Concept
Metal (wuxing)
Overview
In Chinese philosophy, metal or gold (Chinese: 金; pinyin: jīn) is one of the five concepts that form the wuxing. It is the return or the declining stage, and is associated with the Western direction, dusk, autumn, loss, grief, the later years of life and the White Tiger. In Traditional Chinese Medicine, Metal is the young yin symbol of Yinyang philosophy, its motion is going inwards and its energy is contracting. It is related to the Zung solid organ the lungs, and the fu or hollow organ the large intestine, Its energy has governance over the respiratory system including the noses, and the skin. The archetypal metals are silver or gold denoting something of selfworth, special or valuable.
Overview adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0; see the article history for authors).
In the original texts
Passages from public-domain books where Metal (wuxing) is discussed.
The labor-time required for the production of the metals will depend on the degree of their natural scarcity, as well as on the greater or less difficulty with which they can be obtained in a purely metallic state. As a matter of fact, gold is the first metal discovered by man.
Karl Marx, A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy
names the idea; a chapter is titled for it
The use of metals in this rude state was attended with two very considerable inconveniences; first, with the trouble of weighing, and secondly, with that of assaying them. In the precious metals, where a small difference in the quantity makes a great difference in the value, even the business of weighing, with proper exactness, requires at least very accurate weights and scales. The weighing of gold, in particular…
Adam Smith, An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations
names the idea; states what it is; opens on it
In order to supply so very widely extended a market, the quantity of silver annually brought from the mines must not only be sufficient to support that continued increase, both of coin and of plate, which is required in all thriving countries; but to repair that continual waste and consumption of silver which takes place in all countries where that metal is used. The continual consumption of the precious metals in…
Adam Smith, An Inquiry Into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations
names the idea; states what it is; opens on it
There is some slight degree of foundation for this remark, but no more than a slight degree. The arrangement of things into classes, such as the class _metal_, or the class _man_, is grounded indeed on a resemblance among the things which are placed in the same class, but not on a mere general resemblance: the resemblance it is grounded on consists in the possession by all those things, of certain common…
John Stuart Mill, A System of Logic
names the idea; states what it is
The only genuine Corinthian vessels are those which these men of taste metamorphose, sometimes into table dishes, sometimes into lamps, or even into wash-basins, without any regard to decency. They are of three kinds; the white variety, approaching very nearly to the splendor of silver, and in which that metal forms a large proportion of the compound; a second kind, in which the yellow color of gold predominates…
the Elder Pliny, The Boys' and Girls' Pliny
names the idea; opens on it
Philosophers who discussed Metal (wuxing)
Related ideas
- Yin and yang
- Chinese astrology
- Taoism
- Chinese philosophy
- Traditional Chinese medicine
- Wuxing (Chinese philosophy)
- Earthly Branches
- Fire (wuxing)
- Earth (wuxing)
- Water (wuxing)
- Wood (wuxing)
Place in the tradition
Part of School of Naturalists.