| 68. | 本 | 乎 | 數 | have their origin in number. | |
| Pên3 | hu2 | shu4 | |||
| Root | in | number |
Pên see line 2.
Hu see line 64.
Shu see line 43.
[For the above two lines Père Zottoli has, "Ista quinque elementa fundamentum sunt pro numeratione rerum," with the following gloss, "Siquidem omnia ex his conflantur, et sic constituitur numerabilis individuorum series." In other words he makes number spring from the elements instead of the elements from number. But what becomes of 乎, which has clearly a prepositional value, as in line 64? Eitel has, "These are the five mutable-elements, radically related with regard to the numerical proportions (of the cosmos)," which would seem to be less available, for tutorial purposes, than the original text. The meaning however is that in the beginning there was One (lines 45, 50). This divided itself into Two, and these forces, known as male and female, positive and negative, heaven and earth, light and darkness, produced the five elements which inform all creation. Heaven is said to have begun by producing water, Earth followed with fire, Heaven with wood, Earth with metal, and lastly Heaven produced earth (soil). Then water began to produce wood, wood to produce fire, fire to produce earth (ashes), earth (soil) to produce metal, metal to produce water, and so on. All this time water was destroying fire, fire was destroying metal, metal was destroying wood, wood was destroying earth, and earth was destroying water, in an endless chain.]
