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A Sketch of Chinese Natural
Philosophy.
The theory of the Five Elements is no doubt of
Chinese origin and its existence in ancient times proved by many old documents.
We read in one of the first books of the Shuking, the
"Counsels of the Great Yü," ###:
"Yü said,"
1 Well! may Your Majesty
think of it. Virtue implies good government, and government consists in
nourishing the people. Water, fire, metal, wood, earth,
and grain must be attended to. The rectification of virtue, the supply of all
useful things, and ample provision for the necessaries of life must be well
balanced. These nine achievements succeed each other, and the nine successive
steps are praised in songs.---Caution the people with kindness, govern them
with majesty, and incite them with the nine songs, in order that there may be
nothing amiss."
The emperor
2 said, "Yes,
3 the earth is
undisturbed now, heaven is in perfect order, and the six treasuries and three
affairs properly managed. Ten thousand generations may perpetually rely on
them. All this is your doing." (Legge, Classics Vol.
III, Part I, p. 55 seq.)
What does it mean that the Five Elements:
water, fire, metal, wood, and earth must be controlled by the Emperor? How can he exercise
any power on nature?---By regulating his administration on the natural sequence
of the elements, doing only those things which are in harmony with the element
ruling for the time being. Natural phenomena are thus affected by the actions
of the son of Heaven, being either disturbed or kept in their regular course.
The Liki will give us the necessary details.
The elements are here enumerated in the series in
which they overcome or destroy one another, for which the terms ### or ### are
used. This part of the theory of the Five Elements seems to have been known to
the compilers of the Shuking.
The above passage is quoted and explained by the
Tso-chuan, Duke Wên 7th year, and
its genuineness thus firmly established. The corresponding passage of the
Tso-chuan reads thus:
"The book of Hsia4 says, `Caution the people
with kindness, govern them with majesty, and incite them with the nine songs,
that there may be nothing amiss.' The virtues of the nine achievements may be
sung, and are called the nine songs. The six treasuries and the three affairs
are called the nine achievements. Water, fire, metal, wood,
earth, and grain are called the six treasuries. The rectification of
virtue, the supply of all useful things, and ample provision for the
necessaries of life are called the three affairs."
5 (Cf. Legge, Classics Vol. V, Part I, p. 247.)
In another book of the Hsia
dynasty, entitled "the Speech at Kan" ###, the following
words are attributed to the Emperor Ch`i ###, who is
supposed to have spoken them in 2194 B.C.:
"The Lord of Hu offers
violence and insult to the Five Elements, and neglects
and discards the three commencements (of the seasons). Therefore Heaven employs
me to destroy and cancel his appointment. Now I merely reverently mete out the
punishment of Heaven."
6 (Legge, Classics Vol. III, Part I, p. 153.)
Legge rightly observes that
the crime of the Lord of Hu is stated in a somewhat
obscure and mystical language. The Five Elements are not to be taken in the
simple physical sense, for then they could not be outraged by a sovereign, but
are metaphysical terms, equivalent almost to the four seasons ###, as one
commentator points out. The seasons are nothing else than the result of the
revolutions of the Five Elements, and a ruler commits a crime, if for his
administrative acts he does not choose the proper time, neglecting the seasons.
At all events there is some theory at the bottom of the very concise
expression.
Another criminal of this sort is introduced to us
in the chapter Hung-fan ### (The Great Plan) of the
Shuking, where the Viscount of Chi says: "I have heard that of old K`un by damming up the Great Flood threw
the Five Elements into confusion. God was highly incensed at him, and did
not grant him the Great Plan with the nine divisions."
7 (Legge, Classics Vol. III, Part II, p. 323.)
I suppose that the imaginary guilt of
K`un did not so much consist in his illtreating the
element water as in not observing the propitious time for his draining work,
thereby disturbing the Five Elements i. e., the Five
Seasons and thus bringing down calamities upon his people.
