Leibniz' Binary System and Shao Yong's "Yijing"

Author(s): James A. Ryan

Source: Philosophy East and West , Jan., 1996, Vol. 46, No. 1 (Jan., 1996), pp. 59-90
Published by: University of Hawai'i Press

Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/1399337

REFERENCES
Linked references are available on JSTOR for this article:
https://www.jstor.org/stable/1399337?seq=1&cid=pdf-
reference#references_tab_contents
You may need to log in to JSTOR to access the linked references.

JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide
range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and
facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at
https://about.jstor.org/terms

University of Hawai'i Press is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access
to Philosophy East and West

This content downloaded from

86.22.70.119 on Thu, 05 Dec 2024 20:56:30 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
LEIBNIZ' BINARY SYSTEM AND SHAO YONG'S YIJING James A. Ryan

Doctoral Candidate
The Yijing/ Binary System Episode has haunted scholars repeatedly during
in the Department
the last fifty years. The episode involved the remarkable discovery by
of Philosophy at the
Leibniz (and an associate) of the binary geometrical progression in a di-
University of Miami
agram associated with the Yijing that was said to have been created by
the mythical third-millennium father of Chinese writing, Fu Xi. A corre-
spondent in Beijing sent Leibniz a copy of the diagram, which depicted
yin and yang, apparent symbols of zero and one, in the order of Leibniz'
binary number system (Table 1). Leibniz thought he had discovered
evidence of a forgotten mathematical science in the Chinese past, and,
in spite of his sinological knowledge, he never found evidence to the
contrary. Thus, it has been left to contemporary scholars to explain
the apparent correspondence.
While the general trend in scholarship has rightly presumed that no
forgotten mathematical science existed in ancient China, the conclusion
that the Yijing / Binary System Episode was a mere coincidence has
perhaps not satisfied scholars, in view of the intricacy of the binary geo-
metrical progression and the temporal and spatial isolation of the Chi-
nese Diagram from the European.1
I will offer a qualification to this conclusion. What Leibniz meant
when he attributed "science" to the Diagram2 differs from corresponding
ideas in a Song dynasty context. However, the principal exponent of the
Diagram (Plate I), Shao Yong (1012-1077),3 used it in proto-scientific
fashion and grounded this use in metaphysical views similar to those of
Leibniz. Shao and Leibniz shared the view that the cosmos was created
according to the binary system, which is reflected in all things and dis-
coverable by human beings. Shao's use of the Diagram resembled some
of the basic themes of Leibniz' philosophy of science. Nevertheless, Shao
stopped short of pushing his Diagram toward a scientific number system,
since he believed that rigorously scientific thinking was perniciously
dualist and spiritually detrimental. With the picture filled out in this way,
we will be able to draw some revised conclusions about the reasons for
the haunting coincidence of the Yijing/ Binary System Episode.

Leibniz and Bouvet's Discovery4

Leibniz' interest in China was part of a broader project. He wanted
Philosophy East & West
Volume 46, Number 1
to show the results of all human inquiry, of whatever discipline or culture,
to be mutually consistent and to reflect his own metaphysical views.JanuaryHe 1996
59-90
gathered technological advances from abroad, so that he could advance
his goal of an interconnected scientific community. He sought informa-
? 1996
tion about non-European languages in an effort to determine the com-
by University of
Hawai'i Press
mon origin of all languages, and he intended to develop a universal,

59

This content downloaded from

86.22.70.119 on Thu, 05 Dec 2024 20:56:30 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
 Table 1. The Binary Number System.

A: Binary numbers with

denary equivalents B: Squares

0 0 0000 0
1 1 0001 1
10 2 0100 4
11 3 10001 9
100 4 10000 16
101 5 11001 25
110 6 100100 36
111 7 110001 49
1000 8 1000000 64
1001 9
Column 1: Period of 01
1010 10
Column 2: Period of 0
1011 11
Column 3: Period of 0010
1100 12
Column 4: Period of 00010100
1101 13
Etc.
1110 14
1111 15
C: Cubes
10000 16
000 0
10001 17
001 1
10010 18
1000 8
10011 19
11011 27
10100 20
1000000 64
10101 21
1111111 125
10110 22
11011000 216
10111 23
11000 24 Column 1: Period of 01
11001 25 Column 2: Period of 0001
11010 26 Column 3: Period of 00000101
11011 27 Etc.
11100 28
11101 29
11110 30
11111 31
100000 32

analytical language ("universal characteristic") that would allow fluent

and rigorously exact international scientific communication.5
Leibniz turned to China in an effort to tap into its thousands of years
of cultural development. His sinological studies, extending throughout
the second half of his life, probably flowed from his interest in picto-
graphic writing, his project of collecting foreign technological innova-
tions, and his admiration for Confucian moral thought.6 Leibniz could
have found no more agreeable ally than Joachim Bouvet (1656-1730).7
Philosophy East & West Bouvet, a Jesuit missionary in Beijing, was both trained in mathematics

60

This content downloaded from

86.22.70.119 on Thu, 05 Dec 2024 20:56:30 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
and science and effusively visionary in his devotion to the Figurist ideal
of a universalistic coalescence of the various cultures, religions, and sci-
ences of the world (under the ultimate patronage of Christianity). Bouvet,
like many Figurists, believed that Chinese history, since it was exceed-
ingly well recorded, was a promising source for locating predictions of
Christ and prescient intimations of Christian mysteries.8
It was Bouvet who discovered the correspondence between the Yi-
jing and Leibniz' binary system and who first theorized that the Diagram
was a remnant of forgotten ancient Chinese science. In order to gain the
favor of the Kangxi emperor (r. 1662-1722) for the Jesuit mission, Bouvet
wanted to appeal to what he thought were intimations of Christian doc-
trine in the Chinese classics. Thus, he was happy to find another basis for
his claims in the correspondence between the ancient Chinese symbols
and the ideas of the modern Christian thinker Leibniz.
In a 1701 letter, Leibniz explained the binary system (shown in
Table 1) to Bouvet in some detail. In a response, Bouvet demonstrated the
following correspondence to Leibniz. Taking broken lines to be equiv-
alent to zeros and solid lines to be equivalent to ones, the first hexagram
at the bottom of the Diagram (--, see Plate I) seems to denote zero as
the binary system would. If one overlooks the fact (of which neither
Bouvet nor Leibniz was aware) that the Chinese read the hexagram lines
from the bottom up, rather than from the top down, the rest of the binary
numbers proceed in the Diagram as follows. Reading counterclockwise,
= 1, - = 10, _ = 11, = 100, = 101, and so forth. As Leibniz
indicates, the binary system can be seen starting at the bottom of the
circle, proceeding counterclockwise to the top and then again clockwise
from the bottom to the top.9 The double geometric progression can be
discerned in the Diagram as well as in Leibniz' binary system. That is,
the broken lines (yin) are gradually filled in (replaced with unbroken
yang lines) from the outside to the inside. Beginning at the bottom and
moving counterclockwise, the first hexagram (--) has five innermost
broken lines; the next two hexagrams have four innermost broken lines
(-_, -); the next four have three innermost broken lines; the next eight
have two; and the next sixteen have one. A similar pattern continues
from the bottom clockwise to the top.
Bouvet took Leibniz' work to be a confirmation of his suspicion that
the Diagram represented forgotten ancient science. If Western scientific
ideas were discovered in their own ancient tradition, the Chinese would
open their ear to Western religious ideas.10 Leibniz agreed that the Dia-
gram was "one of the most ancient monuments of science ... more than
4000 years old."'1 The binary system was, for Leibniz, a representation
of creation ex nihilo by God, in which each thing is constituted by some
permutation of one (i.e., God) and nothing. Thus, Leibniz supported
Bouvet's mission to use the binary system and the Yijing "to suggest to A. Ryan
James

61

This content downloaded from

86.22.70.119 on Thu, 05 Dec 2024 20:56:30 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
 the Chinese the most important truths of philosophy and natural theology
in order to facilitate the way to be revealed."12
The "introduction of philosophy," which would bring the Chinese
"spirits closer to receiving the true religion," involved the same meta-
physical agenda as that which Leibniz was putting forth in Europe
against the Cartesians.13 Leibniz wished to combat materialism in Europe
and China by proving that "mechanics implies consideration of force."14
In order to accomplish this, he intended to "rehabilitate the philosophy
of the ancients"15 of both traditions. For Leibniz equated his concept of
the sources of force, the monads, with the Confucian concept of princi-
3 ple (li), which he mistook to be an ancient, rather than a relatively recent
(Song dynasty), idea in Chinese philosophy.16
By appealing to the Chinese's original understanding of force in gen-
eral and to the original force-God's creation of the world ex nihilo-
Leibniz hoped to bring China into the international scientific community.
&tli For Leibniz, taiji (the Great Ultimate, the source of the yin and yang) in-
volved the concept of a primordial force from which all other forces
fr4 ("spirits," shen) spring. Thus, the Chinese had some of the concepts
necessary for scientific thinking, as well as what Leibniz took to be
a better practical knowledge of force than Europe, manifest in its
longer history of invention and practical sciences, such as medicine
and geography.17
Leibniz was trying to develop the aforementioned universal charac-
teristic, a "language of thought,"18 which would be structured gram-
matically in correspondence to facts in the world. Its words would em-
body real definitions, combinations of units that reflected the actual
constitution of the things to which they referred.19 Most thinking could
therefore be reduced to mechanically following truth-preserving rules for
manipulating objective symbols, thereby facilitating international com-
munication and accelerating the progress of science.20 Leibniz planned
to pique the Chinese interest in such a community. On the principle that
"it will always be found that one truth concurs with the other,"21 Leibniz
believed that the ancient Diagram and its interpretation by seventeenth-
century Chinese22 could be interwoven with his binary system to "give
us an open field for devising a new Characteristic which will appear to
be a consequence of Fu Xi's [characteristic]."23

The Diagram: A Scientific Binary Number System?

