Politics, Leadership, and Wisdom

Abstract

In this article, we examine the German context within which Richard Wilhelm (1873–1930) completed his translation of the Yijing (Book of Changes). Particularly we focus on the decades-long partnership between Wilhelm and the Baltic philosopher Hermann Keyserling (1880–1946), who not only shaped his political view but also encouraged him to use the Yijing to speak to his fellow Germans in times of crisis. We argue that this partnership was crucial in transforming Wilhelm into a translator-educator. Finally, after spending years to translate and re-translate the Yijing, Wilhelm came to the conclusion that the classic was not merely a Chinese text from the Confucian canon. Instead, he viewed it as a “world literature” (Weltliteratur) that dispensed profound wisdom to people around the world, including Germans who suffered from the catastrophe of WWI.

本文從一戰後德國破敗的背景出發，深入分析衛禮賢(Richard Wilhelm, 1873–1930) 的《易經》德語翻譯。我們特別重視衛禮賢與赫爾曼・凱瑟林 (Hermann Keyserling, 1880–1946) 的数十年緊密合作，並根據兩人的往來書信和現存檔案，綜合他們的政治思想。我們認爲，凱瑟林的政治思想很大程度上影響了衛禮賢的德譯《易經》，同時也把《易經》成功地改造成為「世界經典」，一躍成爲全世界人類的共同文化資源。今天當我們回顧這段文化因緣，對衛禮賢的德譯《易經》，不能不肅然起敬。

Keywords:

• Richard Wilhelm
• Hermann Keyserling
• Yijing
• I Ging
• I Ching

關鍵詞:

• 衛禮賢
• 赫爾曼・凱瑟林
• 易經
• I Ging
• I Ching

Notes

1 The full title of Wilhelm’s German translation is I Ging: Das Buch der Wandlungen.

2 The full title of the Wilhelm – Baynes translation is The I Ching or Book of Changes. While in the Anglophone world, the Book of Changes is commonly known as the I Ching, in this article we reserve the term for the Wilhelm – Baynes translation. We use “Yijing” to refer to the Chinese classic that was canonized in second century BCE. We use “I Ging” to refer to Wilhelm’s original German translation of the Book of Changes. The purpose of making these distinctions is to highlight the uniqueness in each representation of the oracles-cum-philosophical text known as the Book of Changes.

3 An example of this American use of the I Ching is Philip K. Dick’s (1928–1982) incorporation of hexagram divination in his novel The Man in the High Castle. For a survey of the impact of the Yijing on contemporary US culture, see Raymond – Hon 2014, pp. 204–236; Smith 2012, pp. 195–200.

4 The phrase “a translation of a translation” is from Cary Baynes. In her “Translator’s Note,” she opens with a provocative question: “A translation of a translation is likely to evoke the questioning protest: Why risk the danger of a double distortion of a text?” (Wilhelm – Baynes 1967, p. xl). In the rest of her “Translator’s Note,” she answers this question brilliantly by first showing the importance of Wilhelm’s I Ging as a “world literature” (Wilhelm – Baynes 1967, p. xlvii) and then explaining the need for rendering the I Ging into English to reach the Anglophone audience.

5 We can find this emphasis on Lao Naixuan’s transmission in Cary Baynes’ “Translator’s Note.” In there, Baynes calls attention to what she claims a mixture of two distinctive qualities of the I Ging. First, Baynes suggests that the I Ging was Wilhelm’s attempt to render the Yijing accessible to general readers. “Unlike any other translator of this ancient work,” she writes, “[Wilhelm] did not envisage the learned world as his only audience, and therefore addressed himself to the difficult task of making the [Yijing] intelligible to the lay reader” (Wilhelm – Baynes 1967, p. xl). Second, she asserts that the I Ging represents a Sino-German collaboration in which Wilhelm learned to read the Yijing from an eminent Chinese scholar, Lao Naixuan. “In translating the [Yijing] he was guided by a scholar of the old school,” Baynes writes, “one of the last of his kind, who knew thoroughly the great field of commentary literature that has grown up around the book in the course of the ages” (Wilhelm – Baynes 1967, p. xl). In other places, Lao Naixuan’s transmission is reiterated in Hellmut Wilhelm’s “Preface to the Third Edition” (Wilhelm – Baynes 1967, p. xiv) and Carl Jung’s “Foreword” (Wilhelm – Baynes 1967, p. xxi).

