Judgment
The Creative effects sublime success, furthered by perseverance.
In their original sense, these qualities belong together in pairs. For one who draws this oracle, it means that success will come to them from the primal depths of the world's unfolding, and that everything depends on their seeking their own happiness and that of others solely through perseverance in what is right.
Very early, reflection turned to the four qualities in their individual significance. The Chinese word rendered as "sublime" means "head, origin, great." Therefore Confucius says in his explanation: "Great indeed is the originating power of the Creative; all beings owe their beginning to it. And this power pervades the whole of heaven." For this first quality runs through the other three as well.
The beginning of all things lies, so to speak, still in the beyond, in the form of ideas that must first come into realization. But within the Creative there also lies the power to give form to these primal images of ideas. This is designated by the word "success." The process is depicted under an image from nature.
"The clouds pass, and the rain works, and all individual beings flow into their forms." Transposed to the human domain, these qualities show the great man the way to great success: "By seeing cause and effect with great clarity, they complete the six stages at the right time, and rise on them at the right time as if upon six dragons up to heaven." The six stages are the six individual positions of the hexagram, which are represented further below under the image of dragons. The way to success is here designated as the recognition and realization of the meaning of the world, which, as an overarching law running through end and beginning, brings about all phenomena conditioned by time. Thus every stage attained becomes at the same time the preparation for the next, and time is no longer a hindrance but the means for realizing what is possible.
Once the act of creation has found expression in the two qualities "sublime" and "success," the work of preservation, as an ongoing unfolding realization, is shown in connection with the two further expressions "furthering," literally "creating what accords with the essence," and "persevering," literally "right and firm." "The course of the Creative alters and forms beings until each attains the right nature allotted to it; then it preserves them in accord with the great equanimity. Thus it shows itself as furthering through perseverance."
Transposed to the human domain, this shows how the great man, through their ordering activity, brings peace and security to the world: "By lifting their head above the multitude of beings, all lands come to rest together."
Another line of speculation takes the separation of the words "sublime, success, furthering, persevering" still further and sets them in parallel with the four human cardinal virtues. To "sublimity," which as fundamental principle embraces all the other qualities, love is assigned. To the quality "success" is assigned propriety, which orders, organizes, and thereby makes successful the expressions of love. To the quality "furthering" is assigned justice, which creates conditions in which each receives what accords with their essence, what is due to them, and what constitutes their happiness. To the quality "perseverance" is assigned wisdom, which knows the firm laws of all events and is therefore able to create lasting conditions.
These speculations, already suggested in the Wen Yen essay in the second part of the Book of Changes, then formed the bridge by which the philosophy of the five stages of change (the elements), as anchored in the Book of Documents, was combined with the philosophy of the Book of Changes, which rests purely on the polar duality of positive and negative principles. Over time this opened the door to an ever more extensive number-symbolism.