During the Yijing/ Binary System Episode, Leibniz made theoretical
and historical claims with regard to the Diagram. The theoretical claim
was that it was a representation of scientific knowledge of the binary
system, which he "rediscovered some thousands of years later."24 The
historical claim was that the Diagram had been a scientific instrument of
Philosophy East & West the Chinese thousands of years before, although its significance had

62

This content downloaded from

86.22.70.119 on Thu, 05 Dec 2024 20:56:30 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
evidently been forgotten in China by the seventeenth century. This claim
has been shown to be false, since the Diagram was not so old (perhaps
evolving around the first century B.C.).
The evaluation of the theoretical claim-that the Diagram, when-
ever it was created, was scientific-entails examining what Leibniz
meant by a "scientific"25 use of the binary system and comparing that
meaning with the Chinese use of the Diagram. I think Leibniz' theoret-
ical claim has been prematurely dismissed, because much of the proto-
scientific thought of the Diagram's latter-day exponent, Shao Yong, has
been overlooked. Shao tried to explain natural change with the Diagram,
and he did. so in a proto-scientific manner that utilized metaphysical
underpinnings similar to Leibniz' views. Lest one think that certain anti-
scientific passages in Shao (which I will discuss) negate the comparison
with Leibniz, we note that Shao was considered radically mechanistic
and fatalistic by his Neo-Confucian contemporaries.26
Leibniz conceived of science as an organized and quantitative
method of observing nature and of deriving and verifying natural laws.
While he thought that natural change was in principle fully explainable a
priori, he nevertheless argued that experience was the only actual source
of explanations open to human beings. Hence, he tended to integrate
rationalist and empiricist philosophical approaches to science. As we
will see, Shao's passion for empirical science was not as strong as that
of Leibniz. But he shared some of Leibniz' scientific views, and both
thinkers took some of the direction for their thinking from religious and
metaphysical views that bear significant similarities.
For Leibniz, since every thing or event has a sufficient reason (a
complete explanation of the causes from which its existence follows),
contingent propositions are knowable a priori for anyone who has in-
tuitive knowledge of the primitive notions from which things are ex-
plained. At one point, Leibniz believed that a genius could in principle
deduce truths of science a priori, from the a priori principles he knows,
such as the principle of noncontradiction and the nature of God's per-
fections (the ultimate reasons for all things).27 But he ultimately came to
believe that such an analysis requires an infinite number of steps, which
is impossible for finite beings to complete. Leibniz concluded that only
God could see the whole infinity of terms at once.28 For only God knows
all there is to know about a thing and, thus, why the application of spe-
cific natural laws is contained in its complete notion. Since he wanted to
create the best possible world, God chose to actualize the one which
had the most simply organized and plentiful amount of being.29 Only
God knew why the truth of a contingent proposition optimizes the per-
fection-variety and simplicity-of creation.30 For example, only God
could see that the containment in the concept of force of mass multiplied
by acceleration optimizes the order and variety of the world in every re- James A. Ryan

63

This content downloaded from

86.22.70.119 on Thu, 05 Dec 2024 20:56:30 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
 spect. A human being would never be able to reduce "F = ma" to an
identity. But scientists can infer this equation, since it is the simplest
of the possible equations that account for the given finite number of
observations.
The only way to knowledge about natural laws that is open to humans
is conjecture, which has both a priori and a posteriori aspects. Conjec-
ture a priori involves making hypotheses about a natural law based on
the metaphysical view that the true law will be the simplest explanation
of the greatest number of objects under study. For on this view, that law
can be known a priori to cover the greatest variety of instances. For ex-
ample, Snell's law (that the sine of the angle of incidence of a light ray is
proportional to the sine of the angle of its refraction) was inferred to be
correct, since it both fit any given observation of refraction and repre-
sented the assumption that light will take the easiest path through two
media of unequal resistances. For the proportion was simply given by the
ratio of the resistances of the media.31
Yet, this inference could not have been made without those ob-
servations. Conjecture a priori always occurs along with inductive and
analogical reasoning, the verification of which reaches moral, and not
deductive, certainty.32 In other words, conjecture a priori is always ac-
companied by conjecture a posteriori. But even if general truths about
nature aren't known as certainly as the truths of arithmetic, the principles
which guide conjecture a priori are, nevertheless, mathematically de-
fined.33 A priori principles of generality, economy, and simplicity, which
guide hypotheses, are defined in terms of mathematical concepts of
maximum and minimum quantities of order and variety.34
Moreover, empirically gathered primary truths always come organized
in quantitative categories. "Since we may perceive nothing accurately
except magnitude, figure, motion, and perception itself, it follows that
everything is to be explained through these four."35 So, conjecture a
priori and conjecture a posteriori, as well as God's certain a priori knowl-
edge of all things, all involve numbers and mathematical truths in a
central way. "Number is thus a basic metaphysical figure, as it were, and
arithmetic is a kind of statics of the universe by which the powers of
things are discovered."36
Leibniz thought that a universal characteristic would make thinking
be like calculation by accurately reflecting the numerical structure of
nature and organizing the various permutations of primitive kinds (each
of which has a corresponding number) according to numerical series.
The art of combinations, employing the universal characteristic, "fixes,
abridges, and orders"37 the thoughts of the scientist. Mungello points out
that while Leibniz' hopes seem far-fetched to us, he was writing during a
period in which many intellectuals were seriously searching for such a
Philosophy East & West universal language.38 Moreover, the utility of Leibniz' binary number

64

This content downloaded from

86.22.70.119 on Thu, 05 Dec 2024 20:56:30 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
system in computer science is, to borrow Mungello's phrase, "very im-
pressive though much more confined in scope than [Leibniz'] claims."39
For Leibniz, this art would guide all scientific inquiry:

[A]fter the isolated experiments are completed, as many experiments as pos-

sible are to be tried with only two kinds taken together, as with saltpeter and
common salt alone, treating them in various ways by fire, water, air; and by
combining various products thus made.... After combinations, one should
go on to the conternations, etc., or to the ternions, and quaternions of the
classes.40

So, conjecture a posteriori should rely on the organizational techniques

of the art of combinations. And inferences based on experimental data
also involve the art of combinations in the form of inferences that follow
the geometrical method.41 From clear, empirically constructed defini-
tions, inferences to general natural laws could be made by analyzing the
combined parts of the definitions. Just as a clear definition of a triangle
yields by analysis the rule that every triangle's interior angles will sum to
180 degrees, so, too, could one infer natural laws from knowledge of the
things involved in a given situation. For instance, by considering the
definition of a given complex substance, based on organized observa-
tional data, a scientist could deduce whether that substance is flammable.
The number system that most naturally expresses the orderly permuta-
tions of two kinds, three kinds ("conternations"), four kinds ("quatern-
ions"), and so forth is the binary system, since it embodies the base-two
progression that runs through these permutations. Leibniz demonstrated
this periodicity in his early Dissertation on the Art of Combinations
(1666), particularly in a table of the numerical permutations generated
according to the double geometric progression.42 I will not describe the
mathematical detail involved in the table, but suffice it to say that the
table was supposed to make the scientist's job of finding all possible
combinations of any number of elements a mechanical-decision proce-
dure, the simplicity of which derives from the periodic series of the bi-
nary number system. These periodic series of squares and cubes are
shown in Table 1.
Leibniz thought the binary system reflected the principles of simplicity
and economy, which, he had shown, were so fundamental to science. It
generated all possible permutations with a continuous pattern constructed
according to a simple rule. By the art of combinations the scientist would
make educated conjecture a priori about what sort of thing will have
what sort of behavior. And the scientist would organize the experiment-
ation done under many permutations of conditions.
For Leibniz, then, science involves the rigorously methodical appli-
cation of quantitative methods to the verification, observation, and de-
duction of natural laws. His example of experimenting with saltpeter James A. Ryan

65

This content downloaded from

86.22.70.119 on Thu, 05 Dec 2024 20:56:30 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
 shows what this would look like. By experimenting with a finite number of
methodically permutated combinations of saltpeter and other substances,
a scientist would be better able to draw conclusions about general laws
about the behavior of saltpeter than she could by combining saltpeter
with random groups of arbitrarily chosen substances. For, by Leibniz'
method, the scientist covers the possible permutations in order-combi-
nations of two substances, three substances, and so forth-thus making it
possible for her to discern patterns in the behavior of saltpeter. Assuming
nature to be simply designed, the scientist need not cover each of the
infinitely possible permutations. Rather,

Those experiments are to be tried first in which the analogy to other experi-
ments promises some special effect. It is likely that things which are similar in
many known factors will also be similar, or at least approximately so, in other
factors not yet examined.43