6 The Neo-Confucian tradition of the Yijing studies began in the Song Dynasty (960–1279). For the founding of this tradition during the Song period, see Smith 1990. For the circuitous development of this tradition during late imperial China, see Hon Tze-ki 2008, pp. 254–271, and Hon Tze-ki 2011, pp. 1–16. Two recent translations of the Yijing commentaries – Harrington 2019 and Adler 2020 – vividly demonstrate the breadth and depth of this Neo-Confucian interpretation of the Yijing.

7 Although little attention has been paid to the Keyserling–Wilhelm partnership, in recent scholarship there is an increasing interest in finding how Wilhelm’s social networks shaped his views and his scholarship. For instance, in his introduction, Thomas Zimmer provides detailed information about Wilhelm’s personal relations, suggesting the importance of his friends (including Keyserling) in helping him develop his academic career. See Walravens 2008, pp. 13–59. In her biography of Wilhelm, Dorothea Wippermann suggests that more research should be done to study Wilhelm’s personal networks. She argues that these personal networks laid the foundations for his later academic development in Frankfurt. See Wippermann 2020, p. 63.

8 The Keyserling–Wilhelm partnership covers all three periods of Wilhelm’s intellectual life as identified by Mechthild Leutner: (1) the Qingdao period (1899–1920); (2) the Peking period (1922–1924); and (3) the Frankfurt period (1924–1930). For her reasons for dividing Wilhelm’s intellectual life into three periods, see Leutner 2010, pp. 56–83, especially p. 57. Interestingly, she omits the period that we study, namely Wilhelm’s early intermezzo in Weimar Germany.

9 For an earlier attempt to assess the impact of the Keyserling-Willhelm partnership, see Hon Tze-ki 2022, pp. 183-203. While the earlier piece focuses on Wilhelm’s translation skills, this article emphasizes the context and reception of Wilhelm’s translation.

10 Wilhelm began his career as a translator-educator when he was in Qingdao. In 1909–1913, he worked as a teacher while he translated Chinese classics into German. But his double role gained a new meaning and a broad audience in 1920–1922 when he was closely associated with the School of Wisdom in Darmstadt.

11 Although Wilhelm baptized orphans and so-called “mixed children” in Qingdao, such as Charlotte Li (1913–?), he openly expressed a desire to convert no Chinese to Christianity, as he had been encouraged by Christoph Blumhardt (1842–1919). See Wippermann 2020, pp. 117, 121. See also Hübner 2019, pp. 185–186. Wilhelm’s open declaration became a legend and was publicized in writings about him. See, for instance, the blurb on the back of Dorothea Wippermann’s biography of Richard Wilhelm.

12 As Suzanne Marchand has pointed out, the rapid development of German Sinology at the turn of the 20th century was a result of a peculiar combination of orientalism and imperialism. As a result, German Sinologists were proud of their exact philological skills and their adamant objection to Christian missionaries. See Marchand 2009, pp. 333–334. Since Wilhelm was a missionary stationed overseas and never received a formal training in learning the Chinese language, he was an easy target for criticism. Alfred Forke (1867–1944), for instance, gave Wilhelm’s Lunyu 論語 translation a harsh review. See Forke 1910, pp. 1874–1875. Throughout his career, Wilhelm was repeatedly criticized for his mistranslation of crucial Chinese terms, such as dao 道. In contrast, non-Sinologists (such as Hermann Keyserling) fervently supported Wilhelm's creative translation and enthusiastically urged him to continue with what he was doing. See, for example, Keyserling 1925a, p. 47. This stark contrast in the reception of his work shaped Richard Wilhelm’s self-identity. Professionally he saw himself writing for a general audience rather than a small circle of Sinologists. In social life, he was more at ease in the company of generalists (e.g., Carl Jung and Hermann Hesse [1877–1962]) than his peers in Sinology.

