有是理後生是氣，自「一陰一陽之謂道」推來，此性自有仁義。

德明。

Text from Wesleyan e-text project, checked against Zhu Zi Yu-lei Da-quan text.

[Zhu Xi said:] "After there is this Li then this lifebreath is produced. Arguing from [the passage in the Xi Ci, A:4, of the Book of Changes that says] 'An Yin [and then] a Yang is called the Way," this nature (of human beings) naturally contains Benevolence and Sense of Right and Wrong."

[Recorded by the disciple De-ming.]

To see the entire Wesleyan Chinese text of the first chapter of the Zhu Zi Yu-lei, click here .

PEM Commentary:

Here Zhu Xi would seem to be making the assertion that what we would call the "aspect of form" of some entity (or, perhaps, of all entities) comes before their material existence. If we allow that the One Li that precedes all being is in fact the potential from which grows forth all actual being and all actual form, then we at least make this argument sound superficially more plausible to the Western ear.

Building on Zhu Xi's ideas about circular process of causation or dependence, we might offer a different translation of the passage Zhu Xi quotes above, and add a phrase from the original text:

The [rhythmic] alternation of Yin and Yang is called dao (the way or course of Heaven). What follows from this [alternation] is called good.

We have here, I think, something that correlates to the second level of Zhou Dun-yi's Tai-ji Diagram and to the levels below it.

The way this matter is usually explained by Zhu Xi is roughly as follows. At the fundamental level there is the Tai-ji (also known as Li). It produces and sustains the cyclical operation of cosmic Yin and Yang. The cyclical operation of Yin and Yang in turn produces and sustains the Si Xiang (Four Images or Four Foreshadowings). As seen within the scope of human life, these four manifest themselves as the Si De (Four Virtues). Those four include not only Ren (Benevolence) and Yi (Sense of Right and Wrong), but also Li (Sense of Propriety) and Zhi (Sense of Objective Right and Wrong).

Far from directly discussing the Yi Jing and its several Zhuan (canonical commentaries), the words of Zhu Xi recorded in this conversation seem to be following the Tai-ji Diagram of Zhou Dun-yi, and using it to explain the presence of morality in human nature.

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