Further on the Hung-fan
informs us of the nature of the Five Elements, the fullest description to be
found in the Shuking:
"First the Five Elements: the first is termed
water; the second, fire; the
third wood; the fourth metal; the
fifth, earth. Water is described as soaking and
descending; fire as blazing and rising; wood as crooked and straight; metal as
yielding and changing, whereas the nature of earth appears from sowing and
reaping. That which is soaking and descending becomes salt; that which is blazing and rising becomes
bitter; that which is crooked and straight becomes
sour; that which is yielding and changing becomes
acrid; and the produce of sowing and reaping becomes
sweet."
8 (Legge, Classics Vol. III, Part II, p. 325.)
The sequence of the Five Elements is different from
that in the Hsia-shu insomuch as here wood precedes
metal. It is the sequence in which originally the elements were created. This
at least is the opinion of Chu Hsi, which we shall
examine later on. The nature of the Five Elements is
described, and another category, that of the Five Tastes:
salt, bitter, sour, acrid, and sweet connected
therewith i. e., we have here the first classification
based on the five elements. From this one to the others there is only one step.
It is just this book of the Shuking which shows us the
great partiality of the ancient Chinese to numerical categories and
classifications. We find already the ### Five
Businesses: ### demeanour, speech, seeing, hearing,
and thinking, immediately following upon the five
elements, and further on the ### Five Manifestations, or
### Five Atmospheric Influences as they are now called,
viz. ### rain, sunshine, heat,
cold, and wind (Legge, loc.
cit. p. 339) which subsequently were combined with the Five Elements. The
love of symbolism, and the tendency of discovering analogies between natural
and moral phenomena appears already in what the Hung-fan
has to say on the Five Manifestations:
"There are the auspicious
manifestations:---self-possession is related to seasonable rain; orderliness,
to seasonable sunshine; judiciousness, to seasonable heat; discretion, to
seasonable cold; and sageness, to seasonable wind. There are likewise the evil
manifestations:---excitement is related to incessant rain; confusion, to
incessant sunshine; fickleness, to incessant heat; impetuosity, to incessant
cold; and dullness, to incessant wind.
It is said that the emperor pays attention to the
year; his ministers and high officers, to the months, and the petty officials,
to the single days. When, during a year, a month, or a day, the seasonableness
does not change, then all the crops ripen, the administration is enlightened,
excellent persons become illustrious, and the people enjoy peace and happiness.
But, when during a day, a month, or a year, the seasonableness changes, then
the crops do not ripen, the administration is beclouded and unenlightened,
excellent persons remain in obscurity, and the people do not enjoy quietude."
9 (Legge, loc. cit. p. 340 seq.)
Already at the beginning of the Chou dynasty, in the 11th century B.C., the Chinese had discovered some resemblance between
heaven and earth, and the four seasons with the six ministries, which appears
from the names of these departments recorded in the Chou-li. There is the prime minister, the chief of the Civil
Office ### or ### Officer of Heaven; the minister of the interior and of
revenue ### or ### Officer of Earth; the minister of ceremonies ### or ###
Officer of Spring; the minister of war ### or ### Officer of Summer; the
minister of punishments ### or ### Officer of Autumn; and the minister of works
### or ### Officer of Winter.
We learn from the same source that the
vice-president of the Board of Ceremonies "erected altars to the
Five Emperors in the four suburbs:" ### (Cf. Le
Tcheou-li par E. Biot Vol. I, p.
421, 441 and Vol II, p. 324). These Five Emperors were five old rulers
subsequently deified and venerated as the deities of the Five
Points.
These are two more corner stones added to the
system of the Five Elements. We have no literary evidence to show that this was
done already at the commencement of the Chou epoch,
althongh there is nothing against such a supposition. At all events this step
had been taken some centuries later, for in the Tso-chuan we see the theory pretty well evolved from the
nucleus observed in the older sources.
