48. The Well

Wood is below, water above. The wood goes down into the earth to bring up water. The image de­rives from the pole-and-buck­et well of an­cient China. The wood rep­re­sents not the buck­ets, which in an­cient times were made of clay, but rather the wood­en poles by which the water is hauled up from the well. The image also refers to the world of plants, which lift water out of the earth by means of their fibers. The well from which water is drawn con­veys the fur­ther idea of an in­ex­haustible dis­pens­ing of nour­ish­ment.

In an­cient China the cap­i­tal cities were some­times moved, part­ly for the sake of more fa­vor­able lo­ca­tion, part­ly be­cause of a change in dy­nas­ties. The style of ar­chi­tec­ture changed in the course of cen­turies, but the shape of the well has re­mained the same from an­cient times to this day. Thus the well is the sym­bol of that so­cial struc­ture which, evolved by mankind in meet­ing its most prim­i­tive needs, is in­de­pen­dent of all po­lit­i­cal forms. Po­lit­i­cal struc­tures change, as do na­tions, but the life of man with its needs re­mains eter­nal­ly the same—this can­not be changed. Life is also in­ex­haustible. It grows nei­ther less nor more; it ex­ists for one and for all. The gen­er­a­tions come and go, and all enjoy life in its in­ex­haustible abun­dance.

How­ev­er, there are two pre­req­ui­sites for a sat­is­fac­to­ry po­lit­i­cal or so­cial or­ga­ni­za­tion of mankind. We must go down to the very foun­da­tions of life. For any mere­ly su­per­fi­cial or­der­ing of life that leaves its deep­est needs un­sat­is­fied is as in­ef­fec­tu­al as if no at­tempt at order had ever been made. Care­less­ness—by which the jug is bro­ken—is also dis­as­trous. If for in­stance the mil­i­tary de­fense of a state is car­ried to such ex­cess that it pro­vokes wars by which the power of the state is an­ni­hi­lat­ed, this is a break­ing of the jug.

This hexa­gram ap­plies also to the in­di­vid­ual. How­ev­er men may dif­fer in dis­po­si­tion and in ed­u­ca­tion, the foun­da­tions of human na­ture are the same in every­one. And every human being can draw in the course of his ed­u­ca­tion from the in­ex­haustible well­spring of the di­vine in man’s na­ture. But here like­wise two dan­gers threat­en: a man may fail in his ed­u­ca­tion to pen­e­trate to the real roots of hu­man­i­ty and re­main fixed in con­ven­tion—a par­tial ed­u­ca­tion of this sort is as bad as none— or he may sud­den­ly col­lapse and ne­glect his self­‑de­vel­op­ment.

The tri­gram Sun, wood, is below, and the tri­gram K’an, water, is above it. Wood sucks water up­ward. Just as wood as an or­gan­ism im­i­tates the ac­tion of the well, which ben­e­fits all parts of the plant, the su­pe­ri­or man or­ga­nizes human so­ci­ety, so that, as in a plant or­gan­ism, its parts co-op­er­ate for the ben­e­fit of the whole.