These organizational methods are centered on numbers, most naturally

the binary system, since it reflects the generation of things from one
("God") and zero ("nothing"), guides hypothesis and organizes experi-
mentation according to periodic permutations, and embodies the sim-
plicity and economy of calculation so valuable to science. So, there is a
fairly specific sense in which Leibniz attributes ancient science to the
Diagram, itself a de facto representation of the binary system.
It has been demonstrated, however, that the Diagram did not have a
forgotten scientific source in the Third Millennium B.C.44 Rather, it has
been shown that it had its primary exponent in Shao Yong (eleventh
century) and had its origins probably only a few centuries before him.
Shao, perhaps the most concerned with numbers and an understanding
of natural phenomena of any Neo-Confucian, is not known as an ex-
perimental scientist. For Shao, the Yijing was a numerologically powerful
text. We usually think of numerology as the doctrine that numbers are
powerful in the sense of having a supernatural effect upon or control
over events. On the other hand, for Leibniz, numbers were scientifically
powerful in the sense of representing a large amount of information in a
generalized and organized manner.
Instead of paying attention to the mathematical series in the Dia-
gram, Shao seems to have been interested in the correlative metaphysi-
cal explanations of the Diagram, analogies between natural bodies and
processes and the binary structure of the Diagram. The sixty-four hexa-
grams in the binary system order are derived from the division of the
original Absolute, the "Great Ultimate" (taiji), into the two complemen-
tary forces of creation, yin and yang-the female and male, the dark and
ffi? light, the passive and active, and so forth. These two forces (liangyi)
subdivide until all things are produced by their permutations (Figure 1).
Philosophy East & West "Thus, one divides to make two. Two divides to make four. Four divides

66

This content downloaded from

86.22.70.119 on Thu, 05 Dec 2024 20:56:30 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
 =- II~~~
- 4- ~~
- a__.
-I - ---_I
_?I = _I
Em-- S--
__ I
_1-I= 10
__ _ --
_ _B==
_ 01 -- M -,
I" =- - - -- I II

IfHfUlRHH NRHRH SRN RH H H tIguiflRR "RKIDfEilsnBUIm'uRBgBHuGHuul ffl`""g2u ME

6 I 3 2 *4 *16U 1U MUM j4U r u I It l n3132 34I}I uu 13633 $M 0 n 4441434) 44 54474410 s & 34M u 6 u 6suSS061coai?3

Fig. 1. Progression of the sixty-four hexagrams in the binary system.

to make eight ... and thirty-two divides to make sixty-four."45 While

Leibniz had focused on powerful periodic series in developing the binary
system, the Chinese seem not to have noticed these but to have gen-
erated the Diagram through vertical divisions. Since it is not by chance
that the repeated divisions produce the binary system, the Yijing/ Binary
System Episode has been considered a mathematically unsurprising co-
incidence.
Furthermore, the Chinese counted the innermost line of each hexa-
gram in the circle of the Diagram as the first, whereas the Diagram's
correspondence to the binary system implies that the outermost line of
each hexagram is the first.46 But the geometrical progression begins on
the outermost line, only gradually filling out the innermost lines. For all
of these reasons, then, scholars have concluded that the resemblance
between the binary system and the Diagram was "purely formal."47
But there is evidence that this resemblance was not purely a coin-
cidence explainable by purely formal properties of the number two.
There is more resemblance between the Diagram's significance in Shao's
system and the binary system's significance for Leibniz than has been
acknowledged. Shao derived the Diagram using mathematical tech-
niques beyond the mere repeated division of yin and yang. He used the
periodic series of the progression to explain the "waxing and waning" of
natural phenomena. And he engaged in something similar to conjecture
a priori, and even utilized some observation. He partially fulfilled Leib-
niz' criteria for scientific thinking.

Shao and Leibniz on Metaphysics and Science

There is merit in Leibniz' case that the Diagram reflected his own
view of science. Both Leibniz and Shao relied to some extent on corre-
lative thinking,48 since both based their theories at least partly on corre-
lations among natural phenomena, numbers, and ideas. That is, Leibniz'
way of doing philosophy was not entirely analytical, but to some extent
drew upon powerfully intuitive associations-correlations-among meta-
physical ideas and natural phenomena. Shao's philosophical aims were
not entirely nonscientific; he used his system to attempt a scientificJames
ex- A. Ryan

67

This content downloaded from

86.22.70.119 on Thu, 05 Dec 2024 20:56:30 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
 planation of natural phenomena (though this attempt was limited, for
reasons explained below). And although the scientific power of Shao's
system was critically limited by its lack of quantitative and empirical
methods, it did represent, through its double geometric progression,
something like the conjecture a priori of Leibniz' early-modern view of
science. These affinities tend to weaken the contrast between the two
thinkers.
The correlative thinking shared by Leibniz and Shao gives an in-
dication of common interests. Both emphasized creation ex nihilo (or in
Shao's case, at least creation for the formless material force, (qi) and
considered the binary system to be its symbol. Leibniz took his concept
of creation to be a reason for the explanatory power of the binary system,
since it

gives an admirable representation of the Creation. It is that following this

method, all numbers are written by the co-mingling of the unit and zero,
much the same as all creatures coming uniquely from God and nothingness.
... It is not said in vain that all essences are like numbers....49

Leibniz saw things, essences, and natural laws as structurally analo-

gous to their sufficient reason, their primordial creation. Thus, he be-
lieved that thought and language could and should be perfectly corre-
lated with the binary structure of nature. Moreover, the harmonious
correlations that numbers exhibit are not explainable, but instead are
themselves the rock-bottom basis of all explanations of things. Numer-
ical harmonies form the basic structure of all ideas of things that even
God could not have made to be otherwise but was logically compelled
to follow in his creation of the cosmos. Leibniz says:

God wills the things which he understands to be best and most harmo-
nious.... What then is the reason for the divine intellect? The harmony of
things. What the reason for the harmony of things? Nothing. For example, no
reason can be given for the ratio of 2 to 4 being the same as that of 4 to 8, not
even in the divine will. This depends on the essence itself, or the idea of
things. For the essences of things are numbers.50

In a 1698 letter, Leibniz explained the metaphysical point of view

underlying his correlative thinking:

Since all minds are unities, one can say that God is the primitive unity, ex-
pressed by all the others according to their capacity (portee). His goodness
has moved him to act and there are three primordialities in him-power,
knowledge, and will. From these there results the operation or creature which
is varied according to different combinations of unity and zero.51

Thus, Leibniz aligned himself with the Augustinian theology of evil as

privation of being. Furthermore, he was admittedly following the scho-
Philosophy East & West lastic idea that essences reflect aspects of the final telos, God. But Leibniz

68

This content downloaded from

86.22.70.119 on Thu, 05 Dec 2024 20:56:30 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
also sought a rigorous correlation of thought to nature, which scholastic
science lacked. He looked for a priori confirmation of the possibility of a
universal characteristic even in correlations among mythical, metaphysi-
cal, and scientific ideas.
Leibniz took the correlations between the binary system and certain
religious numerology as evidence of the likeness of the binary system to
a universal characteristic. He commented to Bouvet that, as in Genesis, it
is sufficient for the creation of the world that it take place merely out of a
primary void (0) and God (1), who makes, by the second day, heaven
and earth (10). By the seventh (111) day creation is fulfilled.

[T]his is why the last (day) is the most perfect and the Sabbath, for everything
on that day is found to be made and full. Thus, 7 is written by 111 without 0.
And it is only in this manner of writing that the perfection of the septenary,
which is considered sacred, is seen. And it is even more remarkable that its
character has some relation to the Trinity.52

The binary system shows that a One is the sufficient reason for all things.
Leibniz even surmised, in Figurist fashion, that Fu Xi had considered
Genesis in designing the Diagram. Thus, for Leibniz, the fact that the bi-
nary system corresponds to Biblical numerology (and to his own basic
metaphysical ideas of the ultimate origination of things) supported his
view that his system corresponded to the world.
Hence, Leibniz' view that the double geometric progression was a
real symbol of God's creation shows that correlative thinking was neither
alien nor unimportant to him. But if Leibniz maintained an interest in this
kind of correlative thinking, Shao thoroughly indulged himself in it. His
sacred text was a short passage from the Xici chuan of the Yijing: "In the tfiW
Changes there is taiji. It produces the two forces." The two forces pro-
duce the eight trigrams. Shao interpreted this passage as follows:

Each of the myriad things embodies the order of the taiji, the two forces, the
four images, and the eight trigrams.... Each of the trigrams has a nature and
substance, but none can be separated from its connection to qian and kun. * h
The myriad things receive their nature from heaven, but each has its own
nature.53

Taking the lead from ancient tradition, Shao explained this basic starting
point in his cosmological system:

Yang interacts with yin, and yin interacts with Yang, producing the four
images of heaven. The hard interacts with the soft and the soft interacts with
the hard, producing the four images of earth. Thus, the eight trigrams are
established and, when they are layered together, the myriad things are sub-
sequently produced from them.54

The eight trigrams-heaven, water, fire, thunder, wind, lake, mountain,

and earth-are the elements of all things. They are generated from the James A. Ryan

