或问：理在先,气在后。曰：理与气本无先后之可言, 但推上去时却如 理在先气在后相似。 又问：理在气中发见处如何？曰：如阴阳五行错综不失条绪便是理。 若气不结聚时, 理亦无所附着。故康节云：性者,道之形体; 心者,性之 郛郭, 身者心之区宇, 物者身之舟车。问道之体用。曰：假如耳便是体, 听便是用。目是体,见是用。
big5:
┪拜瞶,り瞶籔セ礚ぇē, 崩玱瞶 拜瞶い祇ǎ矪り潮锭き︽岿侯ぃア兵狐獽琌瞶璝ぃ挡籈, 瞶 ョ礚┮帝珿眃竊お┦,笵ぇ砰; み,┦ぇ愈尝, ōみぇ跋, ōぇ︵ó 拜笵ぇ砰ノり安φ獽琌砰,钮獽琌ノヘ琌砰,ǎ琌ノ
[Someone] asked [whether]: "Li is anterior, and lifebreath comes after?" [Zhu Xi] responded: "Fundamentally there is no way to predicate either 'anterior' or 'posterior' of li and lifebreath. However, when we attempt to push back [by looking on sequences of dependencies], then contrary to what we might expect it does seem that li would appear to be anterior and lifebreath would appear to be posterior."
[That person] went on to ask: "How about the place in lifebreath where li becomes manifested?" [Zhu Xi] responded: "[An example of] li would be the way that Yin, Yang, and the five cosmic influences (sometimes called the five "elements") match and mate without losing proper sequence. [But] when lifebreath does not consolidate, then li has no place in which to inhere. Therefore, [Shao] Kang-jie said: 'The [human] nature is the [material] body of the Dao. The mind is the protective wall of the [human] nature. The [human] body is the domain of the mind. Material things are the (boats and vehicles =) implements facilitating action of the [human] body.' {{Dao >human nature>mind>body>material universe, but in the West we would view the dependencies in just the reverse order: First there is a material universe, then organic entities, then minds, then moral tendencies, then a supposed universal Way.}}
[That person] asked about the basis-for-function and the function of the Dao. [Zhu Xi] responded: "If we take the ear [as an example of] a basis-for-function, then hearing is the corresponding function. If we take the eye [as an example of] a basis-for-function, then vision is its function."
Commentary:
Zhu Xi is clearly aware that he is going beyond the evidence of the senses to say that li comes "before" lifebreath. It certainly does not come before lifebreath in temporal sequence in our experience. Whenever we find li we find it in something. And, for that matter, whenever we find some thing, we find it has its formal aspect or li. Now he suggests that when lifebreath changes from a phase in which it is formless and immaterial to a phase in which it has form and a material aspect, the coming into the world of our empirical experience of the lifebreath is exactly paralleled by the coming into the world of our empirical experience of li.
It is difficult, I suspect, to make this process plausible to a Western audience whose entire education has been guided by the idea that solid bodies are aggregates of atomistic particles. To understand what Zhu Xi is talking about we have to rethink the entire universe under the terms of a theory in which a fundamental unity diversifies itself in a way that is both sequential and also preservative of that fundamental unity.
Zhu Xi cautions us against thinking of this differentiation within unity as a sequence that occurs in time. But, for our convenience in formulating this sequence in words, we might as well imagine that it occurs in time or at least that human beings could never get a grasp of it without looking at it layer by layer from most fundamental to most complex and ephemeral, and that the shift of human attention from level to level would take some time. Then we could formulate a provisional description as follows:
In the {beginning} there is absolutely nothing whatsoever that could be experienced. There exists only the latent capacity to produce a phenomenal universe. {Next} there is a division into a fundamental vibratory phenomenon, and there is present to experience a cycle of two phases, waxing and waning. There being this vibratory phenomenon there must also be a corresponding materiality, albeit of a most tenuous kind. {Following} that, a harmonic vibration of four phases is imposed on two-phase vibration. Each of these four phases has a different quality and a different kind of materiality. Its qualitiative aspect or formal aspect is called its li, and its material aspect is called its lifebreath.
Each {time} a division occurs, the formal and/or qualitiative aspects of the universe become more complex, and the material aspects become less abstract. Vaguely perceived flows of lifebreath consolidate into more and more solid and enduring bodies until our senses are easily fooled into believing that something as ephemeral and ever-changing as a human body is a solid and enduring "something."
There are very serious problems with this kind of a metaphysical explanation of the universe, most particularly how to account for space, time, and one's location in space and time. But, perhaps without being able to account for everything, Zhu Xi appears to affirm that the existence of something, which has as its characteristic the capability of diversifying, is at least "metaphysically fundamental to" or "logically prior to" the existence of a universe full of diversity. That is the opposite of a worldview that says that we begin with a universe of highly differentiated entities and seek for something that binds them together, or that we begin with a universe full of discrete entities and seek to account for something that binds them to one universe and a common set of rules. There are problems with that kind of an account, also.
If you believe in a universe formed of discrete entities, atoms (literally, indivisible entities -- even though we know that what we thought of as atoms are not the fundamental particles), then why is it necessary that all iron atoms are indistinguishable from one another? Why do we even find evidence of organic compounds in the spectroscopic signatures of distant stars? Life evolved differently in Madagascar and in Africa, so why can matter not evolve differently in different galaxies, or even in different glasses of water? It is one thing to observe that all visible entities in the universe appear to obey the same laws (or do things the same way, if you prefer), but it is quite another thing to be able to offer a persuasive explanation for that continuity.
The discussion of "basis-for-function" and "function" is relevant to the rest of the discussion because it is a clear example of the kinds of dependencies of which Zhu Xi has just been talking. One's eyes and ears can see and hear things or not, depending on what goes on in the real world. One can have eyes without seeing anything at the moment, and can have ears without hearing anything at the moment, but one cannot see or hear without having eyes and ears. One can have a latent capability to produce a universe without there necessarily being a universe, but one cannot have a universe without the underlying possibility that there be one. One can have a human nature without the actual presence of a human mind, but one cannot have a human mind without the underlying possibility that there be such a mind, and that possibility is what we call the human nature.
The assertion that one can have a human nature without having a human mind (or a human body for that matter) seems strange at first. But if we think of the formal aspect of a human being as something encoded in genetic material, then it is clear that the genetic code for a body, a mind, a set of human mental characteristics, etc., is all present from the moment of conception, while its filling out through the process of gestation and growth will take quite some time to accomplish. That is not quite what Zhu Xi has in mind, in terms of the formal elements of his theory, but it is probably the kind of real-world experience that he was trying to formulate in a self-consistent theoretical account. Just keep in mind that Zhu Xi's theory has more in common with divination methodology than with organic chemistry.
--PEM