13 When Adolf Keller (1872–1963) read Wilhelm’s I Ging manuscript in 1922, he found that the “wisdom [of the Yijing] did not derive from a national property but from the immeasurable possession which belongs to the entire mankind.” See S. Wilhelm 1956, p. 273. Unless stated otherwise, the German-English translations are done by Andreas Günter Weis.

14 A characteristic of German Sinologists in the late 19th century was their broad definition of the “Orient” that extended from the Ottoman Empire to Qing China. See Marchand 2009, pp. 212–251. A result of this broad definition was that the German Sinologists saw themselves as world historians rather than as specialists in the history and culture of China. For the German Sinologists, the Yijing was of the same status as other “Great Books” such as the Christian Bible, the Jewish Scripture, the Koran, the Buddhist Sutras, and the Platonic Dialogues.

15 When we refer to a hexagram, we retain Wilhelm’s original Wade-Giles transliteration; but we supplement it with the pinyin. We also include the Chinese characters of the hexagram titles for readers who read Chinese. Wilhelm’s German terms of the four hexagrams are: Heer (#7), Zusammenhalten (#8), Betrachtung (Anblick) (#20), and Umwälzung (Mauserung) (#49).

16 It is worth remembering that Wilhelm died in 1930 before the rise of Nazism, and Keyserling was silenced and forbidden to leave the country until 1943 (see Gahlings 1996, pp. 292–293). Despite the two men’s intense interest in finding a distinct quality of an ideal leader (Führer), they were not supporters of Nazism.

17 Since the 1980s, the Yijing studies in the English language have shifted to recovering the original meaning of the Yijing in the Western Zhou period. The list of these works is long. Among them are Whincup 1986; Rutt 2002; Shaughnessy 2014.

18 John Minford recently demonstrated that a reading of the Yijing from the perspective of Daoist alchemy is as valid as a reading of the Yijing as a Bronze Age text. See Minford 2014, pp. ix–xxxii. For a comparison of Wilhelm’s rendition with more recent German translations by Sinologists, see, for example: Schilling 2009; Simon 2014.

19 Wilhelm – Baynes 1967, p. xiv.

20 Wilhelm – Baynes 1967, pp. xlv–xlvi.

21 The phrase “great care and sorrow” (or “viel Sorge und Leid”) is Wilhelm’s translation of youhuan 憂患 (Wilhelm 1924c, p. 264). Reading youhuan as a combination of two different states of mind (great care for you and sorrow for huan), Wilhelm sees “fear and anxiety” as a distinctive quality of the Yijing philosophy. In the Yijing, youhuan does not appear in the 64 hexagrams (or the core text), but in the Xici 繋辭 (Attached Verbalization), one of the Ten Wings of the Yijing. In Part 2, Chapter 7, of the Xici, it says: “The Changes came into use in the period of middle antiquity. Those who composed the Changes had great care and sorrow” (Wilhelm – Baynes 1967, p. 345). The authors of the Xici also identified the Shang-Zhou transition as the period from which this “great care and sorrow” emerged. In Part 2, Chapter 11, it says: “The time at which the Changes came to the fore was that in which the house of Yin came to an end and the way of the house of Chou [Zhou] was rising, that is, the time when King Wên and the tyrant Chou Hsin [Zhou Xin] were pitted against each other. This is why the judgements of the book so frequently warn against danger. He who is conscious of danger creates peace for himself; he who takes things lightly creates his own downfall. The tao of this book is great. It omits none of the hundred things. It is concerned about beginning and end, and it is encompassed in the words ‘without blame.’ This is the tao of the Changes” (Wilhelm – Baynes 1967, pp. 352–353). Other translators (such as Richard John Lynn) read youhuan as a compound noun signifying a particular form of mental condition – deeply concerned about calamity. See Lynn 1994, p. 87. Whether youhuan is read as a compound noun or a combination of two different states of mind, it is clear that the Xici authors wanted to focus attention on the human inability to control their future.

22 Elsewhere, Wilhelm reported the same story a bit differently. See Wilhelm 1916, p. 76.

23 See letter from Hermann Keyserling to Richard Wilhelm, March 19, 1912, available in Archiv der Bayerischen Akademie der Wissenschaften (BAdW), NL Wilhelm, II/258.

