“It is no accident that, of the early Jesuit scholars who were pioneers in making China's culture known in Europe, those who concerned themselves with the Book of Changes were all later declared to be insane or heretic. Indeed, to the Chinese themselves the study of the I Ching is not to be taken lightly. By an unwritten law, only those advanced in years regard themselves as ready to learn from it. Confucius is said to have been seventy years old when he first took up the Book of Changes.”

“According to a Confucian view, there are four steps in social develpment, wrote Wilhem (Sr.). There are the individual, the family, the state, and mankind. The West had always emphasized the individual and the state. Individual development is extolled, and the single human being is regarded as central and as an atom of society. Over-emphasis on the function of the individual has led to deterioration of the family. Unlike Westerners, the Chinese have given greater weight to family and mankind. The consciousness of the individual is contained in the family, and since traditional China considered itself the world, Chinese considered themselves responsible for humankind rather than for the state.”

“(T)his is precisely the importance of the world-view described in the Book of Changes: there is no situation without a way out. All situations are stages of change. Therefore, even when things are most difficult we can plant the seed for a new situation that will preserve within itself the present situation, though we must be capable of adapting and finding the proper attitude.”

“Therefore, it is believed that the ancestors return after a lapse of tiem as if to a general and spiritual reservoir from which they will sooner or later unite once more with human bodies and human souls as their stimuli and impulses to life. ... Such is more or less the idea of Confucianism. And the only exception is that all human beings are not viewed as equally immortal. Whoever has harmonized his nature and caused his existence to be so effective as to emanate magical powers because they can transform and act creatively, such a person will not return after death. He will not be a Kuei, but a Shen. Shen means someone divinely effective -- man as hero, who is connected with the entire cultural complex. The duration of the culture is also his duration, because his life endures in the pantheon of this culture.”

“Every position in life is balanced by creating a harmony between the inner self and the surrounding world.”

“Therefore, the eight trigrams are frequently coordinated with the day, and they can of course also be correlated with the course of the year. ... A cycle of twelve hexagrams from the Book of Changes, the so-called P'i Kua is often also correlated witht he course of the year. ... These eight trigrams, then are coordinated with the times of the day and the cardinal points, and have, in addition, very interesting psychological correlations.”

“The situations depicted in the Book of Changes are the primary data of life -- what happens to everybody, every day, and what is simple and easy to understand.”