Proper correlation between lines

Proper correlation between lines is a rule for interpreting the relations between corresponding positions in a hexagram. It pairs the first line with the fourth, the second with the fifth, and the third with the sixth; ordinarily, the relation is considered complete when one line is whole and the other divided. The rule gives structural relationships practical meaning, but its applications show that the surrounding hexagram, its political or social situation, and the commentators’ interpretive choices can qualify or even overturn the pattern.

The Rule and Its Interpretive Context

A hexagram comprises six lines, and the paired positions connect its lower and upper trigrams. The second and fifth positions are especially consequential because they are the middle lines of their respective trigrams. In the usual scheme, a complete correlation between those positions can represent a capable minister or officer acting in beneficial concert with a ruler or commander. The significance is not mechanical: it depends on the hexagram’s name and the condition it represents, so a line’s meaning changes with the whole figure rather than following from position alone.

The commentary presents correlation as one element in a broader reading that joins the figure, its lines, and the hexagram’s subject. In explaining a hexagram, the whole-figure judgment is expected to agree with the combined significance of the six line interpretations; understanding what the hexagram denotes is therefore essential to interpreting any one pairing. The rule offers a way to reason from structure, not a substitute for reading the particular circumstances represented by the figure.

Cooperation Despite Imperfect Correspondence

The commentary on Great Havings demonstrates how a fitting pair can organize a political relationship. Its strong second line has the proper correlate in the fifth, the ruler of the figure. The second line’s strength is directed in subordination to the ruler’s humility, and the commentary treats that mutual action as beneficial. The point is not simply that two positions match: their different qualities make cooperation possible, while the ruler’s humility and the subordinate’s restraint give the relation its positive force.

The discussion of Opposition shows that the rule need not dictate separation where circumstances permit cooperation. The first and fourth lines are both strong, so their pairing would ordinarily promise disappointment and regret rather than a complete correlation. Yet the commentary says that people who share a common virtue can help one another in a time of division. The traveller’s lost horses, which return of themselves, symbolize the first line’s recovery through the other’s good service. In the same hexagram, the fourth line lacks a proper correlate, but it can still join the first line’s subject in good will and success: in this condition of disunion, lines of the same class may support each other.

Circumstance Can Obstruct or Redirect a Pairing

The second and fifth lines in Opposition are properly correlated in their qualities, but the division and mutual alienation defining the hexagram prevent an easy, open meeting. The commentary nevertheless finds value in a chance, discreet interview in a side lane or passage, which may prepare the way for better understanding. Structural compatibility remains meaningful, but the social condition determines how the relationship can be realized.

The third and sixth lines in the same figure present a different complication. Their qualities appear to form the relation they ought to have, yet the weak third line is checked between strong lines, and the time of disunion brings repulsion and punishment. Its prospects are bad at first but improve in the end through the strength of the sixth line. The commentary uses this course to express confidence that what is right and good will ultimately overcome what is wrong, and that disorder and disunion will give way to order and union. Here the pairing helps explain a relationship’s possible direction without erasing the immediate obstacles.

Exceptions and Limits

In Abundance, the commentary explicitly identifies a departure from the ordinary rule: two whole lines are treated as correlated. It calls the adjustment a rule made for the occasion and observes that it substantially unsettles the general doctrine of correspondence. The first line’s correlate is the fourth, a pairing that would normally be judged unfortunate; in this hexagram, however, the text calls the fourth its mate. The interpretation draws from that exception a lesson about mutual helpfulness as a means of maintaining prosperity.

This acknowledged irregularity clarifies the rule’s status. Proper correlation between lines is a recurring interpretive principle, not an inflexible law that determines every reading in advance. The commentary reports that the standard rules hold often, while also noting deviations; one especially conspicuous exception is enough to expose the limits of treating line structure as a self-sufficient code. A sound reading must weigh the correspondence alongside the figure’s subject and the conditions the text assigns to it.