69

This content downloaded from

86.22.70.119 on Thu, 05 Dec 2024 20:56:30 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
 interaction of yin (--) and yang (-), which first produce the four images
qt lJ t (xiang): yang (=), yin (==), the hard (gang, -), and the soft (rou, -).
These give rise to the four forms of heaven (sun, moon, stars, and zo-
diacal space). The hard and the soft produce the four forms of earth
(water, fire, ground, and stone), which Shao also called the four sub-
v1e stances (siti).
Shao also correlated many phenomena in groups of four. As he
also had four seasons, earth four directions, and people four lim
Shao drew correlations to the four virtues (benevolence, propriety, ri
eousness, and wisdom) and the four kinds of ruling: magically to
form the people, to educate them, to adapt them, and to lead th
These depict the growth and gradual decline in the people's capa
be ruled and the ruler's capacity to rule. Similarly, natural chan
dergoes four stages: birth, growth, maturity, and death. Likewis
followed Indian notions of time and set up a cosmic cycle (yuan)
ided into four subcycles of gradual cosmic decay.56
These brief examples scratch the surface of Shao's elaborately
relative thinking, which was central to his system.57 The corre
Leibniz drew were not nearly as imposing. However, both thinker
correlations between sacred cosmogonical ideas and the numbers o
double geometric progression as evidence for the reliability of tha
gression as a tool for describing nature. Leibniz held that the desc
of natural change was possible because every created thing had a
cient reason for its existence. Likewise, Shao based his cosmo
system on the primordial taiji. In these ways, Leibniz' and Shao'
are similar.
As Leibniz partook of some correlative thinking with regard t
binary system, Shao attempted some rudimentary scientific expl
with it. Even though Shao's cosmology did not approach the rig
early-modern European science, his explanations of natural chang
those of Leibniz, utilized the periodic series in the binary progres
An example will show how Shao used the Diagram to explain
ral events. Each of the eight trigrams (see Plate I) had a differen
acter, since it resulted from a unique permutation of one of the four
ages and either a yang or a yin line (see Figure 1). Thus, each re
differently in combination (i.e., in hexagrams).58 The inherent nature
the eight basic natural elements, as well as the ways in which the
to one another is determined. Therefore, natural events are exp
accordingly. In the "Dialogue between a Fisherman and a Woodcu
the following exchange occurs:
"All substantial things can be burned."
"Does water have substance?" asked the woodcutter.
"Yes."
Philosophy East & West"Can fire burn water?"

70

This content downloaded from

86.22.70.119 on Thu, 05 Dec 2024 20:56:30 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
 The fisherman replied, "The nature of fire can accept it, but cannot con-
tinue, so it is extinguished. The substance of water can continue but cannot
receive fire, so it is heated. Therefore, there is hot water but not cold fire. It is
called mutual bringing-to-rest (xiangxi)."59 ,
This is an instance of the explanation of natural forces based on a
view of the nature of elements as determined by their numerical for-
mulation, that is, their combination of yin and yang lines and their place
in the progression of the Diagram. Fire (-) and water (=-) are on op-
posite sides of the Diagram of trigrams. They have exactly opposing yin
and yang primitives. But this explanation is empty, not shedding much
light on why fire is extinguished. All of the possible permutations of the
two basic forces in three places are given in the eight (23) trigrams. Shao
infers that the trigrams must represent the eight basic elements. And
since the Fu Xi order exhibits the trigrams' ultimate origination, it also
fixes a priori (xiantian) their natures and the ways in which they must EI
interact. Shao's correlation of the eight trigrams with eight elements was
not deduced analytically or empirically but was supported by analogy to
further correlations. His cosmology was a complicated system of fours
and eights in which the natural kinds and the human faculties all played
harmonious roles.60
Leibniz thought that everything had a characteristic number.61 To be
sure, the concept of quantitative refinement of explanations of natural
force is limited in Shao. He does little to tell us why each particular ele-
ment (benti) is fittingly represented by that particular trigram rather than 4
one of the seven other permutations. And Shao's use of quantitative
measurement was also limited. However, the following exchange shows
his understanding of metric refinement:

The woodcutter said to the fisherman, "I have carried firewood and lifted one
hundred jin without any strain to my body. But if I add ten jin, I strain. If I may
ask, Why?"
The fisherman said, "... When it comes to fish and firewood, there is a
difference. But the desire and strain for them are the same. Whether it's one
for whom one hundred jin is beyond his strength or one for whom ten jin is i
beyond his strength, the amount beyond one's strength, even if it were one
speck, would be harmful. How much more would ten jin?"62

Shao understood the universal applicability of quantitative measurement.

He at least understood force as a primitive that can be found in varying
degrees in things and events. However, Shao did not develop this idea in
the direction of advocating rigorous science.
Rather, Shao relied mostly on the verification provided by correlative
thinking. Explanation of phenomena was a matter of extrapolating on the
first eight permutations of the double geometric progression. As we have
seen, the four heavenly bodies are constituted by yin and yang in per- James A. Ryan

71

This content downloaded from

86.22.70.119 on Thu, 05 Dec 2024 20:56:30 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
 mutation. And the four earthly substances were constituted by the other
two images, the hard and the soft (which themselves emerged from the
first two images, yin and yang). Strictly speaking, these were not the eight
trigrams themselves, which emerged from the permutation of the four
images (the first four permutations of yin and yang, given in the second
row in Figure 1) as heaven, earth, water, mountain, wind, fire, lake, and
thunder. Shao considered the heavenly and earthly bodies to be forms
Jf (xing) and not the elements of things (the trigrams). He explains natural
phenomena with them all:

The sun causes heat, the moon causes cold, the stars cause light, and the
zodiacal spaces cause night. Night, heat, cold and light together exhaust the
transformations of heaven. Water makes rain, fire makes wind, ground makes
dew, and stone makes thunder. Rain, wind, dew and thunder together exhaust
the changes of the land. Heat transforms the nature of things, cold transforms
the feeling of things, light transforms the forms of things, and night transforms
the substance of things. Substance, nature, feeling, and form together exhaust
the influences of moving on stationary [things]. Rain changes walking things,
wind changes the flying things, dew changes grassiness of things, and thunder
changes woodiness of things. Walking, flight, grassiness, and woodiness
together exhaust the responses of things.63

Material force-qi-is subject to transformation among the elemen-

tary configurations of the eight trigrams. The causation observed in na-
ture is evidence for the validity of the extrapolations made in Shao's
cosmology. Thunder has great impact on the creation of wood, and wind
effects birds. Thus, qi changes in ways predicted by the sixty-four per-
mutations of the trigrams. "One can observe heaven [i.e., nature] to
grasp the story [of nature], or one can examine earth."64 So, Shao takes
his system to be confirmed by the loose correlations of experience. But
the system is nevertheless a priori (xiantian) in that it is derived from
basic assumptions about the unobserved origin of the world.65 Shao
assumed that the xiantian Diagram depicted the origin of things as "both
temporally and logically prior"66 to the world.
While these notions did not quite amount to the concepts of scien-
tific hypothesis or theory verification and thus were only proto-scientific,
Shao did make an epistemological argument concerning these correla-
tions. For Shao, the harmony (he) of the various natural correlations in
fours and eights gave credence to the idea of the objectivity of four sense
faculties, for these neatly matched their four modal objects (sight, sound,
smell, and taste). These eight faculties and objects also exhibited inter-
esting correlations to the eight elements.67 Shao explains the matter in
the "Dialogue between a Fisherman and a Woodcutter":

The woodcutter said to the fisherman, "That by which people can be con-
Philosophy East & West scious of the myriad things-how do you know it is true?"

72

This content downloaded from

86.22.70.119 on Thu, 05 Dec 2024 20:56:30 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
 The fisherman said, "We say that one's eyes can receive the color of the
myriad things. Ears can receive the sound of the myriad things. The nose can
receive the smell of the myriad things...." (sec. 15)
"[To observe things] is not to observe them with the eyes but to observe
them with the mind. It is not to observe them with the mind but to observe
them with principle. There is nothing under heaven that does not have prin-
ciple, nothing that has no nature, and nothing that has no destiny. That which
we take to be called principle can be known after it is investigated.
"That by which a sage is able to unite with the particularities of the
numerous things is called his ability to observe objectively, ... not to observe
things with the self [but] to observe things with things." (sec. 5)
"... Also, we refer to [the sage's] ability to substitute for heaven's thoughts
with the mind, to substitute for heaven's speech with the mouth...." (sec. 15)

Shao gives indication of an epistemological system in which objective

truth, an absolute conception of the world, is in principle available to the
rigorous inquirer and is reached by considering rational principles (li)
rather than by succumbing to our biased opinions of things. The senses
are apparently sources of knowledge, since they are perfectly coincident
with their respective modes. But again, the mind must overcome its ten-
dency to twist the data toward subjective conclusions.
One basic a priori belief from which Shao deduced that the numer-
ical series in the double geometric progression reflected principles of
natural change was given in the Xici chuan: "Heaven is one, earth two,
heaven three, earth four, heaven five, earth six, heaven seven, earth
eight, heaven nine, and earth ten."68 The text shows that the eight ele-
ments have orthodox legitimacy in the Yijing. Shao holds that five and
ten "are the poles of being and nonbeing,"69 and, thus, are not part of
creation. This leaves eight numbers-four yang and four yin-corre-
sponding to the trigrams of the Diagram.
Shao finds further support for his Diagram in an ancient mathemat-
ical diagram, the He Tu (River Diagram), a derivative of the ancient magic
square, the Luo Shu.70 As Figure 2a shows, the Luo Shu sums to fifteen
when any three of its numbers in one row, column, or diagonal are
added together. The reasons for the adjustments which the He Tu (Figure
2b) represents need not concern us here.71 As Cammann has shown,
when the even numbers are connected, the probable origin of the taiji
symbol is evident (Figure 2c).72
The Diagram is faithful to the sacred alternation depicted in the He
Tu and the Xici chuan. Starting from the top trigram (qian) and proceed-
ing counterclockwise until zhen (at 7:30), and then proceeding from sun
(at 1:30) clockwise to earth, Shao counts out the eight trigrams as they
are generated in the binary permutation of yin and yang (see Figure 1).73
Thus, the Diagram reflected, for Shao, the numerology of the He Tu.74
Hence, Shao argued, the Diagram's validity followed from certain James A. Ryan