24 See Wilhelm 1926, pp. 174–176. Gu Hongming introduced him to Shen Cengzhi, with whom he later met in Shanghai. See Keyserling 1944, pp. 359–376, especially p. 369.

25 Occasionally, Hermann Keyserling disclosed his self-image as a conservatist. For instance, he said: “Conservatism understood correctly means not to fight for the irretrievable but to relate the new, which has become inevitable, to the ancient roots, thus that what has been planned as a mechanical new beginning grows on organically” (Richtig verstandener Konservativismus bedeutet nicht kämpfen um Unwiederbringliches, sondern zurückbeziehen des unvermeidlich gewordenen Neuen auf die alten Wurzeln, so daß zu organischem Fortwachsen wird, was als mechanischer Neuanfang geplant war). Keyserling 1922, p. 21. Wilhelm presented his own political views in a similar way in 1924: “what can and will unite us are the effective old powers of life in new forms” (was uns einigen kann und wird, das sind die ewigen alten Kräfte des Lebens in neuen jungen Formen). Wilhelm 1924b, pp. 1–19, especially p. 5.

26 Combining the genres of travelogue, newspaper columns and philosophical treatises, The Travel Diary of a Philosopher was an instant success after publication. It fed the curiosity of European readers who saw the world as an integrated unit. See, for example, the review by Henry James Forman (1879–1966) published in the The New York Times (Forman 1925).

27 Keyserling 1925a, p. 74.

28 Keyserling 1925a, p. 80.

29 Walter Struve (1935–2016) summarized succinctly Keyserling’s state of mind in the following way: “Illustrative of one of these latter types of internationalism are the elitist views of Count Hermann Keyserling, whose cosmopolitan, internationalist ideals overshadowed his nationalism. […] Like the conservative of the early 19th century, he postulated the need for passivity on the part of the populace. He hoped for the development of an elite whose rule would rest upon the recognition by the masses of their own inferiority and would not entail their permanent mobilization.” See Struve 1973, p. 276. Nevertheless, we should be cautious about Struve’s assessment of Keyserling’s excessive nationalism. As Keyserling puts it himself: “[N]ations are, from the point of view of the spirit, nothing more than so many languages. Nowadays we have come to look upon the idea of a religious war as grotesque; it is to be hoped that soon it will be the same, where the fights of nationalities are in question.” See Keyserling 1929, p. 56. In short, while Keyserling might be conservative by our today’s standards, he was a globalist in his time. Take, for example, his fervent interest in non-European cultures in The Travel Diary of a Philosopher.

30 Letter from Hermann Keyserling to Richard Wilhelm, 1913, available in BAdW, NL Wilhelm, II/258.

31 The original sentence is: “Das Problem des Konfuzianismus ist m.E. darin auf seinen letzten und konzisesten Ausdruck gebracht. Je mehr ich mich mit ihm literarisch und persönlich beschäftige, desto mehr sehe ich, daß Sie den Kernpunkt intuitiv erfaßt haben.” Letter from Richard Wilhelm to Hermann Keyserling, March 23, 1914, available in http://tudigit.ulb.tu-darmstadt.de/show/Keys-191/0449 (last accessed May 17, 2023).

32 See letter from Richard Wilhelm to Hermann Keyserling. March 23, 1914, available in http://tudigit.ulb.tu-darmstadt.de/show/Keys-191/0448 and http://tudigit.ulb.tu-darmstadt.de/show/Keys-191/0449 (both last accessed May 17, 2023).

33 The original sentence is: “Und wie eine Bestätigung war es mir, […] daß Sie eine Schule der Weisheit gegründet haben.” Letter from Richard Wilhelm to Hermann Keyserling. February 26, 1921, available in http://tudigit.ulb.tu-darmstadt.de/show/Keys-191/0452 and http://tudigit.ulb.tu-darmstadt.de/show/Keys-191/0453 (both last accessed May 17, 2023).

34 See letter from Richard Wilhelm to Salome Wilhelm. October 15, 1920, available in BAdW, NL Wilhelm, II/260h. Concerning Keyserling’s perspective, see Keyserling 1922, pp. 41–95, 147–200.

