Concept

Water (wuxing)

Overview

fifth of the five elements in the Wu Xing cycle in Chinese astrology

Overview adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0; see the article history for authors).

Possible passages

Found by search and not yet checked by a person; they may only mention the idea in passing.

1. Man cannot live for more than a few minutes without air, but he can live for a few days without water. And in the absence of other food, he can subsist on water alone for many days. There is more than 70% of water in the composition of our food-stuffs, as in that of the human body. Even though water is so indispensable, we take hardly any pains to keep it pure. Epidemics are as much the outcome of our indifference…

   Mahatma Gandhi, A Guide to Health

   The chapter “WATER” is titled for Water; names Water several times.

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2. Thus the two paths of metamorphosis of the fire run continuously side by side, upwards and downwards, to and fro, from fire to water, from water to earth, from earth back again to water, from water to fire. Whereas Heraclitus is a follower of Anaximander in the most important of these conceptions, _e.g.,_ that the fire is kept up by the evaporations, or herein, that out of the water is dissolved partly earth, partly…

   Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche, Early Greek Philosophy & Other Essays Collected Works, Volume Two

   Names Water several times; states what Water is.

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3. Nor do I on the other side, think that it can be said, that the superiour parts of the water are the more dense, although a most grave Authour hath esteemed the superiour water in the Sea to be so, grounding his opinion upon its being more salt, than that at the bottom: but I doubt the Experiment, whether hitherto in taking the water from the bottom, the Observatour did not light upon some spring of fresh water…

   Galileo Galilei, A Discourse Presented to the Most Serene Don Cosimo II., Great Duke of Tuscany, Concerning the Natation of Bodies Vpon, and Submersion In, t

   Names Water several times; states what Water is.

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Philosophers who discussed Water (wuxing)

• Zou Yan

Related ideas

• Yin and yang
• Mercury (planet)
• Taoism
• Chinese philosophy
• Wuxing (Chinese philosophy)
• Jing (Chinese medicine)
• Fire (wuxing)
• Earth (wuxing)
• Wood (wuxing)
• Metal (wuxing)

Place in the tradition

Part of School of Naturalists.

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