73

This content downloaded from

86.22.70.119 on Thu, 05 Dec 2024 20:56:30 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
 1-

6(5) (???? ?"-

a lb r .= s
Fig. 2. a, the Luo Shu, the ancient magic square; b, the He Tu (River Diagram), a deriva-
tion of the Luo Shu; c, origins of the taiji symbol. From Schuyler Cammann, "Some Early
Chinese Symbols of Duality," History of Religions 24, c 1985, UniVersity of Chicago Press.
Reprinted with Permission.

fundamental beliefs about nature that had been held to be confirmed by

a long tradition of correlative evidence. The Diagram represented the
mechanics of the basic metaphysical view of taiji; it explained the nuts
and bolts of what the taiji symbol only represented in sweeping outline.
Although the Diagram was derived mechanically from repeated divi-
sions, it was the sequence of numbers going around the Diagram that
was so important.
Shao had a keen interest in the numerical series, as his doctrine of
i-T waning and waxing (xiaozhang) shows. The Diagram portrays the grad-
ual and orderly filling-in of yang lines (from the bottom hexagram [--]
clockwise to the top) and the similar elimination of yang lines (pro-
ceeding from the top [1] clockwise to the bottom):

The ascent is waxing and the end is waning. That is why yang [i.e., life,
growth, etc.] arises at the bottom and yin arises at the top.75

Shao noted the repetitive series of the double geometric progression in

the trigrams and hexagrams:

The woodcutter said to the fisherman, "The four images produce the eight
trigrams. What are the eight trigrams called?"
"They are called heaven, earth, fire, water, lake, mountain, thunder, and
wind. They alternate between the characteristics of flourishing and declining,
and ending and beginning. Thus, when they are layered, the sixty-four
[hexagrams] arise from this, and the way of the Changes is set up."76

In the Diagram we see yin and yang alternately flourishing and declin-
ing, just as we see ones gradually replace the zeros in the binary number
system. Since the order in the Diagram emerges from the basic assump-
tion that creation is driven by yin and yang, the structure of the waxing
and waning of all things is determined by this creation. Therefore, this
structure is knowable a priori, for Shao. Thus, there is an observational
Philosophy East & Westcomponent in Shao's view of waxing and waning:

74

This content downloaded from

86.22.70.119 on Thu, 05 Dec 2024 20:56:30 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
 Waning and waxing have to do with seasons.... If the sages didn't know the
way to follow the evil and prosperity of the seasons, how could they know
how changes are affected?... That which drives waxing and waning is
change.77

Not only natural phenomena, but also historical periods are the
subjects of waxing and waning:

If one investigates [the way of heaven and human affairs], the historical peri-
ods can be seen. This is the principle of waxing and waning.78

The chief result of Shao's interest in the periodic series of the Diagram
was the hallmark of his system: his calculation of the cyclical history of
the world. Shao calculated the duration of one cycle (yuan), twelve ep-
ochs, as 129,600 years. Like each month, each epoch was marked by
the incremental progress of yang (or yin) with a change of a line that
hadn't been changed before in that cycle. For example, the second,
third, and fourth epochs and months were represented by the following
hexagrams: __, __, __. (In Plate I the hexagrams representing the twelve
months [and twelve epochs] are indicated by arrows.)
This is as close as Shao came to recognizing the place-values in the
binary system. He never explained the fact that these equal periods of
time are represented by hexagrams that are not evenly spaced apart. The
spaces between the hexagrams in question increase geometrically, but,
since they represent equal periods of time (months, for example), they
presumably ought to be evenly spaced around the circle in the Diagram.
Shao never spoke to this discrepancy.79 Furthermore, even though Shao
was adept at arithmetic, he never recognized the squares and cubes in
the series. But the point is that Shao saw the series as an important cos-
mological clue, rather than merely deriving the hexagrams by dumb,
mechanically repeated division.
Instead of quantitative and verificational experimentation, Shao em-
phasized a religious perspective on the Diagram. He says:

The study of xiantian is the law of the mind. Therefore, the diagrams all arise
from within oneself. The myriad changes and the myriad affairs are produced
in the mind. Although the diagrams lack texts, on any day I speak of them and
have never been separated from them. For the principles of heaven and the
myriad things lie in them.80

Insofar as Shao was, as we will see below, primarily interested in religious

knowledge, the case for dismissing the Yijing / Binary System Episode as
a coincidence is somewhat justified. Yet Leibniz, himself, though an in-
ventor, was no experimental scientist. And he, too, based his views on
what he took to be an a priori religious perspective. And Shao was en- James A. Ryan

75

This content downloaded from

86.22.70.119 on Thu, 05 Dec 2024 20:56:30 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
 S
43 I 44

Li 3I KI
6\ K'a

8
K'un

Plate I. The Diagram: Shao's calculation of the cyclical history of the world. Arrows in-
dicate the twelve months (and twelve epochs). From Yu-Lan Fung, History of Chinese
Philosophy, Vol. 2, Princeton University Press, 1953. Reprinted with Permission.

76

This content downloaded from

86.22.70.119 on Thu, 05 Dec 2024 20:56:30 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
gaged in something similar to Leibniz' ideas of conjecture a priori and
conjecture a posteriori. Of course, he never conceived of variety and
simplicity as the principles of conjecture a priori, but he did take as basic
to his proto-scientific activities a metaphysical view of the cosmos as a
harmonious system whose parts mutually reflect each other in virtue of
their common binary origin and structure. In this Shao was like Leibniz,
who also thought that, as Lovejoy puts it, "we can discover factual truths
of science by tracing out the implications of the fundamental scheme of
values which the universe expresses."81
Shao made analogical a posteriori inferences. But his purpose was
not to verify these conjectures, since he apparently never seems to have
changed his principles for any observation that contradicted them. For
example, his xiantian year is 360 days, even though he must have known
that one millennium earlier Chinese astronomers had calculated the year
to 365 1/4.82 Thus, Shao's a priori cosmology was intended to speak to
the primordial nature of things, and not to their phenomenal circum-
stances, which are a degenerate version of that nature. In a sense, Shao's
science was about the best of all possible worlds; but that world, for him,
no longer existed. Thus, he kept a priori and a posteriori methods sepa-
rate, instead of looking to their interplay for clues about verifying hy-
potheses. Yet Leibniz would have agreed that conjecture a priori was
formally separable from conjecture a posteriori. He says:

... do we not say universally that fire ... usually flares up and burns when
wood is kindled, even if no one has examined all such fires, because we have
found it to be so in those cases we have examined? That is, we infer from
them and believe with moral certainty ... but this moral certainty is not based
on induction alone and cannot be wrested from it by main force but only by
the addition or support of ... universal propositions which do not depend on
induction but on a universal idea....83

This universal idea was that the simplest concept would yield the widest
explanatory power. It played a crucial role in induction by supporting
the notions that similar causes produce similar effects and that the ex-
istence of undetected causes ought not to be assumed.
Shao's system was not rigorous science in the early-modern sense,
for the a priori and observational components were not subjected to the
methodological revision to which Leibniz and his contemporaries put
Western science. As we have seen, Shao's explanation of fire being ex-
tinguished by water is empty. And he certainly lacks the kind of in-
ference more geometrico that Leibniz rightly held would preserve truth.
He provides no reasons to support his inferences about the natures of the
trigrams. For example, why should thunder be represented as it is (==)?
Shao's a priori principles were not as scientifically sophisticated as
Leibniz'. Yet they were coherent principles that relied on an idea of A.
James Ryan

77

This content downloaded from

86.22.70.119 on Thu, 05 Dec 2024 20:56:30 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
 the perfect harmony of things. In this sense, Shao's system was proto-
scientific.
But instead of evaluating Shao's thought purely in terms of its meet-
ing Western scientific standards, we need to understand him on his own
terms. In order to explain the significance of the Yijing / Binary System
Episode completely, then, we must understand why Shao chose to go
only as far as this proto-scientific cosmology. This involves explaining
the different goals of Shao's philosophy, for these account for Shao's
thinking along lines other than those followed by the European founders
of early-modern science.

