GB:
ÎÊ¡ÃÉϵ۽µ°§ÓÚÃñ£¬Ì콫½µ´óÈÎÓÚÈË£¬ÌìÓÓÃñ×÷Ö®¾ý£¬ÌìÉúÎ ÒòÆä²Å¶øóÆ¡£×÷Éƽµ°ÙÏ飬×÷²»Éƽµ°ÙÑê¡£Ì콫½µ·Ç³£Ö®»öÓÚ´ËÊÀ£¬ ±ØÔ¤³ö·Ç³£Ö®ÈËÒÔÄâÖ®¡£·²´ËµÈÀàÊDzԲÔÔÚÉÏÕßÕæÓÐÖ÷Ô×Èç´Ëа£¿ ÒÖÌìÎÞÐÄ£¬Ö»ÊÇÍÆÔÆäÀíÈç´Ë£¿Ô»¡Ã´ËÈý¶ÎÖ»Ò»Òâ¡£Õâ¸öÒ²Ö»ÊÇ ÀíÈç´Ë¡£ÆøÔË´ÓÀ´Ò»Ê¢ÁËÓÖһ˥£¬Ò»Ë¥ÁËÓÖһʢ£¬Ö»¹Üí¥µØ Ñ»·È¥£¬ÎÞÓÖË¥¶ø²»Ê¢Õߣ¬ËùÒÔ½µ·Ç³£Ö®»öÓÚÊÀ£¬¶¨ÊÇ Éú³ö·Ç³£Ö®ÈË¡£ÉÛÒ¢·ò¾ÊÀÒ÷ÓÐÔÆ¡ÃôËÐùҢ˴ÌÀÎäÎÄ»ÊÍõµÛ°Ô ¸¸×Ó¾ý³¼ËÄÕßÖ®µÀÀíÏÞÓÚÇؽµ¼°Á½ºº£¬ÓÖÀúÈý·Ö¶«Î÷£¨ÈËÊå=chu4)© ÈÅ·×ç¡£¬ÎåºúÊ®ÐÕÌì¼Íèû£¬·ÇÌƲ»¼Ã£¬·ÇËβ»´æ£¬ ǧÊÀÍòÊÀ£¬ÖÐÔÓÐÈË£¬¸ÇÒ»ÖαØÓÖÒ»ÂÒ£¬Ò»ÂÒ±ØÓÖÒ»ÖΣ¬ÒÄµÒ Ö»ÊÇÒĵң¬ÐëÊÇ»¹ËûÖÐÔ¡£ -- ´¾
big5:
°Ý ¡G ¡u ¡y ¤W «Ò ° °J ¤_ ¥Á ¡C ¡z ¡y ¤Ñ ±N ° ¤j ¥ô ©ó ¤H ¡C ¡z ¡y ¤Ñ ¯§ ¥Á ¡A §@ ¤§ §g ¡C ¡z ¡y ¥Í ª« ¡A ¦] ¨ä ¤~ ¦Ó ¿w ¡C ¡z ¡y §@ µ½ ¡A ° ¦Ê ²» ¡F §@ ¤£ µ½ ¡A ° ¦Ê ¬o ¡C ¡z ¡y ¤Ñ ±N ° «D ±` ¤§ º× ©ó ¦¹ ¥@ ¡A ¥² ¹w ¥X «D ±` ¤§ ¤H ¥H ÀÀ ¤§ ¡C ¡z ¡C ¤Z ¦¹ µ¥ Ãþ ¡A ¬O »a »a ¦b ¤W ªÌ ¯u ¦³ ¥D ®_ ¦p ¬O ¨¸ ¡H §í ¤Ñ µL ¤ß ¡A ¥u ¬O ±À ì ¨ä ²z ¦p ¦¹ ¡H ¡v ¤ê ¡G ¡u ¦¹ ¤T ¬q ¥u ¤@ ·N ¡C ³o ºç ¤] ¥u ¬O ²z ¦p ¦¹ ¡C ®ð ¹B ±q ¨Ó ¤@ ²± ¤F ¤S ¤@ «s ¡A ¤@ «s ¤F ¤S ¤@ ²± ¡A ¥u ºÞ Ñ¡ ¦a ´` Àô ¥h ¡A µL ¦³ «s ¦Ó ¤£ ²± ªÌ ¡C ©Ò ¥H ° «D ±` ¤§ º× ©ó ¥@ ¡A ©w ¬O ¥Í ¥X «D ±` ¤§ ¤H ¡C ªò ³ó ¤Ò ¸g ¥@ §u ¤ª ¡G ¿ª°a ³ó µÏ ¡A ´ö ªZ ®Ù ¤å ¡A ¬Ó ¤ý «Ò ÅQ ¡A ¤÷ ¤l §g ¦Ú ¡C ¥| ªÌ ¤§ ¹D ¡A ²z ¤_ ¯³ ¡A ° ¤Î ¨â º~ ¡A ¤S ¾ú ¤T ¤À ¡C ªF ¦è ÐÔ ÂZ ¡A «n ¥_ ¯É ¯Æ ¡A ¤ J ¡A ¤Q ©m ¡A ¤Ñ ¬ö ´X ÙÈ ¡C «D 𠤣 ÀÙ ¡A «D §º ¤£ ¦s ¡A ¤d ¥@ ¸U ¥@ ¡A ¤¤ ì ¦³ ¤H ¡I ¡z »\ ¤@ ªv ¥² ¤S ¤@ ¶Ã ¡A ¤@ ¶Ã ¥² ¤S ¤@ ªv ¡C ¦i ¨f ¥u ¬O ¦i ¨f ¡A ¶· ¬O ÁÙ ¥L ¤¤ ì ¡C ¡v ²E ¡C
(Text corrected 20030106 from the Wesleyan E-text archive -- PEM)
Someone asked: "'The Lord on High has cast sorrow down upon the people.' 'Heaven is going to settle a great responsibility on some person.' 'Heaven blessed the people; it made for them a sovereign.' 'Living creatures are given wholesomeness on account of their innate capacities.' 'Should people do what is good, [Heaven] will grant them the hundred blessings. Should people do what is not good, [Heaven] will give them the hundred calamities.' When Heaving is going to cast extraordinary disasters upon this world, it must first produce extraordinary human beings to contrive them.' In all of these kinds of situations, is it the case that the azure heaven above truly has a governing will as described? Or is it that Heaven has no motive of its own, but that things come about in this way as a result of following out the implications of its own li?" [Zhu Xi] said: "These three passages all have the same basic meaning, which is just that the li is like this. The ebb and flow of qi [in the world] has always been such that there is first a period of flourishing and then a period of sorrow, and after a period of sorrow there is always a period of flourishing, and it just keeps on cycling in this way. There is never a case where a period of sorrow is not followed by a period of flourishing. Therefore, when [Heaven] casts an extraordinary disaster on the world, it must certainly produce an extraordinary human being. In his Jing Shi Yin, Shao Yao-fu (i.e., Shao Kang-jie) said: "Fu Xi, the Yellow Emperor, [the sage emperors] Yao and Shun, Tang (first king of the Shang dynasty) Wu (founding king of the Zhou dynasty), Huan, and Wen (first king to actually rule in the Zhou dynasty). Majesties, kings, emperors, hegemons; father and son, liege lord and vassal -- the dao (way things actually work) of these (two sets of) four, if we limit consideration of their li to the period beginning with the Qin and going on to the two Han dynasties, then things had gone through three fourths of this sequence. East and west had been stirred up, north and south had been put into disorder [after the end of the Han], and the five barbarian hordes and ten families had almost put the natural order into collapse. If it had not been for the Tang [dynasty] there would have been no help for the situation. If it had not been for the Song [dynasty] it would not have been preserved. For a thousand generations, for ten thousand generations, the nuclear area of China has had people!' That is to say, one things are put into order there must once again come a period of disorder, and once things have fallen into disorder they must again be put into order. Barbarians are nothing more than barbarians, [but] it is necessary that the nuclear area be returned to them.
