Wake Forest University

Traditional:

問：「黃寺丞云：『金木水火體質屬土。』」曰：「正蒙 有一說好，只說金與木之體質屬土，水與火卻不屬土。」 問：「火附木而生，莫亦屬土否？」曰：「火自是箇虛空 中物事。」問：「只溫熱一作「煖」。之氣便是火否？」 曰：「然。」

胡泳。僩同。

Simplified:

问：「黄寺丞云：『金木水火体质属土。』」曰：「正蒙 有一说好，只说金与木之体质属土，水与火却不属土。」 问：「火附木而生，莫亦属土否？」曰：「火自是个虚空 中物事。」问：「只温热一作「暖」。之气便是火否？」 曰：「然。」

胡泳。□同。

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Translation:

[Someone] asked: "Huang Si-cheng said: 'The ti-zhi of Metal, Wood, Water, and Fire all (belong to =) are subsumed under Earth (soil).' [Zhu Xi] said: "There is a good explanation in the Zheng-meng, according to which only the ti-zhi of Metal and Wood belong to Earth (soil), and Water and Fire do not belong to Earth (soil)." [The student again] asked: "Fire depends on wood to be produced. Does it not also belong to Earth (soil)?" [Zhu Xi] replied: "Fire is naturally a thing that exists in the midst of emptiness." [The student] asked: "Is Fire just a heating qi?" [Zhu Xi] said: "Correct."

Commentary:

The word "ti" means "body," or, in many philosophical contexts it means something like "the basis for function." For instance, the physical structure of a boat is its "ti", and when it floats that is its "yong" (function).

Zhi is another technical term, the meaning of which can only be gathered by seeing it in context. It seems to have been in widespread use during the Song dynasty, so there was no need to give it a formal definition during that period. For Zhu Xi it seems that everything that exists in the universe has both a li aspect and a qi aspect. Looking at the same elements of experience, those who think in Western terms would speak of a formal aspect and a material aspect. But Zhu Xi's idea of qi is complicated by two factors: (1) Qi was first used to account for motivational and energetic aspects of living beings, so it is generally conceived as a "breath" or a kind of "bio-plasma." (2) For Zhu Xi, and others in his circle, anything that we in the West would call matter, including the hardest stones and the densest metals, is also said to be composed of qi. The two most general categories of being in the universe are li and qi, and if we restrict discussion to things that actually are in existence, then li and qi are always found as aspects of each other.

One of the new terms in this passage is zhi, and Zhu Xi seems to conceive of it as the more solid fractions of qi, but also to speak of pairs of qi and zhi when discussing situations where a liquid boils and gives off a gas, where a solid sublimates and gives off a gas, and where analogous phenomena occur.

So when someone says something like: "The ti-zhi of Metal, Wood, Water, and Fire all are subsumed under Earth (soil)," what does this mean? Both "ti" and "zhi" are the "undersides" of other things, and it could be argued that the two mean essentially the same thing, although it might seem a bit strange to say that steam is a "function" of water. What the passage quoted seems to be proposing is that regardless of what we find when we analyze the world from a metaphysical point of view, when we look at it purely in terms of worldly phenomena we find that Metal, Wood, Water, and Fire all come from Earth. That is a somewhat plausible argument when we consider that metals are found as ores in the dirt somewhere, trees grow out of the soil, water flows from springs that seep out of the ground, and fire comes from volcanoes, hot springs come from underground, etc.

Zhu Xi supports the view expressed in the Zheng-meng that only Metal and Wood come from Earth. Then his student argues that Fire depends on Wood, which would seem to indicate that Fire is at least indirectly derived from Earth. Zhu Xi refutes that view by saying that fire exists in a void, by which I think he means to say that the burning does not occur in the wood but around it. That opinion is actually based on an accurate observation, because the flames that spring up from a fire are burning gasses that are produced by the heating of the wood. Heat drives the gasses from the wood and they burn in the "emptiness" above the wood. Unfortunately, Zhu Xi has not bothered to explain why fire occurs in the "emptiness" above heated wood and not in the emptiness above heated water. No explanation is given concerning why water should not be considered a product of the soil.

The discussion in this passage is lacking in formal rigor, and so probably is not the best introduction to the concepts of ti and zhi, but at least it provides a context from within which one may begin to form a set of definitions to handle these and related terms.

-- PEM