35 Jones 2016, p. 324.

36 Jones 2016, p. 328.

37 Gay 1968, p. 24.

38 Kolb – Schumann 2013, pp. 74–75.

39 Weitz 2007, p. 365.

40 Letter from Richard Wilhelm to Salome Wilhelm. April 12, 1921, available in BAdW, NL Wilhelm, II/260h.

41 See Jung 1989, p. 373.

42 The School of Wisdom continues to function to this day. See its webpage: https://schoolofwisdom.com/. In Germany, the members of the Institut für Praxis der Philosophie e.V. (IPPh) (http://www.ipph-darmstadt.de/ [last accessed May 17, 2023]) and the Schule des Rades (https://schuledesrades.org/ [last accessed May 17, 2023]) view their institutions as followers of the tradition of the School of Wisdom.

43 Keyserling 1929, p. 307. See also the chapter on “Politics and Wisdom,” Keyserling 1929, pp. 297–336.

44 Keyserling 1929, p. xiv.

45 Keyserling 1929, p. 313.

46 In Keyserling’s words, the future elites resembled an ideal “[t]hat is how Plato understood it, that is how the wise men of the East understood and [still] understand it” (So verstand es Plato, so verstanden und verstehen es die Weisen des Ostens). See Keyserling 1920a, p. 7.

47 The original statement is “Ich werde nie so viel sagen, daß dem Anderen dadurch das Selbstsuchen und Selbstdenken erspart würde.” See Keyserling 1920b, p. 4.

48 See Keyserling 1920a, p. 21.

49 Letter from Richard Wilhelm to Hermann Keyserling. February 26, 1921, available in http://tudigit.ulb.tu-darmstadt.de/show/Keys-191/0567 (last accessed May 17, 2023).

50 Wilhelm 1922, pp. 31–64.

51 The original sentence is: “Chinas Ideal des Herrschers ist ein verschiedenes, und das hat zum großen Teil den Verlauf der chinesischen Geschichte bestimmt. Weit mehr als die Gewalt und der Ruhm tritt die Verantwortung hervor. So ist es kein Zufall, daß an der Spitze der chinesischen Geschichte, wie sie durch das Konfuzianische Dogma festgelegt ist, drei Männer stehen, die unter den großen Herrschern Europas keine Parallelen haben: die Herrscher Yau, Schun und Yü. Man kann in ihnen die Prinzipien des Schöpfers, Förderers, Arbeiters verkörpert sehen. Sie heben sich nicht durch Pracht und Herrlichkeit von der Bevölkerung ab, vielmehr ist primitive Einfachheit ihrer Lebensgewohnheiten ein wesentlicher Bestandteil der Überlieferung.” See Wilhelm 1922, p. 34.

52 The original statement is: “Die chinesische Lösung des Gemeinschaftsproblems liegt nun eben darin, daß die Führerpersönlichkeiten vom Volk getragen sind, das sich mit ihnen eins weiß, und daß der Weg zum Aufstieg für jeden Tüchtigen ohne Schranken irgendeiner Kaste frei ist. Indem die Führer mehr dienen als herrschen und sich dienen lassen, fällt jene Zersetzung des Gemeinschaftsganzen in eine Oberschicht und Unterschicht weg, die für die europäische Geschichte so unheilvoll geworden ist. Das chinesische Volk ist bis auf den heutigen Tag im wesentlichen einschichtig.” See Wilhelm 1922, p. 38.

53 The original statement is: “Wir haben gesehen, daß in Europa die Entwicklung sich im wesentlichen durch Revolutionen hindurch vollzieht, die jedesmal einen Bruch bedeuten, worauf die ins Schwanken geratene Gesellschaft nach verschiedenem Ausschlagen der Pendelschwingungen nach rechts und links allmählich wieder in einen gewissen Gleichgewichtszustand kommt, in dem die Arbeit des Aufbaus jedesmal wieder von vorn begonnen werden muß. […] Dagegen in China existieren feste Grundrisse der Gesellschaftsorganisation, die sich bewährt haben und auf denen jederzeit wieder aufgebaut werden kann. Eine solche vollkommene Hilfslosigkeit wie die der europäischen Staatsmänner, die den Weltkrieg nicht vermeiden konnten und selbst – den Frieden von Versailles nicht vermeiden konnten, wäre in China vollkommen undenkbar. Solche Dinge können dort nur als äußerst jugendlich und unerfahren beurteilt werden.” See Wilhelm 1922, pp. 38–39.

