Wake Forest University

Traditional: 金木水火土雖曰『五行各一其性』，然一物又各具五行之 理，不可不知。康節卻細推出來。

僩。

Simplified:

金木水火土虽曰『五行各一其性』，然一物又各具五行之 理，不可不知。康节却细推出来。

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Translation:

Although it is said of Metal, Wood, Water, Fire, and Earth that "the Five Components each individuates its own xing," nevertheless, each (thing =) one of them has complete within it the li of the Five Components, and that is something that one must know. [Shao] Kang-jie has worked this out in detail.
Xian

Compare to item 48 of Juan one, and note that in Zhu Xi's philosophy xing is the kind of li that pertains to living creatures.

I believe that Zhu Xi is describing a picture of ramification here. First there is the Tai-ji, which is one. Then there is the level of the Yin and Yang, which are two phases that form one cycle, and next there are the Five Components of Activity (Wu Xing), which are five phases that form a cycle. The five-phase cycle is dependent on the two-phase cycle, which is in turn dependent on the supersensible unity. Each level has a kind of identity in that it has its own characteristics, and that is a kind of li or xing, but it also has another kind of identity in that it is the source of the next level below it. And this other kind of a characteristic can also be called its li or its xing, or, better, it can be called a second part of its li or its xing. To make that idea less abstract, consider that a walnut has one set of characteristics in its taste, color, hardness, etc., and another kind of characteristic in the fact that from it can grow a new walnut tree. All of these facts are just different characteristics of the same thing, but they are likely to be conceptualized differently because only some of them are directly sensible. We do not see the tree in the seed the way we see the color of the seed.

Any entity that is rooted in one of the Five Components of Activity can only be so rooted by also being associated with the other four of the Five Components. That is like a fingernail being attached to one finger -- but having that make biological sense only when the finger is attached to a hand which has three other fingers and a thumb. A fingernail attached to an isolated finger would be a dead fingernail.

An entity that is rooted in one of the Five Components of Activity is also indirectly rooted in the Yin-Yang cycle, just as the fingernail is attached, indirectly, to a hand.

Now consider that there is no way to follow this process of ramification to a point where discrete individuals appear, yet everybody generally naively assumes that he or she is a discrete entity. We can look at leaves growing on a tree and mentally treat them as discrete individuals, but the fact is that as long as they are living and being supplied with sap, they are part of the same organism. What Zhu Xi's argument leads to, I believe, is the conclusion that, for instance, an Eskimo man and a Peruvian woman are part of the same ramiform structure and are really connected even though we cannot see the medium that binds them into one ramiform whole. It is analogous to, but different from, their genetic connection.

-- PEM