The following letter, received on 25 March 1985, was written by Dr. Michael Friedrich and Dr. Michael Lackner. Further correspondence may be addressed to them at the Institut für Ostasienkunde – Sinologie, Universität München, Trautenwolfstrasse 3, 8000 München 40, Federal Republic of Germany.
We submit the following as a belated addendum to the debate on the concept of wu-hsing in Early China 2 (1976) and 3 (1977).
First, we should like to point out that the whole debate is obviously based on a narrowly modern conception of “element,” which only covers one tenth of the history of the term. The following passages should help to remedy this regrettable neglect of the broader and chronologically more significant meaning of the concept. They are drawn directly from original sources rather than from works such as Needham's, which has already been overworked for this purpose.