We read under Chao-kung 29th
year: "Therefore there were the officers of the Five
Elements, who accordingly were called the Five Officers. They, in fact,
received their family and clan names, and were appointed high dignitaries. As
divine spirits they were sacrificed to, and honoured, and venerated at the
altars of the Spirits of the Land and Grain and the Five Sacrifices. The ruler
of wood was called Kou Mang, that of fire
Chu Yung, of metal Ju Shou, of
water Hsüan Ming, and of earth Hou
Tu . . . . . Viscount Hsien inquired of which
families were these Five Officers partaking of the oblations to the Spirits of
the Land and Grain and the Five Sacrifices. Tsai Mê
replied: `At the time of Shao Hao there were four men:
Chung, Kai, Hsiu, and Hsi, who
were able to regulate metal, wood, and water. Chung was
made Kou Mang, Kai was made Ju
Shou, and Hsiu and Hsi, Hsüan
Ming. They never were remiss in discharging their duties and in assisting
Ch`iung Sang (Shao Hao). For
these are the Three Sacrifices. Chuan Hsü had a son
named Li, who become Chu Yung; Kung
Kung had a son named Kou Lung, who became
Hou Tu. For these are the Two Sacrifices.
Hou Tu became Spirit of the Land and Grain and director
of the fields."
Here we have five sons of old legendary rulers
raised to the dignity of spirits of the Five Elements after their deaths. They
partake of the Five Sacrifices offered to the Five Emperors in the four suburbs
and the centre i. e., they are assistant deities of the
Five Points. That they were, moreover, regarded as genii of the seasons appears
from their names, for Kou Mang "Curling fronds and
spikelets" evidently points to spring, and Ju Shou
"Sprouts gathered" designates autumn. Chu Yung referring
to heat may well denote summer, and Hsüan Ming "Dark and
obscure," winter. Thus we have the Five Elements and
their deities connected with the Five Points and the
Five Seasons. See also Vol. I, p. 518 and 576. The Five
Sacrifices of Wang Ch`ung Vol. I, p. 517 are others than
those of the Chou-li, here referred to.
But the most important testimony of the
Tso-chuan is to be found in the following passage, Duke
Chao 25th year:
"Chien Tse said, `I venture
to ask what is meant by propriety?'--- Tse T`ai Shu
replied, "I heard the former great officer Tse Ch`an
say: Propriety is the principle of Heaven, the rule of Earth, and the basis of
human conduct. This principle of Heaven and Earth is imitated by the people
conforming to the luminaries of Heaven and agreeing with the nature of Earth.
The Six Fluids are produced and the Five Elements made use of. The fluids become the
Five Tastes, manifest themselves as the
Five Colours, and appear as the Five
Sounds."
10
And farther on we read: "People feel love and
hatred, pleasure and anger, sorrow and joy, which feelings are produced from
the Six Fluids. Therefore one carefully imitates
relations and analogies, in order to regulate these Six
Impulses."
11
By the Six Fluids or atmospherical influences are
understood ### the Yin principle, the Yang principle, wind, rain, darkness,
and light, a classification somewhat different from that
of the Five Fluids of the Shuking.
In the above quoted passage the Five Elements are
combined with the Five Tastes, the Five Colours, and the Five Sounds on the one
side, and with the Six Fluids and the Six Impulses on the other. After all,
there are but five entities which appear to us under different forms, either as
substances or as atmospherical fluids, or as tastes, colours or sounds. And
even human feelings are nothing else but manifestations of these fluids.
Elsewhere the Tso-chuan
informs us that "the former kings constituted the five
tastes and harmonized the five sounds. It is by
these that they made their minds equable and regulated their administration.
Sounds are nearly related to tastes."
12 (Tso-chuan, Duke Chao 20th year.)
That the antagonism of the elements was well known
at the time of the Tso-chuan we infer from the following
passages: "Water overcomes fire"
13 (Duke Ai, 9th year), and "Fire overcomes metal"
14 (Duke Chao, 31st year). The meeting of two opposed elements is
compared to a marriage, and the stronger element subduing the weaker, called
the husband, the weaker being looked upon as the wife. "Water is the husband of
fire"
15 (Duke Chao, 17th year), and "fire is the wife of water"
16 (Duke Chao, 9th year).
