Theme
Sublime Success
Carried by two chapters
Sublime success renders the first two of the Creative's four attributes (Chinese yüan heng). Wilhelm gives the literal force of "sublime":
The Chinese word here rendered by "sublime" means literally "head," "origin," "great."
Confucius, quoted in the commentary, expands it into a hymn to origination:
Great indeed is the generating power of the Creative; all beings owe their beginning to it. This power permeates all heaven.
"Success" is then the power to carry that origin into form:
the Creative furthermore has power to lend form to these archetypes of ideas. This is indicated in the word success ... "The clouds pass and the rain does its work, and all individual beings flow into their forms."
Sublime success is therefore the fullest promise the oracle can give: a beginning that carries within it the whole arc of its own fruitful completion. Its slightly lesser twin is Supreme Success.