Shao on Inquiry and its Goals

Shao's views about the role of quantitative and mechanistic thinking
explain, to some extent, why he placed certain limits on scientific thinking
and did not develop the binary system in the direction that Leibniz did.
Shao tried to avoid this scientific direction and provided reasons for its
inconsistency with his system. He took Buddhist, Taoist, and Confucian
principles of self-cultivation as antithetical to scientific observation. I
have laid out Leibniz' rigorously scientific development of the double
geometric progression and Shao's proto-scientific developments of it.
Now a brief account of Shao's positions on knowledge and science will
distinguish the philosophical goals for the sake of which Leibniz and
Shao refined the double geometric progression in their different ways.
Then we will be able to see how the Diagram bore more than a formal
similarity to the binary system, even though the Diagram was not used as
a number system.
Shao's theory of knowledge was directed toward defining objective
a.S observation (fanguan), but it differed from Western accounts in its heavily
Buddhist and Taoist influences. For Shao, a necessary condition for ob-
jective observation was the overcoming of the self's egocentric point of
view, for the self tends to take things as real which are not real. Using
L,, Chinese Buddhist terminology, such as no-mind (wuxin) and no-idea
4t,~ (wuyi), Shao described objectivity as seeing things from the things' own
point of view: "... one can reach the myriad things through no-mind ...
'no-mind' means 'no-idea'. No-ideas don't 'self' things. If you don't self
things, then you can 'thing' things."84 Shao meant that objective talk
about nature requires getting rid of one's individual and subjective point
of view: "If one speaks following the season or speaks in correspondence
to change, then [this] speech is not in one's self."85
Shao explains the way in which our reason is subject to distortion by
the passions. "Indulging the self leads to feelings. Feelings lead to ob-
scurity. Obscurity leads to confusion. Taking the lead from things leads
to nature. Nature leads to spirit. Spirit leads to enlightenment."86 Leibniz
Philosophy East & West would have agreed with this view. He says, "The denial of self is the

78

This content downloaded from

86.22.70.119 on Thu, 05 Dec 2024 20:56:30 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
hatred of non-being which is in us and the love of the origin of our self-
being, or God."87 But Shao inferred consequences that Leibniz would
not have accepted. Shao says, "The mind is taiji. The human mind should
be like still water. Then it will be fixed. If it is fixed, it is tranquil. And if it
is tranquil, it is enlightened."88
Thus, Chinese meditative traditions had influence on Shao's epis-
temology. Rather than attributing knowledge to rigorously inferential
thinking, as Leibniz did, Shao attributed it to a degree of mental training
in which individual impulses are suppressed so that the mind can reflect
truth without distortions: "If the mind is one and not divided, then it can
correspond to the myriad things. This is why the superior person empties
his mind and doesn't move."89
Furthermore, Shao's epistemology was also shaped by Confucian
notions of moral cultivation. "Xiantian studies depend upon sincerity."90
For example, the passage on lifting weights is not a precursor to Shao's
development of rigorous measurement techniques. On the contrary, the
moral of the passage was given by the fisherman: "From now on I know
that one who takes stock of one's strength and then moves is wise."91
This was an allusion to Shao's doctrine that we should seek to fulfill our
individually given capacities without an egoistic desire for greater glory
than our fates in fact hold for us. This is the upshot of Shao's excursus
into statics!
Also, Leibniz and Shao differed in their views of the role of knowl-
edge in history. Shao thought that history was cyclical, eternally return-
ing to the same. For Leibniz, on the other hand, "Progress never comes
to an end."92 He thought that a thing is happy

to the degree that its power is greater over the things that surround it, and its
suffering from external things is less. Hence, since the power proper to the
mind is understanding, ... only to the extent that our reasonings are right are
we free, and exempt from the passions which are impressed upon us by sur-
rounding bodies.93

For Shao, fate held no possibility of progress beyond the inevitable

waxing and waning of order. Happiness involved contentment with, not
dominion over, nature. Empirical science seemed to him a wrongheaded
and egoistic effort to control nature. Shao held that scientific thinking
leads one astray from the only kind of thinking that can discover the truth
about nature. In particular, Shao put China's astronomy (huntian) in the i?
same category as divination-mere "technique" (shu)-since both trends 44
agreed on the premise that the individual could gain control of his place
in nature through personal effort with special numerical arts:

Phenomena, whether great or small, all have the principle of heaven and
human beings. To cultivate oneself is up to people. Whether one meets or James A. Ryan

79

This content downloaded from

86.22.70.119 on Thu, 05 Dec 2024 20:56:30 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
 does not meet [good fortune] is up to heaven. Not to disturb the mind when
encountering misfortune is how one obeys heaven. To take with force, to
have to obtain, is to oppose the principle of heaven.94

One way of trying to take knowledge by force was the manipulation

of numbers in divination. "Average people use numbers to enter into tech-
niques. Therefore, they don't enter into principles."95 Here, "techniques"
refers to divination, which investigates natural principles for selfish gain.
Leibniz would have agreed with Shao's caution toward "arts of divina-
tion, which are nothing but cheating."96 However, Shao places science
into the same category:97

The images and numbers of heaven can be obtained and calculated, but the
working of its spirit cannot be obtained and measured. Heaven can be
exhaustively explained with principle, but it cannot be exhaustively explained
with forms. How can the techniques of astronomy exhaustively explain
heaven by means of forms?98

Astronomy in China was more than one thousand years old by

Shao's time, and it represented a respectable body of measured obser-
vations of the heavens. Astronomers were working on a model of the
cosmos shaped like a spherical egg, with the earth as the yolk and the
constellations on the surrounding shell.99 But the universe could not be
perfectly represented by a model, for Shao.100 Models were subjective
and forced representations: "If there is something one doesn't under-
stand, one can't understand it by force. If one understands by force, then
there is a self. If there is a self, then one loses principle, and enters into
technique."'10 According to Shao, science, like divination, manipulates
nature with sophisticated techniques, and, thus, it is selfish and cannot
yield objective knowledge. Furthermore, the kind of thinking involved
with these inauthentic and insincere techniques even tends to hide the
way to real knowledge.
Shao provides a metaphysical argument to support these strictures
on rigorous science. The spirit (shen) of nature is the moving aspect of
the taiji.102 Spirit produces numbers, from which all things come. As we
have seen, "the workings of spirit cannot be obtained and measured."
t This is because spirit is nonspatial (wufang).103 "If it were confined to
one location, then it could not change and transform, so it wouldn't be
spirit."'04 Not being spatial, then, spirit can't be divided.'05 Thus, it can't
be measured. For this reason, rigorous science is futile, if it is intended to
explain the world completely.
Leibniz, refuting the Cartesians, argued that force transcended geo-
metrical representation. Shao seems to have argued similarly. But Shao
took this conclusion as evidence that a scientific inquiry into the spirit of
nature would be fruitless. Whereas Leibniz tried to strike a chord be-
Philosophy East & West tween final causes and mechanical processes in his physics, Shao argued

80

This content downloaded from

86.22.70.119 on Thu, 05 Dec 2024 20:56:30 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
that spirit eludes scientific representations, since, as the cause of action,
it can't be still or in one space. "There is no place that spirit is, and no
place that it is not."106 Moreover, Shao claimed that science is on the
epistemic level of common divination, since it uses models and hypoth-
eses and is, therefore, a subjective creation.

Conclusion
That Shao Yong placed such caveats on his philosophy of science
shows that, for spiritual and epistemological reasons, Shao thought that
technical uses of the Diagram ought to be limited. Hence, understand-
ably, Shao would not have endeavored to develop a number system with
the Diagram. But it does not show, against the other evidence, that the
meanings of the Diagram and the binary number system were worlds
apart. For the other evidence shows that the role of the Diagram in
Shao's philosophy bore significant, and not purely formal, similarity to
Leibniz' binary system.
Shao's system lacked vital features of science, such as falsifiability.

Table 2. Leibniz and Shao on Science

Leibniz Shao

Theory Formulation A prior and a posteriori con- Correlative thinking and

jecture. observation crudely
analogous to Leibniz'
conjecture.

Cataloguing of NaturalNatural kinds are analyzable Same as Leibniz

Kinds down to their elements through
observation of their mutual
interactions.

Metaphysical Under- "Mechanical laws are finally Same as Leibniz

pinnings resolved into metaphysical
reasons." The binary system
explains natural phenomena
since it reflects the metaphysics
of creation.

Falsifiability Verification is the essence of con- (None; Fu Xi had already

jecture a posteriori. Laws are done the observational
deduced in consultation with work.)
observation.

Goals 1. To develop a natural language.1. To recognize the prin-

2. To develop technology to meet ciples of natural change
(particularly medical) needs. in order to align one's
spirit with them.
James A. Ryan

81

This content downloaded from

86.22.70.119 on Thu, 05 Dec 2024 20:56:30 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
 While it might be considered egocentric for a scientist not to change his
hypothesis even when the evidence has falsified it, Shao left falsifiability
out of his picture of the proper explanation of nature with the Diagram.
For Shao, the objective modeling of particular phenomena represented
a selfish desire to control phenomena technologically, while, after all,
phenomena were only a degenerate version of the original creation of
things, whose natures were laid out in the Diagram.
Nevertheless, the features of Shao's system add up to a proto-science
and thus support the view that Leibniz was not completely wrong when
he claimed that the Diagram was scientific (see Table 2). Both Shao and
Leibniz thought that "mechanical laws are finally resolved into meta-
physical reasons," reasons which reflect the creation of the world in a
binary, double geometric progression whose periodic series depict natu-
ral change and natural kinds. Both Shao and Leibniz thought that the
principles in the double geometric progression helped to categorize the
elements and the natural kinds. And both thought that the human mind
played a central role in the world by utilizing reason and sensory input.
Thus, knowledge was meant to serve the human spirit and, as Leibniz
emphasized, the human body.
Had Leibniz been able to study Shao Yong, he would have found
that the strong version of his theoretical claim that the Diagram was sci-
entific was false. Shao's system amounts only to a proto-science in which
the Diagram is not a number system. But Leibniz nevertheless would
have encountered a like mind. He would have found a philosopher in-
terested in pushing a view of nature that was binary and mechanistic but
which also embraced the orthodox teleological views of his particular
culture.

NOTES

Special thanks to David Blumenfeld and Alan Berkowitz for their

ance, and to two referees for their patient and painstaking devotedne
inquiry. Thanks also to Mark Woodhouse and Steve Prothero for
helpful advice.

1 - Wilhelm finds the episode baffling and in need of "clearin

See Helmut Wilhelm, Change: Eight Lectures on the I Ching
York: Harper and Row, 1960), pp. 90 f.

f1-tV+1th 2 - The Fu Xi Liushisigua tu, depicted in my Plate I. I will ref

the Diagram.
3 - Alan Berkowitz, "On Shao Yong's Dates," Chinese Literature:
Philosophy East & West Essays, Reviews 5 (1983): 91-94.

