VI. The Different Modes of Enumerating the Five Elements.
There are at least four different ways of enumerating the elements,
each series having its special meaning:
a) The order in which the elements are believed to have originally
been created: Water, fire, wood, metal, earth.
We found this series in the Shuking p. 433 and the Chi-chung
chcu-shu p. 437. Whether it really has the meaning disclosed by the
Sung philosophers, is open to doubt. According to the T`ai-chi-t`u this
series refers to the substances, showing the order in which they were
produced, in contradistinction to the fluids whose successive revolutions
are expressed by series b):—wood, fire, earth, metal, water.[2009]
Chu Hsi speaks
of the order in which the Five Elements were first created by Heaven and
Earth.[2010]
He holds that the vague and shapeless elements water and fire
came first and were followed by the solid substances wood and metal
which required earth as a substratum from which they issued. But in
this case earth ought to take the third place in the series and not the last.
b) The order in which the elements or their fluids follow and produce
each other in the course of the seasons:—Wood, fire, earth, metal, water.
This is the order of the Liki. During each season one element predominates.
The others are not completely destroyed, but they have dwindled
away and have no power until their turn comes, when they are resuscitated
and become preponderant. The elements thus succeeding each other are
said to produce one another. Both Huai Nan Tse III, 17 v. and Tung Chung
Shu XI, 2 v. expressly state that wood produces fire, fire produces earth,
earth produces metal, metal water, and water wood. The former regards
each element producing another as its mother, the latter as is father, and
the element thus generated as the son or child. According to this terminology
wood for example would be the mother or the father of fire, and
metal the son of earth. This analogy has induced both authors to judge
the relations of the elements by the moral and the family laws, which
leads to strange consequences. As men under given circumstances act in
a certain way, the elements are believed to affect each other in a similar
manner. This view has been adopted by other writers as will appear from
some instances given
ad c).
The theory that the Five Elements produce each other in the order
of this series is to a certain extent based on natural laws. One may say
that wood produces fire, and fire leaves ashes or earth. In the interior
of the earth metal grows, but how can metal produce water? Here is a
hitch. The Chinese try to avoid it by asserting that metal may become
liquefied or watery, and in this respect they are at one with Agrippa who
likewise, as we saw, looks upon all metals as watery. But liquid metal
is not real water, and it can never be transformed into water in the same
way as wood becomes ashes or earth metal. Moreover, water alone cannot
become wood, there must be earth besides—not to speak of the necessity
of a germ—and to produce metal, earth and fire must co-operate. This
has been pointed out in the Hsing-li h`ui-t`ung stating that, for the production
of metal, fire and earth, and for that of wood, water and earth are wanted,
so that in both cases earth cannot be dispensed with.
c) The order in which the elements subdue or overcome each
other:—Water, fire, metal, wood, earth.
This series occurs in the Shuking and the Tso-chuan (p. 432), and the
author of the latter work knows its principle, for he informs us that water
overcomes fire and fire, metal, and calls the stronger element the husband,
the weaker the wife. The full list of the antagonistic elements is given
by Huai Nan Tse IV, 8 v.[2011]
Tung Chung Shu XIII, 5 v. remarks that of the
elements in series b) those placed together produce one another, whereas
those separated by one place vanquish each other.[2012]
If we take the
series:—wood, fire, earth, metal, water, then wood subdues earth and earth,
water; fire subdues metal, and metal wood, &c. The series must be regarded
as an infinite ring; from the last link one returns to the first.
How this mutual antagonism of the elements is to be understood
we best learn from the Huang Ti su-wên:—"Wood brought together with
metal is felled; fire brought together with water is extinguished; earth
meeting with wood is pierced; metal meeting with fire is dissolved; and
water meeting with earth is stopped."[2013]
In other words:—water extinguishes fire, fire melts metal, metal cuts
wood. That growing wood perforates the surrounding soil, and that earth
stops the course of water, when there is an inundation for example, seems
a little far-fetched, but we must bear in mind that the Chinese reasoning
is not always as strict and logical as we would like to have it. The
explanation given in the Huang Ti su-wên most likely completely satisfies
the Chinese mind. I would prefer the explanation of
de Saussure, T`oung-pao
1909, p. 259 that earth vanquishes water by absorbing it; and the same
thing may be said of the relation of wood and earth, in so far as growing
plants draw from the soil all the substances necessary for their development.