54 Pu Wei later gave Wilhelm his copy of the Yijing. See Wilhelm 1916, pp. 20–21.

55 In his glowing review of the I Ging, published in Der Weg zur Vollendung in 1925, Keyserling described Wilhelm as “the one living master of the Yijing” (der eine lebende Meister des I Ging). See Keyserling 1925b, pp. 38–70, especially p. 39. We will discuss Keyserling’s review at a greater length later.

56 For a detailed account of the textual history of the Yijing, see Smith 2008, pp. 7–57. See also Raymond – Hon 2014, pp. 19–157. From today’s perspective, this three-layer approach to the Yijing seems ahistorical when the Yijing is read as a Bronze Age text. But as to the Neo-Confucian scholars from the 10th century to the early 20th century, they believed that the three layers of the Yijing were distinct and yet mutually reinforcing in conveying the profound meanings of the Yijing. A strong supporter of this approach is Zhu Xi 朱熹 (1130–1200).

57 For a study of Zhu Xi's interpretation of the Yijing, see Adler 2020, especially pp. 10–38.

58 See Zhu Xi’s interpretation of the Shi hexagram as rendered in Adler 2020, pp. 89–92.

59 Wilhelm – Baynes 1967, p. 32. It is important to notice that Wilhelm indeed speaks of “masses” (Massen): “Ein Heer ist eine Masse, die, um ein Heer zu werden, der Organisation bedarf.” Wilhelm 1924c, p. 23. See also his translation of 君子以容民畜眾 as “So mehrt der Edle durch Weitherzigkeit gegen [d]as Volk seine Massen.” Wilhelm 1924c, p. 24. Like Keyserling, Wilhelm was a critic of mass movement (see Wilhelm 1924c, pp. 4f; Wilhelm – Baynes 1967, p. 8); nevertheless, he was not totally unconcerned with the interests of the masses.

60 Wilhelm – Baynes 1967, p. 32. For comparison, see the diverging translations by Schilling and Simon. Schilling 2009, p. 36; Simon 2014, p. 74.

61 The original sentence is: “Disziplin läßt sich aber nicht durch Gewaltmittel erzwingen, sondern es braucht einen starken Mann, dem die Herzen sich zuwenden, der Begeisterung erweckt.” See Wilhelm 1924c, p. 24. Baynes renders the sentence slightly different. She uses “a strong man who captures the hearts of the people” (Wilhelm – Baynes 1967, p. 32) which indicates the leader’s more active role. In contrast, Wilhelm’s German phrasing is more in line with the idea of wuwei (non-action).

62 In discussing justified authority as a criterion for leadership, we may see Keyserling’s influence on Wilhelm. For Keyserling’s concept of authority (Autorität) vis-à-vis power (Macht), see Keyserling 1928, p. 35; Keyserling 1921, pp. 25–27, especially p. 27. See also Keyserling 1923, pp. 7–10. On p. 8 of that article, Keyserling writes: “Authority is only what has been recognized as power on free will” (Autorität ist einzig das freiwillig als Macht Anerkannte). Wilhelm made the same distinction between authority and power. See his comments on the hexagrams “Ch’ien/Qian” 乾 (#1, The Creative) and “P’i/Bi” 否 (#12, Obstruction), Wilhelm – Baynes 1967, p. 376.

63 Wilhelm – Baynes 1967, p. 32. In discussing Wilhelm’s comments on hexagrams, we quote from Wilhelm and Baynes, partly because of Baynes’ accuracy in rendering Wilhelm’s German prose, and partly because of its availability to readers in the Anglophone world. We will insert comments when we find significant differences between Wilhelm’s original German comments and Baynes’ renditions.