82

This content downloaded from

86.22.70.119 on Thu, 05 Dec 2024 20:56:30 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
 4 - Leibniz explains his understanding of the Diagram as a binary
system primarily in two writings: "The Leibniz-Bouvet Corres-
pondence" (1697-1707) (Leibnizbriefe, 105, Niedersachsiche
Landesbibliotek, Hanover, Germany), and the Discourse on the
Natural Theology of the Chinese (1716; hereafter referred to as
DNTC). The latter shows Leibniz' admirable understanding of
various aspects of Chinese philosophy but contains nothing on the
topic of the Yijing not found in the correspondence. So my
remarks here will focus on that correspondence.

5 - Another aspect of Leibniz' universalism was his involvement in the

church unification project, the effort to reunite the Protestant and
Catholic churches. See E. J. Aiton, Leibniz: A Biography (Boston:
Hilger, 1985). pp. 180f.
6 -In the Preface to his Novissima Sinica (1699), Leibniz praised
Confucian ethics as being more advanced than Western ethics
(Donald Lach, trans., The Preface to Leibniz' Novissima Sinica
[Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 1957]).

7 - For a discussion of Bouvet, see David E. Mungello, Leibniz and

Confucianism: The Search for Accord (Honolulu: University of
Hawai'i Press, 1977), pp. 36-46, and David E. Mungello, Curious
Land: Jesuit Accommodation and the Origins of Sinology, Studia
Leibnitiana: Supplementa, vol. 25 (Stuttgart: Steiner-Verlag-Wies-
baden, 1985), pp. 300f.
8 - Figurism was the view that all cultures spring from the ancient
Judeo-Christian line and that their pre-Christian histories con-
tained intimations of the future Christian teachings. See Mungello,
Curious Land, pp. 307-328.
9 - "Leibniz-Bouvet Correspondence" (hereafter referred to as L-B),
p. 184 (28 February 1698). I cite from the manuscript of the
unpublished translation by Alan Berkowitz and Thatcher Deane.

10 - L-B, pp. 184 (28 February 1698), 216-217 (4 November 1701).

11 - Ibid., p. 242 (1703?).
12 -Ibid., p. 249 (1703?).
13 - Ibid., p. 175 (2 December 1697).

14 - Ibid., p. 176. Against the Cartesians, who argued that motion (the
product of mass and velocity) is conserved, Leibniz argued that
it is force-"vis viva" (the product of the mass and velocity-
squared)-that is conserved. See "A Brief Demonstration of a
Notable Error of Descartes and others Concerning a Natural Law"
(1686), in Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, Philosophical Papers and James A. Ryan

83

This content downloaded from

86.22.70.119 on Thu, 05 Dec 2024 20:56:30 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
 Letters, trans. Leroy E. Loemker (Dordrecht: D. Reidel, 1970), pp.
296-302 (hereafter referred to as L).

15 - L-B, p. 175 (2 December 1697). Leibniz said in the letter that he

found "that the [Aristotelian] philosophy ... is sound ... and that it
is necessary to consider in nature not only matter, but also force,
... the forms of the ancients, or entelechies."

16 - There are similarities between li and the monads. Both terms rep-
resent noumena and indicate the rational unity or "fit" of things in
nature. Like the Chinese, Leibniz was organicist in his thinking.
Thus, both the monads and the li of individual things reflect the
situation in which they are placed. But while there is no indication
that particular li are causally independent of each other, each
monad plays out only its internal rationality and is not effected by
external causes. There is little sense of mechanistic necessity in ii.
For one can deviate (usually with disastrous results) from one's ii,
but deviation from one's monad, or what is contained in one's
concept, is impossible. See Mungello's discussion in Leibniz and
Confucianism, pp. 79ff. Leibniz also equates ii with the Aristote-
lian formal cause "entelechy" (DNTC, p. 76).

17- L-B, p. 172.

18 - "On the General Characteristic," in L, pp. 221-228.

19 - While a nominal definition serves only to distinguish a thing from

all others, a real definition explains the elements of a thing and the
reasons why these elements can in fact combine to produce the
distinctive qualities named in the nominal definition. See "On the
Universal Synthesis and Analysis, or the Art of Discovery and
Judgement" (1679), in L, pp. 230-231.
20 - "Two Studies in the Logical Calculus," in L, pp. 235-247.
21 - L-B., p. 170 (2 December 1697).
22 - Leibniz asked Bouvet about the contemporary Chinese inter-
pretation of the Diagram. See L-B, p. 205 (15 February 1701).

23 - L-B, p. 204 (15 February 1701), and pp. 249-250 (1703?).

24- DNTC, p. 158.
25 - Note that the term used during Leibniz' time for what we think of
today as natural science was "natural philosophy." "Science" was
a broader term referring to systematic inquiry in general.

26 - See Don J. Wyatt, "Chu Hsi's Critique of Shao Yong: One Instance
of the Stand against Fatalism," Harvard journal of Asiatic Studies
Philosophy East & West 45 (1985): 649-660.

84

This content downloaded from

86.22.70.119 on Thu, 05 Dec 2024 20:56:30 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
27 - "On the Elements of Natural Science" (1682-1684), in L, p. 283.

28 - "On Freedom" (1679), in L, pp. 263-266.

29 - There is some question as to whether the most perfect possible

world must involve a compromise between the two goals of vari-
ety and simplicity or whether, on the contrary, the world with the
most variety must have the simplest laws, such that that world has
more variety than any other and more simplicity than any other.
The former reading is explained by Nicholas Rescher in Leibniz'
Metaphysics of Nature: A Group of Essays (Dordrecht: Reidel,
1981), pp. 8f. The latter reading is argued by David Blumenfeld
in "Perfection and Happiness in the Best Possible World," in The
Cambridge Companion to Leibniz, Nicholas Jolley, ed. (Cam-
bridge: Cambridge University Press).

30 - See Rescher, Leibniz' Metaphysics of Nature, pp. 40 f.

31 - Discourse on Metaphysics, no. 22, in L, p. 317.

32 - Leibniz distinguishes between moral certainty and metaphysical

certainty. The former refers to robustly and experientially confirmed
beliefs. Metaphysical certainty attends those beliefs (such as the
law on noncontradiction) the denial of which is inconceivable.
See Leibniz, "On the Method of Distinguishing Real from Imagi-
nary Phenomena" (1690), in L, p. 364.

33 - The truths of arithmetic are deductively certain, because they are

reducible to identities. The mathematical inspiration for the rules
for forming scientific hypotheses lay in the infinitesimal Calculus,
in which identities are only infinitely closely approached. See
Rescher, Leibniz' Metaphysics of Nature, pp. 48 f.

34 - See Tentamen Anagogicum (1696), in L, pp. 477-485.

35 - "On a Method of Arriving at a True Analysis of Bodies and the

Causes of Natural Things" (1677), in L, p. 173.

36 - "On the General Characteristic" (1679), in L, p. 221. These ideas

reflect Leibniz' relatively early thinking.

37 - "Letter to Walter Von Tschirnhaus" (1678), in L, p. 193.

38 - Mungello, Curious Land, p. 195. See also pp. 174-207, where

Mungello traces the history of the efforts to find a universal lan-
guage.

39 -Ibid., p. 195. It is not clear that Mungello is referring to computer

science applications of Leibniz' ideas, but I take these to be the
principle legacy of Leibniz' ideas. James A. Ryan

85

This content downloaded from

86.22.70.119 on Thu, 05 Dec 2024 20:56:30 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
 40 - "On a Method of Arriving at a True Analysis of Bodies and the
Causes of Natural Things" (1677), in L, p. 174.

41 - "On the Elements of Natural Science" (1682-1684), in L, p. 282.

42 - L, p. 79.

43 - "On the Method of Arriving at a True Analysis of Bodies and the

Causes of Natural Things," (1677), in L, p. 174.

44 - See Schuyler Cammann, "Some Early Chinese Symbols of Dual-

ity," History of Religions 24 (1985): 215-254, and Mungello,
Leibniz and Confucianism, pp. 64-65.

ff!j iI 45 - Shao Yong, Huangji jingshi shu (Sibu beiyao ed.), 7A.24b (here-
after referred to as HJJS). All translations of Shao given here are my
own.

46 - Mungello allows that this reversal would "not inv

respondence in principle" (Mungello, Curious Land,

47 - E. J. Aiton and E. Shimao, "Gorai Kinzo's Study of

I ching Hexagrams," Annals of Science 38 (1981)
Aiton, Leibniz, p. 247, and Mungello, Leibniz and C
pp. 52, 140.

48 - In John Henderson's words, correlative thinking, in ge

systematic correspondences among aspects of vario
reality or realms of the cosmos, such as the human b
politic, and the heavenly bodies" (John B. Henderso
opment and Decline of Chinese Cosmology [New Yo
University Press, 1984], p. 1). In a lengthy expositio
ham describes correlative thinking as the reaching o
by association rather than by analysis; see his Yin-
Nature of Correlative Thinking (Singapore: The Ins
Asian Philosophies, 1986). See also Anne D. Birdw
cussion, Transition to Neo-Confucianism: Shao Yung
edge and Symbols of Reality (Stanford: Stanford Uni
1989), pp. 63-64. Correlative thinking underlay bot
Leibniz' approaches to metaphysics and cosmolo
extent, and thus blurred the distinction between these
inquiry. Metaphysics examines essences and reality,
mology tries to explain the origin and structure of
The two fields tend to dovetail if one, as Shao and
do, correlates an account of things' essences with a
origins. For both Shao and Leibniz, things are essen
mined by their primordial origin in one and nothing, y
or taiji and qi.
Philosophy East & West

86

This content downloaded from

86.22.70.119 on Thu, 05 Dec 2024 20:56:30 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
49 - L-B, p. 197 (15 February 1701).