Finally the Five Elements are connected with the
cyclical signs of the Ten Stems and the Twelve Branches. A disaster is
predicted on a Ping-tse or a Jên-wu day, because on these there is a meeting of water and
fire,
17ping corresponding to fire, and tse
to water, jên to water, and wu to
fire. Since these cyclical signs serve to denote the points of the compass, the
Five Elements must be referred to them also. So we read that "tse is the position of water"
18 (Duke Ai, 9th year) i. e., that water is
placed in the North.
The Tso-chuan states that
the Five Elements manifest themselves as the Five Colours, but does not assign
the different colours to the various elements. This is done in the
Chi-chung chou-shu ###, a collection of ancient texts
excluded by Confucius from the Shuking, and consequently prior in time to the 6th century
B.C. (Cf. Chavannes, Mem.
Hist. Vol. V, p. 457). There we read: "Among the Five Elements the first,
the black one, is water; the second, the
red one, is fire; the third, the green one, is wood; the fourth, the white one, is metal; and the fifth, the yellow one, is earth."
19
Resuming the adduced old testimonies, we may assert
that, at the time of Confucius and before, the theory of
the Five Elements was known and developed in all its chief features. The
elements are roughly described and conceived as partly physical, partly
metaphysical entities. They vanquish one another in a certain order already
given in the Shuking. The weaker element in such a
contest is termed the wife, the stronger, the husband. The atmospherical
fluids, closely connected with the elements, affect mankind, in so far as they
are believed to produce impulses and sensations, and, conversely, human actions
may influence these fluids. The sovereign especially regulates the elements by
the virtue displayed in his administration. There are five officers or deities
presiding over the elements and, at the same time, venerated as genii of the
seasons, in the five directions, together with the Five Emperors, ruling over
the five points of the compass. Thus we have a link between the elements, the
seasons, and the five directions. Moreover, the fluids and the elements
manifest themselves under the form of the five tastes, the five colours, and
the five sounds. Tastes and colours are enumerated and assigned to the
respective elements, and we may assume that the same was done with the five
sounds, although we have no literary evidence to prove it. By their combination
with the signs of the denary and duodenary cycles, the five elements were again
located in those points of the compass to which these signs correspond.
In the Appendix to Couvreur's Dietionary there is a table of the Five Elements
and their corresponding categories, altogether 12 columns. Of these we have so
far traced nine, only the five heavenly Emperors, the five planets, and the
five viscera have not yet been mentioned. But these also were referred to the
elements in the Chou dynasty, as we shall see from the
Liki and other works.
A short sketch of a natural philosophy is given in
the chapter Li-yün of the Liki
(Legge, Sacred Books Vol. XXVII p. 380 seq.), in which
the Five Elements play a part. Man is said to be the product of the forces of
Heaven and Earth, by the interaction of the Yin and the
Yang, the union of the animal and intelligent spirits,
and the finest matter of the Five Elements.
20 This, of course, would
account for the many relations existing between the elements and the human body
as well as human actions. Moreover, the Five Elements are distributed over the
Four Seasons.
21 They are in constant
movement and alternately exhaust one another. Each of them becomes in its turn
the fundamental one just like the Four Seasons and the Twelve Months.
22 It is not expressly
stated that the five sounds, the five tastes, and the five colours are
identical with the five elements, but they are mentioned in close connexion
with the elements and declared to undergo similar regular revolutions by which
each sound, taste, and colour for a certain time becomes the principal one.
Throughout the whole treatise we notice the intimate relation of human life to
all the forces of nature, the elements included.
The chapter Li-yün ### is by
some attributed to Tse Yu, a disciple of
Confucius or to his disciples and regarded as one of the
most valuable parts of the Liki. I do not share
Legge's view that the ideas about elements, numbers,
colours, & c. are Taoistic admixtures to the commonsense of Confucianism,
for we have met them all in the Confucian Classics. (Cf. Legge's Liki, Introduction p. 24.)
How the elements and their correlates were
distributed over the twelve months we learn from another book of the
Liki, the Yüeh-ling ### (Legge, eod. p. 249 seq.) embodying the fullest scheme of
this theory in classical literature. It is a sort of a calendar clearly showing
us how much the doctrine of the five elements was interwoven with the life of
the ancient Chinese. For each of the four seasons it is stated that the Grand
Annalist informed the Son of Heaven of the day on which the season began and of
the element ruling over the three months composing the season. The element
earth alone had no proper season.
