X. Wrong Analogies.
The theory of the Five Elements is to a great extent built up on
wrong analogies, but few Chinese scholars seem to have become aware of
the impossible consequences to which they were led by it. Wang Ch`ung
does not reject the theory altogether, but very often points out the wrong
analogies, e. g., in the chapter on the Nature of Things Vol. I, p. 105 seq.,
where he says that there ought to be an internicine strife between the inner
organs of man just as there is between the elements, and that the Twelve
Animals corresponding to the twelve points of the compass ought to behave
quite differently from the way how they do, if they were at all influenced
by the elements, and in Vol. II, p. 416 seq.
In addition to this theory of the Five Elements the Chinese possess
still another somewhat similar, derived from the Yiking and based on the
Eight Diagrams. It is much less known and less developed than that of
the Five Elements, and the correspondences are quite different. The principal
ones are enumerated by De Groot, Relig. System Vol. III, p. 964.