64 Wilhelm – Baynes 1967, p. 32.

65 Wilhelm – Baynes 1967, p. 32.

66 Wilhelm – Baynes 1967, p. 33.

67 Wilhelm – Baynes 1967, p. 35.

68 Wilhelm – Baynes 1967, p. 35.

69 Zhu Xi read this hexagram as a caution of overestimating one’s power. See Adler 2020, pp. 92–95.

70 See also Wilhelm’s comment: “Just as the luminaries in the sky serve for the systematic division and arrangement of time, so human society and all things that really belong together must be organically arranged. Fellowship should not be a mere mingling of individuals or of things – that would be chaos, not fellowship. If fellowship is to lead to order, there must be organization within diversity” (Wilhelm – Baynes 1967, p. 57).

71 Wilhelm – Baynes 1967, pp. 35–36.

72 Wilhelm – Baynes 1967, p. 36.

73 Wilhelm – Baynes 1967, p. 37.

74 Wilhelm – Baynes 1967, p. 39.

75 Wilhelm – Baynes 1967, p. 82. Zhu Xi sees this double meaning in this hexagram. To reflect this double meaning, Adler translates Guan as observed/observing. See Adler 2020, pp. 129–132.

76 Wilhelm – Baynes 1967, p. 82.

77 Wilhelm – Baynes 1967, p. 83.

78 Wilhelm – Baynes 1967, p. 83.

79 Wilhelm – Baynes 1967, p. 83.

80 This does not mean that Wilhelm never changed his view. For instance, he changed his impression of Gu Hongming. See Wilhelm 1924a, pp. 8–21, especially pp. 12–14. As a whole, it is certain that Wilhelm favored gradual reformism over revolution. As he stated in his journal Pekinger Abende (Beijing Evenings), the reforms of 1898 could have provided the necessary change in China, turning disorder into order. After foreign interference continued and intensified in the following years, “all reforms on the old basis could not prevent the [revolutionary] movement any longer […] and this was how China became a republic” (Alle Reformen auf alter Basis konnten nun die Bewegung nicht mehr aufhalten […] und so ward China Republik). Wilhelm 1924a, p. 13.

81 In Zhu Xi, we find a reading of Ge hexagram as “changing/overturning.” See Adler 2020, pp. 213–216. For further comparison, Schilling translates Ge as “The Turn (The Leather) [Die Wende (Das Leder)]” (Schilling 2009, p. 160) and Simon as “Change/Alteration [Änderung]” (Simon 2014, p. 360).

82 Today, the German noun Mauser is only attributed to birds and not anymore to animals in general.

83 In his commentary, Zhu Xi focuses on this restoration of normalcy by stressing the symbolism of cooking in a cauldron (Ding). See Adler 2020, pp. 217–220.

84 It is evident that Wilhelm preferred continuity over rupture, as he comments in Part III of the I Ging that “[w]hile Ko treats of revolution as such in its negative aspect, Ting shows the correct way of going about social reorganization.” Wilhelm – Baynes 1967, p. 641.

85 Wilhelm basically uses two terms in explaining “Ko/Ge,” Revolution and Umwälzung. See Wilhelm 1924c, p. 142. But Baynes decides to translate both as “revolution,” eliminating the subtle difference between a regime change and a political reform within the same government. Hence, the subtlety of change within a system is lost in the English translation.

86 Wilhelm – Baynes 1967, pp. 189–190.

87 This marks one of two occasions where Wilhelm uses the German term Revolution in his comment to “Ko/Ge.” See Wilhelm 1924c, p. 143.

88 Wilhelm – Baynes 1967, p. 191.

89 Wilhelm – Baynes 1967, p. 191.

90 Wilhelm – Baynes 1967, p. 191.

91 Wilhelm – Baynes 1967, p. 192.

92 We can see a stark contrast between the Sinologists’ assessment of the I Ging and Keyserling’s. For a glimpse of the Sinologists’ view of the I Ging, see Forke 1925, pp. 325–333; Hauer 1925, pp. 242–247. For instance: Alfred Forke did not like Wilhelm’s translation, as it represented a book of “little inner worth” (geringen inneren Wertes, see Forke 1925, p. 333. For Forke, Wilhelm’s I Ging had then little to do with the original text, as he added his own ideas into it, such as Plato’s theory of forms. Forke accused Wilhelm of mistranslating key terms such as dao (see Forke 1925, pp. 328–329). Another reviewer, Erich Hauer (1878–1936) was even more blunt, as he concluded: “I […] have come to the conviction that W[ilhelm] is a master of the German language, but not of the Chinese” (Ich […] bin zu der Überzeugung gelangt, daß W. ein Meister der deutschen Sprache, aber nicht der chinesischen ist), Hauer 1925, p. 246.