About the first month of spring we learn that its days are chia and yi,23 its divine ruler is
T`ai Hao, and the attending spirit Kou
Mang. Its creatures are the scaly, its musical note is
chio, its number 8,24 its taste is
sour, its smell is
rank. Its sacrifice is that at
the inner door,25 and for this the
spleen of the victim is essential. The east winds resolve the cold. The Son of Heaven occupies the
apartment on the left of the Ch`ing-yang Fane,26 and
rides in a carriage drawn by green dragon horses,
carrying a green flag and wearing green robes and pieces of green jade.
His food consists in wheat and mutton. At the head of his ministers and the feudal princes,
the emperor meets the spring in the eastern suburb. The
inspectors of the fields are ordered to reside in the lands having an
eastward exposure. They instruct the people, and see
that all the necessary measures for cultivating the fields be taken.
Prohibitions are issued against cutting down trees and the killing of young
animals, birds, or insects. No fortifications are to be erected, no warlike
operations to be undertaken, for they would be sure to be followed by the
calamities from Heaven. I refrain from quoting all the other prescriptions and
defences and would only draw attention to the characteristical last paragraph
of this section which has its counterpart in all the other months:
"If in the first month of spring the governmental
proceedings proper to summer were carried out, the rain would fall
unseasonably, plants and trees would decay prematurely, and the states would be
kept in continual fear. If the proceedings proper to autumn were carried out,
there would be great pestilence among the people; boisterous winds would work
their violence; rain would descend in torrents; orach, fescue, darnel, and
southern-wood would grow up together. If the proceedings proper to winter were
carried out, pools of water would produce their destructive effects, snow and
frost would prove very injurious, and the first sown seeds would not enter the
ground."
In a similar way the other months are described. We
abstract therefrom the following Table (pp. 440 and 441).
The Yüeh-ling is now
universally ascribed to Lü Pu Wei of the 3rd century
B.C. (Legge, Liki,
Indroduction p. 20), but there is no reason to suppose that it was invented by
him and that it is not a calendar of the Chou period,
for its contents accords very well with other sources and was, at all events,
regarded as a genuine record of old customs by the compilers of the
Liki.
Five Elements ### |
Four Seasons ### |
Five Emperors ### |
Five Spirits ### |
Five Sacrifices ### |
Five Animals ### |
Five
27 Grains ###
|
Five Intestines ### |
Five Numbers (###) |
Ten Stems ### |
Five Colours ### |
Five Sounds ### |
Five Tastes ### |
Five Smells ### |
Five Points ### |
Five Creatures ### |
wood |
spring |
T`ai Hao |
Kou Mang |
inner door |
sheep |
wheat |
spleen |
8 |
chia yi |
green |
chio |
sour |
goatish |
east |
scaly |
fire |
summer |
Yen Ti |
Chu Yung |
hearth |
fowl |
beans |
lungs |
7 |
ping ting |
red |
chih |
bitter |
burning |
south |
feathered |
earth |
|
Huang Ti |
Hou Tu |
inner court |
ox |
panicled millet |
heart |
5 |
wu chi |
yellow |
kung |
sweet |
fragrant |
centre |
naked |
metal |
autumn |
Shao Hao |
Ju Shou |
outer door |
dog |
hemp |
liver |
9 |
kêng hsin |
white |
shang |
acrid |
rank |
west |
hairy |
water |
winter |
Chuan Hsü |
Hsüan Ming |
well |
pig |
millet |
kidneys |
6 |
jên kuei |
black |
yü |
salt |
rotten |
north |
shell-covered |
The literary evidence of ancient texts collected
above is more than sufficient, I trust, to establish the fact that the theory
of the Five Elements is of Chinese origin. This has been contested by no less
an authority than Ed. Chavannes, who is of opinion that
the Chinese have borrowed it from the Turks (cf. Ed.
