Chapter[ VI. WEAK POINTS AND STRONG
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Item[ 34. The five elements (water, fire, wood, metal, earth) are
not always equally predominant;
[That is, as Wang Hsi says: "they predominate
alternately."]
the four seasons make way for each other in turn.
[Literally, "have no invariable seat."]
There are short days and long; the moon has its periods of waning
and waxing.
[Cf. V. ss. 6. The purport of the passage is simply to
illustrate the want of fixity in war by the changes constantly
taking place in Nature. The comparison is not very happy,
however, because the regularity of the phenomena which Sun Tzu
mentions is by no means paralleled in war.]
[1] See Col. Henderson's biography of Stonewall Jackson, 1902
ed., vol. II, p. 490.
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