Page:Brinkley - China - Volume 3.djvu/79

relations, or forces might equally be depicted by the digraphic, trigraphic, or hexagraphic groups, and their interactions by the positions of the lines in these groups. In a word, the same power that produced the universe continued, in this creed, to produce by the same processes all the vicissitudes to which men and things are subject. It will occur to the reader to inquire what share spiritual beings had in all this. The primordial essence, the aura, the breath of nature, was Shang-ti's creation, but the spirits, being ministers of his will, should act some part in the developments caused by the elements of that essence. That feature is not omitted. Spiritual beings are supposed to be the hidden operators of nature's changes, the shan, or heavenly spirits, operating with the yang, or strong principle, and the kwei, or spirits of departed mortals, operating with the yin, or weak principle. It would be incorrect to suppose, however, that the introduction of these spiritual agencies elucidates the problem. On the contrary, they represent the essentially unfathomable, incomprehensible processes of creative or causative operations. The active and passive principles, the expanding and contracting agencies, are supposed to account for much; but when they fail, when human intelligence finds itself confronted by a residuum which it cannot fathom, then the working of a spiritual power is to be inferred.

Side by side with these theories there grew up a system of divination which has been widely