Introduction

The early Chinese philosophers were almost entirely concerned with questions of ethics and behaviour, and we have seen that where some began to take an interest in other fields – even where they were apparently motivated by a desire to better pursue ethical questions – their efforts were largely unappreciated. The School of Names, for example, disappeared unlamented by its contemporaries and remembered to posterity only as a congeries of worthless quibblers. This is very different from the Greek experience, where philosophy began as a cosmological enquiry into the basic structure and constituency of the universe; questioning whether it was made of one material or many, whether the substance was of some familiar kind or something else, whether there was change in that material or not, and so on. These questions were little considered by most of the philosophers whose reputations have endured, and then usually just to say that that was not their business, but there were some who thought these matters worth attention.

The same Han dynasty historians (Sima Tan, quoted in the Shiji or Records of the Grand Historian written by his son Sima Qian) who invented a ‘School of Names’ to include all those interested in language, analysis, skepticism, relativism, logic, etc. also invented the ‘School of Yin and Yang’ ( 阴阳家, Yīnyángjiā)  to neatly contain those who were concerned with cosmological questions. (We shall call them the ‘Yinyangists’ from now on.) The name refers to the famous complementary or oppositional pair in terms of which much of their explanation was phrased, but these philosophers, if that’s what we wish to call them, also made use of the so-called ‘Five Elements,’ and of course all this was related to the influence of qi. All of these seem to have been part of the early Chinese pre-philosophical background: the effect of the speculations of the Yinyangists was to regularise the popular notions and to rationalise them to a certain degree.

Correlative Cosmology

The point of a cosmology is not only to describe how the world is constituted but also to explain how it operates. Without going into too much detail about what qualifies as an explanation – because this is an increasingly controversial area of philosophy – I think it’s reasonable to say that we now think of explanations – in the cosmological realm, at least – as being essentially causal: we say that we have explained why X happened or why X is the way it is when we have shown how the pre-existing conditions cause X to be the way it is or they cause X to come about. For example, we say that the apple falls to the ground because the Force of Gravity existing between two masses causes them to move towards each other; or we say that the sky is blue because the shorter wavelengths of light (at the blue end of the spectrum) are scattered into our eyes by particles in the atmosphere while the longer ones pass through unaffected.

These aren’t the only sorts of explanations, however. Another way of thinking of explanations is as being any appropriate way of answering a ‘why is it so?’ question: and whether some way of answering is appropriate or not depends on what we want to do with that answer. In the West, philosophers were for a long time convinced by Aristotle’s ‘Four Causes’ categorization of explanations according to which there were just four different ways of answering one of those questions. We could say there was a material cause: the statue is brown because the statue is made of bronze and bronze is brown. Or a formal cause: the man is unmarried because he is a bachelor, and a bachelor is an unmarried man. Or an efficient cause: the child is ugly because both parents are ugly and ugly parents tend to have ugly children. (This is Aristotle’s example! and this is the only one of his explanation types that we think of as causal in the our sense.) Or, finally, a final cause: the statue was made to be placed in the temple.

Now, despite Aristotle’s claim that he has enumerated all the possible kinds of reply to the ‘why?’ question, we shall see that the cosmology of the Yinyangists accepts a sort of answer that does not occur in his list: a type of answer that we now find very difficult to accept as any sort of answer at all – let alone as an answer suitable for the cosmological domain. For the Yinyangists an appropriate explanation for some phenomenon is to simply find a place for that phenomenon in a scheme of correlated categorizations. This was justified by such considerations as the following from the 3^rd C BC Lüshi chunqiu:[1]

Things of the same kind summon each other, those with the same vital energy join together, and sounds that match resonate. Thus if you strum a gong note other gong will resonate; if you strum a jue note other jue will vibrate. Use a dragon to bring rain; use the form to move the shadow. The masses of people think that fortune and misfortune come from fate [ming]. How could they know from where they truly come!