50 - "Letter to Magnus Wedderkopf" (1671), in L, p. 146.

51 - From a letter to Morell (May 1698), in G. Grua, ed., G. W. Leib-

niz: Textes inedits d'apres les manuscrits de la Bibliotheque pro-
venciale d'Hanovre, 2 vols. (Paris, 1948), p. 126; translation by
David Blumenfeld.

52 - L-B, p. 252 (1703?).

53 - HJJS, 8B.9b.

54 - Ibid., 7A.24b.
55 - Ibid., 8B.6b-7a.

56 - See, for example, HJJS, 6.15a; Birdwhistell, Transition, pp. 138 ff.,
and Fung Yu-lan, A History of Chinese Philosophy, 2 vols. (Prince-
ton: Princeton University Press, 1953), vol. 2 :469ff.

57 - See Birdwhistell, Transition, pp. 124ff.

58 - These ideas were not original in Shao, but are found in the "Shuo-
gua" section of the Yijing: "... heaven and earth receive their
determinate positions; mountain and [lake influence each other];
thunder and wind excited each other the more, water and fire did
each other no harm (Legge, I Ching, p. 424).

59 - Shao Yong, Yuqiao wendui, sec. 1 (hereafter referred to as "Dia- ^AR_9

logue" and by section number). Though the authorship of the
Dialogue is usually attributed to his followers, the ideas expressed
in it are consistent with Shao's views. In many cases the Dialogue
merely quotes long passages from Shao's own Huangjijingshi shu. QMth:a
Therefore, I think relying on the Dialogue for evidence of Shao's
views is valid.

60 - Birdwhistell, Transition, pp. 125f., 241-242.

61 - "On the General Characteristic" (1679), in L, p. 221.

62 - Shao, "Dialogue," sec. 9.

63 - HJJS, 5.2a-b.
64 - Ibid., 8B.6b.
65 - Birdwhistell disagrees, finding the previous passage to be good
evidence that "xiantian" should not be translated as "a priori"
(Birdwhistell, Transition, p. 85). Both Fung and Chan use "a priori."
See Fung, A History of Chinese Philosophy, vol. 2:460 (1953),
and Wing-tsit Chan, A Source Book in Chinese Philosophy, p. 493
n. 25 (1963) (both Princeton: Princeton University Press). Cam-
mann cautions against confusing widely different uses of the term James A. Ryan

87

This content downloaded from

86.22.70.119 on Thu, 05 Dec 2024 20:56:30 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
 xiantian, since "xian" originally referred only to the fact that the
Fu Xi diagram was invented historically "prior" to the King Wen
diagram (Cammann, "Some Early Chinese Symbols of Duality,"
pp.215-254.

66 - Wyatt, Smith, et al., Sung Dynasty Uses of the I Ching (Princeton:

Princeton University Press, 1990), p. 112.

67 - Birdwhistell, Transition, p. 128.

68 - Legge, I Ching, p. 365. Shao quotes this passage in HJJS, 7A.15a.

69 - HJJS, 7A.6b. Shao also says, "Yin lacks one and yang lacks ten"
(HJJS, 7A.15a).

70 - Schuyler Cammann, "The Magic Square of Three in Old Chinese

Philosophy," History of Religions 1 (1961): 37-80, at p. 58.
Cammann, in "Some Early Chinese Symbols of Duality," dates the
Luo Shu to the fifth century B.C. (p. 222).

71 - Suffice it to say that the 7 and 2 were switched with the 4 and 9,
and a 10 (two fives) was added to the middle. Cammann ("Some
Early Chinese Symbols of Duality") provides a detailed explan-
ation of the evolution of both diagrams.

72 - Ibid., p. 234.
73 - Shao counts zhen as female, even though it is the trigram for the
"eldest son," and sun as male, even though it is the "eldest daugh-
ter." He might not have had to force this fit if he had realized that
the Diagram corresponds to, and was probably derived from, the
Luo Shu. However, in the second century A.D., a lasting mistake
was made, and the Diagram was associated with the He Tu
(Cammann, "Some Early Chinese Symbols of Duality," p. 252). As
Cammann shows (ibid.), the members of the family of trigrams
match the Luo Shu sequence, which, when fire (li) and water (kan)
are considered to be androgynous (as they traditionally are con-
sidered), provides for the following alternation of yin and yang
a o 0 asel4:-- trigrams: qian (yang), dui (yin), ii (yin/yang), zhen (yang), kun (yin),
j~

gen (yang), kan (yin/yang) and sun (yin).

74 - However, Shao associates the He Tu and Luo Shu chiefly with the
King Wen diagram in HJJS, 9.1 ff.

75 - HJJS, 7B.la.

76 - "Dialogue," sec. 10.

77 - "Dialogue," sec. 17. "Change" here is Birdwhistell's translation of
bian. See her discussion in Transition, p. 154.
Philosophy East & West 78 - HJJS, 8A.30b.

88

This content downloaded from

86.22.70.119 on Thu, 05 Dec 2024 20:56:30 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
79 - Fung, A History of Chinese Philosophy vol. 2: 463-464.

80 - HJJS, 7A.34b. Wai-lu Hou treats Shao at length as a member of the

Chinese idealist tradition, Weixin shuyi. See his Zhongguo sixiang
tongshi (Beijing: Renmin, 1959), pp. 521 ff.

81 - Arthur O. Lovejoy, The Great Chain of Being: A Study of the

History of an Idea (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1936),
p. 146.
82 - Wyatt, Smith, et al, Sung Dynasty Uses of the I Ching, p. 123. See
Birdwhistell's discussion in Transition, pp. 140-144.

83 - "Preface to an Edition of Nizolius" (1670), in L, p. 129.

84 - "Dialogue," sec. 2.
85 - HJJS, 8B.28b.

86 - Ibid., 8B.27b.

87 - "On the True Theologica Mystica" (1690), in L, p. 368. Shao had

similar views: "If it is the spirit of a human being, then it is the
spirit of heaven and earth" (HJJS, 8B.16b); "Although one is
human, one is also heaven" (ibid., 7B.20b).
88 - Ibid., 8B.25a.
89 - Ibid., 8B.29a.
90 - Ibid., 8B.25a.
91 - "Dialogue," sec. 9.

92 - "On the Radical Origination of Things" (1697), in L, p. 491.

93 - "On the Elements of Natural Science" (1682-1684), in L, p. 280.

94 - HJJS, 8B.31b. For a discussion of Shao's view of the place of per-

sonal effort in a deterministic cosmos, see my "The Compatibilist
Philosophy of Freedom of Shao Yong," Journal of Chinese Philos-
ophy 20 (1993): 279-291.
95 - HJJS, 7B.19b. In spite of Shao's strictures on divination, he did
theorize about looking into the future as a function of reading the
Diagram backwards (counterclockwise) (HJJS, 8B.2b; Wyatt, Smith,
et al., Sung Dynasty Uses of the I Ching, p. 109). Birdwhistell
shows that Shao had in mind mainly a general understanding of
the flow of events rather than predictions of the fates of particular
things (Birdwhistell, "The Philosophical Concept of Foreknowl-
edge in the Thought of Shao Yung," Philosophy East and West 39
[1989]: 47-65).

96 - "Letter to Remond" (1714), in L, p. 657. James A. Ryan

89

This content downloaded from

86.22.70.119 on Thu, 05 Dec 2024 20:56:30 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
 97 - Ho Peng Yoke shows that we should not be surprised at this kind
of association of science and divination, since the Chinese tradi-
i7k tionally viewed their numerical arts (shu) (such as Yijing) to be
predictively powerful for natural processes as well as for human
affairs. Thus, novel mechanistic techniques in science seemed to
offer nothing new, as far as purpose and results were concerned.
See Ho Peng Yoke, "Chinese Science: The Traditional View,"
Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies 54 (1991):
506-519.

98 - HJJS, 8A.16b.

99 - See Joseph Needham, Science and Civilisation in China, vo

(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1959), p. 216 ff.

100 - Wyatt, Smith, et al. show that Shao speaks of models (fa) as i
rior to principle (li) (Sung Dynasty Uses of the I Ching, p. 129)
101 - HJJS, 8B.29a.

102 - Ibid., 7B.23b. As Leibniz himself argued (DNTC, pp. 113-1

the terms li, taiji, and shen are practically equivalent, even tho
they have different meanings. Li is the rationality of the abso
harmony of things, the taiji. The taiji continuously moves tow
the creation, and yet the harmony, of all things. Shen is the fo
that drives that movement. Ho Peng Yoke points out that "to
common people [shen] means 'spirit', but to the Neo-Confucia
ists it would be the expansion of qi, something rather more natura
than supernatural" ("Chinese Science," pp. 517-518).
103 - HJJS, 7B.2b.

104 - Ibid., 7B.21b.

105 - Ibid., 7A.17b.

106 - Ibid., 8B.16b.

Philosophy East & West

90

This content downloaded from

86.22.70.119 on Thu, 05 Dec 2024 20:56:30 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms