are
equally balanced, consequently it came after water and fire, but preceded
metal and wood."[1985]
"The fluid of water is Yang, its substance Yin. The nature of Yin
is procreative, therefore water produces wood. The fluid of fire is Yin,
its substance Yang. Since the nature of Yang is burning and destructive,
fire cannot produce metal. As regards earth, its fluid is Yang and its
substance Yin. Consequently it makes use of the Yang of fire to produce
the Yin of metal."[1986]
Here we have again the mysticism of the Yiking.
Fire and earth together produce metal, and water and earth combined
produce wood. In both cases earth is indispensable. When wood produces
fire, and metal, water, earth is not required.
Regarded as the ultimate causes of the seasons the elements were
also invested with the qualities which, properly speaking, belong to the
seasons alone. These characteristic features of the seasons are, according
to Pan Ku's Po-hu-t`ung:—generating, growing, reaping, and hiding.[1987]
Tung Chung
Shu already gave similar attributes to the elements. Wood, said he, is
the generative nature of spring and the basis of agriculture. Fire is the
growing of summer, earth the maturing of the seeds in mid-summer, metal
the deadly breath of autumn, and water the hiding in winter and the
extreme
Yin.[1988]
