Chapter Nine: Concluding Reflections — The Eternal Inquiry Between Effecting and Imaging

I. Why Does This Passage Matter$40

Reviewing the analysis of this entire essay, we can see clearly why the passage "the yao is that which effects this; the xiang is that which images this; when yao and xiang move within, fortune and misfortune appear without; achievement and enterprise are seen through change; the sentiments of the sage are seen through the judgments" is so important: in supremely condensed language, it answers four fundamental questions about the Zhouyi:

Question one: What is the basic element of the Zhouyi (the yao)$41 — It is the modeling-after of heaven-and-earth's movement. Question two: What is the mode of presentation of the Zhouyi (the xiang)$42 — It is the imaging of heaven-and-earth's configurations. Question three: How does the Zhouyi operate$43 — Internal movement of yao and xiang produces external manifestation of fortune and misfortune. Question four: What is the ultimate destination of the Zhouyi$44 — Enterprise is achieved through adaptive change; the sage's sentiments are revealed through the judgments.

These four questions encompass ontology (what are yao and xiang), epistemology (how fortune and misfortune are cognized through yao and xiang), praxeology (how enterprise is established through adaptive change), and axiology (how the sage's concern is communicated) — four dimensions. That a passage of some thirty characters should construct so complete a philosophical framework cannot but inspire awe at the synthesizing power of the pre-Qin thinkers.

II. Three Unresolved Inquiries

Yet the depth of analysis also brings to light several unresolved inquiries, worthy of continued reflection:

First inquiry: the limits of modeling. The yao "effects" the movements of heaven and earth — but heaven-and-earth's movements are inexhaustible and infinitely subtle. Can sixty-four hexagrams and three hundred and eighty-four lines truly exhaust them$45 The Xici zhuan (Part I) itself acknowledges: "The Yi as a book is vast and complete; it contains the Way of heaven, the Way of humanity, and the Way of earth." "Vast and complete" is an idealized claim, but logically speaking, whether a finite symbolic system can exhaust the infinite variations of the cosmos is a profound epistemological puzzle. Perhaps the answer is this: the yao does not seek to exhaust every detail of heaven-and-earth's movement, but to grasp its fundamental patterns and structures — just as a mathematical formula need not enumerate every specific numerical value to express a universal quantitative relationship.

Second inquiry: the objectivity of fortune and misfortune. "Fortune and misfortune appear without" — is fortune or misfortune objectively "there," or does it depend on the interpreter's subjective judgment$46 The case of Mu Jiang already hints at an answer: fortune and misfortune are not inherent attributes fixed in the hexagram image but judgments that emerge from the interaction between the hexagram image and a specific situation. If so, then different interpreters facing the same hexagram image may well arrive at different judgments of fortune and misfortune — does this mean the "objectivity" of the Zhouyi is actually a form of "intersubjectivity"$47

Third inquiry: the transmissibility of the sage's sentiments. "The sentiments of the sage are seen through the judgments" — but can later generations truly and completely apprehend the sage's sentiments through the judgments$48 The Xici zhuan (Part I) says "writing cannot exhaust speech, speech cannot exhaust meaning" — if speech cannot exhaust meaning, then neither can the judgments completely exhaust the sage's sentiments. What the judgments can "reveal" is but one facet of the sage's sentiments. This means that the interpretation of hexagram and line statements is forever an open process — each generation can and should discover new meanings in the judgments. This is perhaps the fundamental reason the Zhouyi has retained its vitality across thousands of years.

III. Contemporary Implications of Effecting and Imaging

Finally, let us consider the implications of this passage for the present day.

In an age of information overload and symbolic proliferation, the propositions of "effecting" and "imaging" carry an especially pointed contemporary relevance. Every day we produce and consume vast quantities of symbols — texts, images, data, algorithms — but are these symbols genuinely "effecting" and "imaging" some real order$49 Or are they merely hollow markers floating in a void, severed from any connection to the real$50

The sages of pre-Qin antiquity, in drawing hexagrams and appending judgments, consistently maintained a posture of humble reverence before the Way of heaven and earth. Their symbolic system was one of "effecting" and "imaging" — a faithful presentation of an order greater than themselves. The contemporary mode of symbol-making, by contrast, is often one of "creating" and "fabricating" — arbitrary constructions of subjective will. When symbols no longer model any real order, when images no longer resemble any real existence, the symbol has lost its proper calling — it no longer "effects this," nor does it "image this."

Perhaps rereading "the yao is that which effects this; the xiang is that which images this" can remind us: every symbolic system that possesses genuine vitality must be rooted in a reverence for and modeling-after of some greater order. Divorced from this foundation, symbols become mere noise and images mere phantoms — incapable of revealing fortune and misfortune, incapable of achieving enterprise, and still less capable of transmitting the sentiments of the sage.