93 The original statement is: “Der I Ging geht davon aus, daß jede besondere Erscheinung, welcher Art sie auch sei, in ihrer raumzeitlichen Bestimmung nur als Bestandteil einer an sich unauflöslichen kosmischen Situation zu verstehen sei […]. Er geht weiter davon aus, daß in dieser Welt des Werdens und Vergehens jede Situation das Gesetz ihrer Verwandlung in sich trägt. Wenn heute etwas so erscheint, eben deshalb muß es morgen anders aussehen. Die jeweilige Richtung der Verwandlung sowie ihr nächstes Ziel lehrt nun der I Ging grundsätzlich bestimmen.” See Keyserling 1925b, p. 39.

94 The original sentence is: “Als Dokument und Wegweiser der Lebensweisheit steht dieses wundersame Buch in der gesamten Weltliteratur obenan.” See Keyserling 1925b, pp. 38–39.

95 Wilhelm 1924c, p. iii. By comparison, Baynes is less self-assured in rendering Wilhelm’s line. She translates Wilhelm’s line somewhat humbly as “unquestionably one of the most important books in the world’s literature.” See Wilhelm – Baynes 1967, p. xlvii.

96 This is what they imagined and what some readers, perhaps most prominently exemplified by Carl Jung or Rudolf von Delius (see Delius 1926, pp. 8–9, 14), have claimed.

97 Keyserling 1925b, p. 38.

98 Keyserling 1925b, p. 39.

99 For example, in his review of Wilhelm’s I Ging, Erwin Ritter von Zach (1872–1942) suggests that the translation could counteract the tendency of favoring the power of money over the power of the mind. See Zach 1926, pp. 606–609, especially p. 606.

100 Some of the shortcomings become evident when comparing Wilhelm’s rendition to recent translations, especially the aforementioned translations by Schilling and Simon who differ significantly from Wilhelm in terms of their choice of words and their interpretation of the Yijing text.

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Notes on contributors

Hon Tze-ki 韓子奇

Hon Tze-ki is Professor at the Research Centre for History and Culture at Beijing Normal University (Zhuhai) and the Dean of the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences at BNU-HKBU United International College in Zhuhai. Previously he taught at Hanover College in Indiana, State University of New York at Geneseo, and City University of Hong Kong. He is a specialist of the Yijing, particularly its textual body and its commentarial traditions. He has also published on the cultural history of China, modern Chinese thought, and Western studies of Chinese classics. He wrote three books: The Yijing and Chinese Politics (SUNY Press, 2005), Revolution as Restoration (Brill, 2013) and The Allure of the Nation (Brill, 2015). He co-authored Teaching the I Ching (Book of Changes) (Oxford University Press, 2014) with Geoffrey Redmond. He edited six volumes including Confucianism for the Contemporary World (SUNY Press, 2017), Cold War Cities (Routledge, 2021), and The Other Yijing (Brill, 2022). His articles have appeared in Journal of Chinese Philosophy, Modern China, Monumenta Serica, and Sungkyun Journal of East Asian Studies.

Andreas Günter Weis

Andreas Günter Weis is a Ph.D. student at the University of Göttingen and currently employed at its Department of East Asian Studies. His doctoral thesis in the field of Modern and Early Modern History is titled “The Sino-German Dimensions of China’s ‘Third Party’ between the early 1920s and the World War II Era.” His further research interests include colonial history as well as transnational cultural and political history of the 1920s. So far, he has published various book reviews, online articles as well as a journal article on “Chinas Ketteler-Denkmal: Das (Nach-)Leben eines deutschen Kolonialdenkmals im 20. und frühen 21. Jahrhundert. [China’s Ketteler-Monument – The (After-)Life of a German Colonial Monument in the Twentieth and Early Twenty-First Century],” Historische Anthropologie 28 (2020) 3, pp. 332–353.