Til RICHARD WILHELM: IN MEMORIAMRICHARD WILHELM: IN MEMORIAM* It imo easy task for me to speak of Richard Wilhelm and bis work, because, starting very far away from one another, our paths crossed in cometike fashion. His ife-work has a range that Ties outside my compass. I have never seen the China that fist moulded his thought and later continued to engross him, nor am I familiar with its language, the living expression of the Chi- nese East stand indeed asa stranger outside that vast realm of [knowledge and experience in which Wilhelm worked as a mas ter of his profession. He 38a sinologist and T asa doctor would probably never have come into contact had we remained special- fst, But we met ina eld of humanity which begins beyond the academic boundary poss. There lay our point of contact; there the spark leapt acros and kindled a light that was to become for ‘me one of the most significant events of my life, Because ofthis T tay perhaps speak of Wilhelm and his work, thinking with ‘yateful respect of this mind which created a bridge beween East and West and gave tothe Occident the precious heritage of calture thousands of years old, a culture perhaps destined to ‘disappear forever. ‘Wilhelm possesed the kind of mastery which is won only by 44 man who goes beyond his speciality, and so his striving for "origayalnered atthe principal addr atx mental mvioe Bld in Monch in May, ty or Wisi, ih fad i he revue Mare PD Tied me Maca fr icant Winey” Neue Pathe Pung, CU ach ‘ago and in the Chinese Dear dlmaeh Pana May Ree Pied i the nd etna Jong and Wl, Du Geen dr plener Btn chinese Lebesbch Zeya tele y Cary tuys stam append ong and Wii Phe Sct ofthe alar Fan (Comion and New Yo igs teed aed sogmeted eto, 6) Crate tontgmen me here to Min Baye for penis dew ope he tafe teen of ber tation For Jungs omen on The Set ofthe Gotan Flower Cot Wor, Vo i" Baros) 58“nowledge became a concern touching all mankind, Or rather, had been that from the beginning and remained so always What else could have liberated him so completely om the nar row horizon of the European —and indeed, of the missionary— tat no sooner had he delved into the secrets of the Chinese ‘mind than he perceived the treasure hidden there for us, and {Scrifced his European prejudices fo the sake of this rare pearl? Only an allembracing humanity, a greatness of heart that ole, could have enabled him to open himself reserve to 4 profoundly alien spirit, and to further it influence by putting his manifold gifts and capacities a its serv- ice, The understanding with which he devoted himself to this task, with no trace of Christan resentment or European arr ance, bears witness to a truly great mind: for all mediocre ‘inds in contact with a foreign culture either perish in the blind attempt to deracinate themselves or ese they indulge in an uncomprehending and presumptuous passion for critiism, ‘Toying only with the sisface and externals of the foreign cul ture, they lever eat its bread or drink its wine, and 50 never enter into a real communion of minds, hat most intimate trany- jon and interpenetration which generates a nev birth. ‘Ava rule, the specialist's i a purely masculine mind, an in: tellect to which fecundity isan allen and wnnatural process itis therefore an especially slladapted tool for giving Febirth to a orcign spirit, But a larger mind bears the stamp of the fem nines itis endovted with a receptive and fruitful womb which can reshape what is strange and give ita familiar form. Willen [posested the rate ift of a maternal intellect. To it he oWed bis timequalled ability to feel his way into the spirit of the Eas and to make his incomparable translations. “To me the greatest of his achievements i his translation of and commentary on, the J Ching? Before T came to know Wilk hhelm’s translation, Thad worked for years with Legge's inade uate rendering” and I was therefore fully able to appreciate the extraordinary difference between the two. Wilhelm has suc- ceeded in bringing te fite again, in new form, dis ancient work {20's tain of the Chine cae wa publi in Jon, 9 “Handned ne nit by Cay Roe se The hing, Bok of Changer (ium with sbrerord by Jong (we atl Wat, Vat i)-—tarow} |The 8 King, my Juin Lage Grd Books of the Et, Vo; 80. Bt in which not only many sinologists But most of the modern Chi neve se nothing more han a collection af absurd magical spells, ‘This book embodies, as perhaps no other, the living spirit of (Chinese civilcaton, for the best minds of China have ¢ollabo- rated on it and conteibuted to it for thousands of years. Despite its fabulous age it has never grown old, but still lives and works, at least for those who seek to understand its meaning. "That we too belong to thie favoured group we owe to the creative achievement of Wilhelm. He has brought the book closer t0 us| by his careful translation and personal experience both as a ‘pupil of a Chinese master of the old school and asa initiate in the psychology of Chinese yoga, who made constant use ofthe I Ching in practice. ‘But together with these rich gifs, Wilhelm has bequeathed tousa ask whose magnitude we ean only surmise at present but cannot fully apprehend, Anyone who, ike myself, hay had the tate good fortune to experience in association with Wilhelm the divinatory power of the J Ching cannot remain ignorant of the fat that we have here an Archimedean point from which our ‘Western attitude of mind could be lifted off it foundations. I is no small rervce to have giren us, as Wilhelm id, sich a com: prehensive and richly coloured picture of a foreign culture ‘What is even more important is that he has inoculated us with the living germ of the Chinese spirit, capable of working 4 fan damental change in our view of the world, We ate no longer seduced to being admiring or critical observers, ut find our selves partaking ofthe spirit ofthe East to the extent that we ‘sceeed in experiencing the living power ofthe J Ching. "The principle on which the use ofthe I Ching is based ap- pears at fist sight to be in complete contradiction to our scien {ic and causal thinking. For us itis unsciemifc in the extreme, almost taboo, and therefore outside the scope of our scientific judgment, indeed incomprehensible tit Some years ago, the then president of the British Anthropo- logieal Society asked me how it was that co highly intelligent 2 people as the Chinese had produced no science, I replied that this must be an optical iusion, since the Chinese did have 2 science whose standard text-book was the J Ching, but that the principle of this science, like so much else in China, was alto ether dierent from the principle of our science. 55