Note 2 — VOORWOORD.
Reading edition
Prof. Legge zegt zeer terecht van de chineesche karakters of schriftsymbolen: „The written characters of Chinese are not representations of words but symbols of ideas, and the combination of them in composition is not a representation of what the writer would say, but of what he thinks. It is in vain, therefore, for a translator to attempt a litteral version. When the symbolic characters have brought his mind „en rapport” with that of the author, he is free to render his ideas in his own, or any other speech, in the best manner he can attain to.….. In a study of a Chinese classical book there is not so much an interpretation of the characters employed by the writer as a participation of the thoughts; there is the seeing mind to mind.”2