This may be looked upon as a destruction of earth by wood.
In connexion with this theory some writers make interesting observations
on the way in which the elements affect each other. Wood, says Kuan
Yin Tse, when bored, gives fire, when pressed, gives water. Metal is such
a substance that, when struck, it produces fire, and when melted it becomes
water.[2014]
The Chang-huang t`u-shu pien points out the following changes
undergone by the elements, when operated upon by one another:—Earth
becomes softened by water and hardened by fire. Metal becomes liquid
by fire and continues unchanged by water. Wood grows by water and
is consumed by fire. Fire grows by wood and dies by water. Water is
cooled by metal and warmed by fire.[2015]
In Ch`u Yung's Ch`ü-yi shuo the
action of some elements is spoken of in a way, that a tacit reproof may
be read between the lines:—Fire is produced by wood, but it consumes
it; metal grows in earth, but it hoes it i. e., both elements show a very
unfilial behaviour towards their parents. Wood subdues earth, but earth
nourishes wood; earth subdues water, but water irrigates earth[2016]
i. e., earth
and water requite the maltreatment by their inimical elements with kindness.
Tai T`ing Huai is quite outspoken on this subject and sets forth the curious
law that, when an element is vanquished by another, its son always will
revenge the wrong inflicted upon its mother element upon the aggressor
and subdue him in his turn.[2017]
E. g., when water overcomes fire, earth, the
son of fire, will subdue water, and when fire overcomes metal, water, the
son of metal, will subdue fire. There really is such a relation between
the various elements according to the Chinese theory of their mutual production
and destruction. This destruction is considered a natural rebuff,
after an element has been produced and exceeded a certain limit, or it
may have been brought about by men on purpose, in order to shape or
transform certain substances, or avert calamities. Thus fire is employed
to melt metal and cast vessels and utensils, and earth is formed into dikes
and embankments to check inundations.
In the occult arts of the middle ages the sympathies and antipathies
of the elements play an important part. Agrippa (loc. cit. p. 229) contends
that fire is hostile to water, and air to earth. A sympathetic action is
exercised by a magnet attracting iron, an emerald procuring riches and
health, a jasper influencing birth, and an agate furthering eloquence. Contrariwise,
a sapphire is believed to repel plague ulcers, fever, and eye
diseases, amethyst acts against drunkenness, jasper against evil spirits,
emerald against wantonness, agate against poison. The panther dreads the
hyena so much, that, if the skin of a panther be suspended opposite to
the skin of a hyena, its hair fall out. In accordance with this doctrine of
Agrippa the famous physician Theophrastus Bombastus Paracelsus, 1493-1541
A.D., based his cures on the sympathetic action of the elements. Since
every part of the body pertained to a planet, all the substances belonging
to the same star were considered to be efficacious antidotes against all
ailments of the part in question. Gold e. g., passed for a specific against
heart diseases, because gold and the heart both pertain to the sun (eod.
p. 232). Even animals have recourse to this sort of cures. Agrippa relates
that a lion suffering from fever cures itself by eating the flesh of a monkey,
and that stags, when hit by an arrow, eat white dittany (Eschenwurz) which
extracts the arrow.
d) The order in which the elements are usually enumerated at
present:—Metal, wood, water, fire, earth. This series seems to be used for
the first time by Pan Ku in his Po-hu-t`ung II, 1 r. I found only one attempt
at explaining this order by Chu Hsi, which is very unsatisfactory. Metal,
he says, is the mother of all fluids, and the body of Heaven is dry metal.[2018]
Because all things begin to grow after they have received the fluid, therefore
wood follows metal, &c.
Perhaps the principle underlying this series may be that first the
two substantial elements are given, secondly their two transformations, and
thirdly one second transformation. Metal and wood are transmuted into
water and fire, and fire again is changed into earth (embers).
Accordingly the above four orders of the elements may briefly be
thus characterised:
a) series of the creation of the elements
b) series of their mutual production
c) series of their mutual destruction
d) series of their transformation.