Chavannes, "Le cycle turc des douze animaux," T`oung-pao, Série II Vol. VII No. 1 p. 96-98). His view can
hardly be upheld against the old texts. L. de Saussure
("Les origines de l'astronomie chinoise," T`oung-pao
1910, Vol. XI p. 265-288) has already disposed of it. To his counter-arguments,
with which I concur in general, some more may be added. It is rather surprising
that of all the Chinese authors who have written on the five elements almost
nobody refers to Tsou Yen whom Chavannes believes to have been the first exponent of the
Turkish theory in China. They all go back to the old Chinese sources quoted
above. In the fourth or the fifth centuries B.C. when
the Turkish theory must have found its way into China, the Turkish tribes,
Hsiung-nu or Scythians bordering
on the Chinese empire were practically barbarians from whom the Chinese could
not learn much. In the Shi-chi chap. 110 they are
described as nomads without cities who could not write and did not care for the
moral laws. The accounts found in Herodotus Book IV seem
to confirm that, at that early age, the Turkish tribes lived in a very
primitive state of culture, and it is highly improbable that the theory of the
interaction of the elements, supposing a mystical sympathy of all the forces of
nature, an attempt at a natural philosophy, should have been devised by an
uncivilised people like the early Turks. To the Chinese mind such sorts of
speculations have been familiar from time immemorial. In ancient times the
Turks most likely received the little culture they had from their neighbours,
the Chinese, and when, subsequently, the Çakas made
their incursions into Bactria and India, from the Greeks and Indians. When,
many centuries later, they went over from Buddhism to the Islam, their language
as well as their civilisation fell under the influence of the Arabs and
Persians. They possessed very little originality, wherefore the invention of
the theory of the five elements cannot well be set down to their credit.
I strongly doubt that at the time of
Tsou Yen the Hsiung-nu already
possessed any notion of the elements, which require a more advanced state of
civilisation than theirs was. Their descendants, the Uigurs, know 4 elements, but which? Fire,
wind, water, and earth (Kudatku
Bilik by H. Vámbéry p. 75 and 78). They are the
same as those of the Greeks and Indians, and they evidently learned them from
these directly or through the Arabs, as they must have borrowed the seven
planets and the twelve signs of the zodiac from the same source. After
deducting these foreign loans, there remains nothing originally Turkish.
Even if the 4 elements: fire,
wind, water, and earth were of Turkish invention,
it would not help us much, for the 4 elements of the soi-disant semi-Turkish Ch`in
dynasty, according to Chavannes, must have been:
fire,wood, metal, and
earth i. e., besides two elements occurring in Europe as
well, they embrace two characteristically Chinese elements: wood and metal unknown in Europe and
India.
I should say that the principal passage on which
Chavannes bases his belief in the Turkish origin of the
theory of the five elements, admits of a totally different interpretation than
that of the eminent sinologist. The Emperor Han Kao Tsu
expressed his astonishment that in Ch`in only four
heavenly emperors were sacrificed to, since he had heard that there were five
in heaven. (Mém. Hist. Vol. III, p. 449.) In my opinion
this means to say that the emperor knew that before the Ch`in epoch there were five emperors worshipped under the
Chou, and that he simply reverted to the old custom,
changed by the Ch`in, by instituting a sacrifice to the
black emperor, the representative of water.
At first sight the theory of the Five Elements and
the classifications ingrafted thereon may seem strange to us, and one of the
many Chinese peculiarities, but sociology teaches us that similar
classifications, though based on other principles of division, are common all
over the world and among people not connected with one another. Such
classifications must, therefore, be a product of human nature which is more or
less the same everywhere. Consequently, we need not look for a foreign origin
of the Chinese theory.
Most Australian natives
divide up the things of the world conformably to their clans and fraternities,
which, each of them, have their special totems. All things belonging to the
same group are allied and, so to say, the same reality under different forms.