-- recorded by Chun.
The questioner brings up several quotations that imply that Tian (Heaven) is a deity who makes human-like choices in reaction to human affairs, and asks whether Tian is really like that or whether these earlier writings have anthropomorphized Heaven, i.e., whether Heaven has a single and invariant rule of some kind according to which its actions can always be predicted. Zhu Xi's answer is rather long, and it involves references to many historical characters and events, but his purpose is to show that the flow of history is determined by a cyclical process in which what is bad comes into full flower bearing the seeds of its own destruction, and, similarly, what is good comes into full flower containing a potent ferment that will lead inevitably back to chaos.
This argument follows from a passage in which Mencius says that hard times call forth the most extreme capabilities of human beings (because nobody can afford to be complacent), and easy times let many people become lax and dependent. Zhu Xi espouses a view that is consonant with yin-yang theory, which has as one of its fundamental insights the idea that the farther one pushes a pendulum in one direction, the farther it will be carried to the opposite extreme in the course of its subsequent oscillations. As the pendulum exchanges potential energy to rise to the north, it builds potential energy to permit it to return to the south. In human terms, one of the things that a period of easy living does is to permit all sorts of vices to flourish because no matter how badly one operates it will almost always be possible to survive, but the end result is a polity and a society that no longer has the means to ensure its own continuance. When political corruption and social vice have brought about the crash of a whole society, then it becomes essential for survival that what an individual does should bring optimal results. Some will approach that goal by becoming totalitarian leaders who use force to produce social order. Others will strive to produce a society and a polity that has a more organic basis for organization and action in behalf of its own members.
Zhu Xi's view of why the barbarians will always reconquer the main part of China has in mind the non-Han dynasties in the period of disunity between the Han and Sui dynasties. He has, in general terms, predicted the Mongol conquest and resulting Yuan dynasty, and the Manchurian conquest and resulting Qing dynasty. I believe that the general insight presented here is correct, regardless of what one may think about yin-yang theory. Questions of external conquest aside, polities continue for greater or lesser periods of time depending on how well they are able to detect and correct corrosive forces that grow from within them.
In the background of this discussion is the traditional account of the great golden age in high antiquity when the rulers of China were holy men with almost superhuman abilities. At the farthest remove from the turbulent present are the Three Huang, who are Fu Xi (according to tradition, the inventor of the basic theory of the hexagrams, hence, the first way of using written symbols to refer to things in the world, also called Tai Hao), Shen Nong (the culture hero who gave human beings agriculture, also called Yan Di), and Huang Di (the Yellow Emperor). Following them are two the rulers in the list of the "Five Sovereigns" are Shao Hao and Zhuan Xu. Four more emperors follow in the traditional list of ancient Chinese emperors, the last two of them being the fabled sage emperors Yao and Shun. After that point, tradition says, China began to have dynasties, the first being the Xia dynasty (founded by Yu, the demigod who saved China from the flood), the Shang dynasty (founded by Tang, also called Cheng Tang) -- which is at the dawn of the historical period, and then the Zhou dynasty. The Xia went into a period of decline, it is said, and was superceded by the Shang. The Shang went into a period of dissolution and was superceded by the Zhou, and from then on no dynasty up to the present has lasted as long as the Zhou. It would be interesting to ask Zhu Xi what he considered to be the period or periods of decline and dissolution between the rule of Fu Xi and the rule of Yu.
-- PEM