This is not particularly a Chinese ‘Way of Thought.’ Similar modes of reasoning were used throughout the pre-modern world from Mesoamerica to India. In particular, we know perfectly well that the same sort of theorizing was at one time common in the West – again, despite the explicit acceptance of Aristotle’s categorization of explanations. In fact, this sort of thing continued well into the modern period as we can see with Kepler’s attempt to ‘explain’ the relative distances of the planets from the Sun by ‘correlating’ them with the Platonic perfect solids.[2] According to that scheme, the reason that Venus is as far from the Sun as it is is because the icosahedron is related in such and such a way to the octahedron and dodecahedron.  It is one of the triumphs of modernity that such things are now inconceivable to us as explanations, but a sympathetic understanding of pre-modern thought requires that we accept that it was not always so.

Yin and Yang

 
The metaphysical concepts that came to dominate Chinese cosmological thought emerged only gradually from the confusion of early naïve ideas. We cannot trace their development too closely – too much original material has been lost or rewritten to suit later ideas – but we can see some of the stages in the process. We shall begin by looking at the development of the ideas of yin and yang that are the essential parts of one of the two major cosmological conceptualisations of the period.

1. Origins

 In the Zuo Zhuan (a commentary on the classic Spring and Autumn Annals that is now thought to date from some time in the 4^th C BC) it is remarked that:

[In the same way] there are six heavenly influences (qi,) which descend and produce the five tastes, go forth in the five colours, and are verified in the five notes; but when they are in excess, they produce the six diseases. Those 6 influences are denominated by the yin, the yang, wind, rain, obscurity, and brightness.[1]

At this point then, qi is not a unitary element pervading and guiding the universe, but a general term for a species of influences (plural.) These six qi are also mentioned in an inner chapter.of the Zhuangzi.[2] Moreover, yin and yang at this time are not the universal classifiers of all phenomena, but just two particular kinds of phenomena – apparently, the shady side of the hill (north,) and the sunny side (south.) The relevant characters appearing on oracle bones of the Shang dynasty (1556-1046 BC) seem to refer to weather conditions such as sunniness and darkness.

2. How they became universal

At some indeterminate time this pair began to become dominant over the other six qi. In Zz 22.11, which is possibly 3^rd-2^nd C BC, we read that

We use the expression Sky and Earth to express hugeness of shape; we use yin and yang for greatness of the breaths (qi)

And this led naturally enough to the idea that qi is one thing and that yin and yang are the two forms which it takes, or the two ways in which it acts. In that view qi might be taken as responsible for everything according to the actions of the qi. Thus in Zz 22.11 it is said that

 The birth of a human being is an amassing of breaths (qi.) While the amassing exists life goes on; when it scatters death occurs.

 Given that all things that are born will naturally die, it’s clear that there’s some sort of necessary alternation in these forms of qi. In the Huainanzi , written just before 139 BC, we find that process of alternation between yin and yang described not only as being in their nature but also as the driver of all creation and destruction. There it is said:

When heaven and earth were formed, they divided into yin and yang. Yang is generated from yin and yin is generated from yang. Yin and yang mutually alternate which makes four fields penetrate. Sometimes there is life, sometimes there is death, that brings the myriad things to completion.[3]

And in fact we find that that text then goes on to give a very long and involved cosmogony in which the creation of the world and everything in it is described as having been produced by the separation of opposites all related to the actions or characters of the yin and yang aspects of the unitary qi. One short passage will give you the flavour of the whole:

The Way of Heaven is to be round, the way of Earth is to be square. It is primary to the square to be dim, primary to the round to shine. To shine is to expel qi, for which reason fire and sun cast the image outside. To be dim is to hold qi in, for which reason water and the moon draw the image inside. What expels qi does to, what holds qi in is transformed by. Therefore the yang does to, the yin is transformed by.[4]

From this point on the Chinese predilection for pairwise oppositions becomes intimately associated with the yin-yang division: they are taken as the model – if not the cause – of all such divisions, and lists of such correlations become pervasive in the cosmological literature. The earliest reasonably complete such list is from a recently discovered text of the Laozi discovered at Mawangdui dating to about 250BC. In which we find these associations:[5]

3. How they became associated with the Yìjīng

You will recall that we said that the Yinyangists developed from the class of occult practitioners of earlier times and that amongst their skills was divination. Since the Yinyangists, or some of them anyway, now believed that the world was directed by the actions of yin and yang, it is not surprising that they thought that the method of divination needed to be related in some correspondential way to the yin and yang.