Animals of the same class must not be eaten by their kindred. (E. Durkheim and M. Mauss, De quelques
formes primitives de classifications, in L'Année
Sociologique, Paris 1901-02, Vol. 6 p. 17.) The totems are not only
animals but also plants, fruits and other objects. They may be natural
phenomena as well, such as wind, water, the
sun, clouds amongst the Aruntas
(p. 28 Note 2). With the totem fire are connected the
branches of eucalyptus, the red leaves of the érémophile, the sounds of
trumpets, warmth, love (p. 31).
A tribe of the Sioux in
North America has grouped all objects according to the position occupied by
their clans in their camp viz. right, left, in the
front, and in the rear (p.
47).
Another tribe of the North American Indians, the
Zuñis, have taken the seven directions:
north, south, west, east, the zenith, the nadir, and
the centre as the basis for their classifications, and
filled them up with all the things in which they are specially interested. Thus
they have the following equations:
North: wind, winter, the
pelican, the crane, the green oak, strength, destruction, yellow
West: water, spring, moist
wind, the bear, the wild dog, vernal herbs, peace, hunting, blue
South: fire, summer,
agriculture, medicine, red
East: earth, seeds, frost,
the buck, the antilope, the turkey, magic, religion, white, & c. (p. 35
seq.).
The Dacotahs have a similar
division, but they have lost their clans. The Australian Wotjoballuk have distributed their clans and their
correlates over thirteen points of the compass (p. 51).
The classifications according to clans and totems
appear to be the more primitive; and those starting from the points of the
compass are probably derived from the grouping of the clans in the camp.
It is owing to the preponderance of astrology
amongst the Chaldeans that with them and their
successors, Greeks and Romans,
the planets have become the corner stones of very
similar classifications. The Chaldeans have attributed
the following colours to the planets:
Saturn = black, Jupiter =
light red, Mars = purple, the Sun
= golden, Venus = white, and
Mercury = blue.
Ptolemy gives them somewhat
different colours: Saturn = a livid grey, Jupiter =
white, Mars = red, the Sun =
golden, Venus = yellow, and
Mercury = changing colours. The scholiasts also differ
and only agree in the colours of Mars (red) and the
Sun (golden) (A. Bouché Leclercq,
L'Astrologie Grecque, Paris 1899 p. 313, 314).
In addition to colours, metals,
plants, and animals are also classified under these
planets. Thus mercury is the metal of the homonymous planet; dragons, snakes,
foxes, cats, night birds, donkeys, and hares resort from Saturn; wild beasts,
monkeys, pigs, from Mars (p. 317, 318). Moreover Ptolemy
has distributed the parts of the body and the
senses among the seven planets according to the
following scheme:
Saturn: the right ear, the
bladder, the spleen, the phlegm, the bones.
Jupiter: the sense of touch,
the lungs, the arteries, the semen.
Mars: the left ear, the
kidneys, the veins, the testicles.
Sun: the eyes, the brain,
the heart, the nerves---all the chief organs.
Venus: the smells exciting
love, the liver, the seat of prophecy, the flesh.
Mercury: the tongue, the
gall.
Moon: the taste, the
stomach, the womb (p. 321).
This system has undergone a great many
modifications at the hands of later authors, for instance Demophilus and Hermippus.
Proclus teaches that the
different spheres of the human spirit correspond to the spheres of the stars:
Fixed stars = intellectual life, Saturn = contemplation, Jupiter =
political and social instincts, Mars = passionateness,
Sun = perceptive faculties, Venus
= desires, Mercury = faculty of speech,
Moon = vegetative life (p. 325).
In the middle-ages the Kabbala sets forth various systems of classification
simultaneously. According to the Sepher Iezirah
(9th-10th cent. A.D.) the world has been built up by
the Three Elements named the Three Mothers:
fire is the substance of heaven, water that from which the earth was produced, and both
antagonistic elements are separated by the third element, air. These Three Elements govern the Three
Seasons:---summer, the rainy season, and the
cool season and the Three Parts
of the Body:---the head, the
breast, and the belly. This gives
the following table:
3 Elements |
3 Seasons |
3 Parts of the World |
3 Parts of the Body |
fire |
summer |
heaven |
head |
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