The classic form of divination in the Shang period was by oracle bones, but in this new age the preferred method was by casting yarrow stalks. Somehow the stalks were made to yield 6 numbers each between 6 and 9. Each even number would be coded as a broken line and each odd number as a solid one. This would yield a hexagram consisting of 6 broken or unbroken lines (corresponding to a number between 0 and 63) and each hexagram would then be interpreted by looking up the corresponding text in a book where they were listed with their associated symbolic meanings.[6] The original book for this purpose was a divination text in use in the Western Zhou called the Zhōuyì (周易) or the ‘Changes of Zhou.’ With the addition of ten commentaries known as the ‘Wings,’ which relate the diagrams to cosmology and which mostly date to about 200 BC, this became the text that we know today as the Yìjīng (易经) or ‘Classic of Changes.’

It was the binary fact of the broken and unbroken lines of the hexagrams that suggested a connection to yin and yang. It was natural to connect yang to the unbroken line and yin to the broken one, and the piling up of the choices of yin and yang in constructing the hexagrams then mirrored the process of creation of all things as we saw it described above in the Huainanzi.

Five Elements

 
The second major stream of cosmological conceptualisation at this early time was the wu xing (五行) or ‘Five Elements’ theory. According to this theory, the fundamental nature of the universe could be understood in terms of the basic elements Earth (土, tǔ,) Wood (木, mù,) Fire (火, huǒ,) Water (水, shuǐ,) and Metal (金, jīn.) Although the wu xing theory was originally a quite independent development, and seems obviously incompatible with the yin-yang theory, a connection between the two was attempted at a time when efforts were being made to create a unified cosmology through a synthesis of disparate parts. An attempt was made, for example, to make the five elements relevant to the hexagrams of the Yìjīng despite the fact that that the elements are not even mentioned in the Wings of that text, which clearly belongs to the tradition of yin-yang theorists rather than wu xing theorists. Such efforts will not be further discussed here. 

1. Origins

We find a possible early mention of the five elements in the Zuo Zhuan where it is said that:

Heaven and earth have their regular ways, and men like these for their pattern, imitating the brilliant bodies of Heaven, and according with the natural diversities of the Earth. (Heaven and Earth) produce the six atmospheric conditions (qi,) and make use of the five material elements.[1]

That mention is a little obscure however, and the first definite reference to the elements as a cosmological pattern occurs in the Shu Jing (the ‘Classic of History’ which is now supposed to have been written some time before the 4^th C BC,) in a section called the Hóng Fàn or ‘Great Plan,’ which included:

First, the five elements: the first is water; the second, fire; the third, wood; the fourth, metal; and the fifth, earth. The nature of water is to soak and descend; of fire to blaze and ascend; of wood to be crooked and straight; of metal to yield and change; while that of earth is seen in seed-sowing and in-gathering.[2]

Now, the term ‘element’ translating xing here is misleading, because the character usually means something like ‘going.’ When the specifically material nature of those elements is to be emphasized the word cai (材, ‘materials’) could be used, as it is in a reference to the five materials in the Zuo zhuan.[3] Here, then, it seems more likely that the list of xing should be understood not as naming the constitutive elements of the material world, but as standing for the different natures which are associated with those things. Alternative translations for xing have been offered such as ‘phase’, ‘process,’ etc., but I think ‘nature’ would do just as well. Nevertheless, to respect tradition, we shall stick with ‘element.’

2. Productions and Conquests

It was noted quite early that the five elements could be put into two cycles. One cycle would show how each element overcame another other. Parts at least of this cycle were known to the authors of the Zuo zhuan. For example, at one point a person, Ying, wanted to know whether he should go to war against the House of Keang and was told “Ying is a name of water …. The emperor Yen had his fire-master from whom the House of Keang is descended. Water overcomes fire. According to this you may attack the Keang.”[4] The full destructive (克, kè) cycle was:

Water extinguishes Fire melts Metal cuts Wood digs Soil dams Water

Another cycle would show that each element gave rise to the other. The generative (生, shēng) cycle was:

Water feeds Wood fuels Fire produces Earth brings forth Metal collects Water

Many other interrelationships could also be found between the various elements. When correlated with other 5-fold categorizations these interrelationships were supposed to carry over to the new categorization so that knowing how the five elements related would immediately reveal the hidden relationships of the newly correlated phenomena. Such five-fold correlations began to appear with the Spring and Autumn Annals of Master Lü (Lüshi Chunqiu) in about 239 BC. Lists of such five-fold categorizations and their correlations with the five elements then became as tediously widespread as the pairwise correlations of the Yin-yang theorists. To illustrate the type, we shall give just one early list drawn from the Lüshi Chunqiu[5] in a section that was eventually canonised by inclusion in the Liji (礼记, ‘Book of Rites’) as the chapter ‘Monthly Commands’ (月令, Yuèlìng.)

It is obvious even in this early effort that a five-fold division is considerably less flexible than a pairwise one. It signally fails to do justice to things which are naturally four-fold, such as the seasons and the directions. In the case of the seasons the problem was occasionally solved by inserting a notional intermediate period in the calendar, but this is hardly satisfactory. It is also much less intuitively obvious how to make the associations. In the case for the yin-yang categories, once we see one or two such assignments we have a pretty good idea where the rest are going to go. That is certainly not the case for the wu xing: how are the notes supposed to be distributed according to the elements, for example? Justifications for most of the associations are very strained. And it’s also doubtful in many cases that most of the supposed correlative relationships can be plausibly defended. How does the cycle of generation work for the creatures in the list above, for example?

Notwithstanding the difficulties attaching to such correspondences, it was from very early proposed that there were aspects of human life that could usefully be put into such relationships. The ‘Monthly Commands’ just mentioned, set out the proper behaviour month by month for the ruler and the kingdom to be in harmony with Nature, together with warnings of the dire consequences that will ensue if disharmony arises.

In the first month of spring the East wind resolves the cold. Creatures that have been torpid during the winter begin to move … It is in this month that the vapours of Heaven descend and those of Earth ascend. Heaven and Earth are in harmonious cooperation.

…

He charges his assistants to disseminate virtue and harmonious governmental order, so as to give effect to the expression of his satisfaction … In this month no warlike operations should be undertaken; the undertaking of such is sure to be followed by calamities from Heaven.[6]

This early stage of theorising about wu xing culminated with the work of Zou Yan (鄒衍, 305–240 BC,) a scholar of the Jixia Academy of Qi who began the effort to combine the teachings of wu xing with those of yin yang. He is said to have written copiously – a book of 00,000 characters – but none of that has survived and we have only the remains of quoted passages, some comments by others, and a brief biographical notice in Sima Qian’s Shiji. He is most famous for his geographical studies and for an attempt at a philosophy of history. That philosophy is described in the Lüshi Chunqiu.[7] It suggests that the dynasties receiving the Mandate of Heaven are those who are associated with the power of the currently ascendant element, which is knowable by correctly reading the omens, and that dynasties rise and fall according to the succession of elements in the destructive cycle. Thus:

In the time of Yu [founder of the Hsia dynasty] Heaven first made grass and trees appear which did not die in the autumnand winter. Yu said: ;The force of Wood is in ascendancy.” Therefore he assumed green as his colour and took Wood as the pattern for his affairs.

In the time of T’ang [founder of the Shang dynasty] Heaven made some knife blades appear in the water. T’ang said: “The force of Metal is in ascendancy.” He therefore assumed white as his colour and took Metal as the pattern for his affairs.

Conclusion