既濟 → 晉

Commentary

Water sits above fire, but the law has grown lax, breeding treachery. No one is willing to right injustice. Officials drift and lose their principles; the ruler suffers the consequences. The verse diagnoses institutional decay: when enforcement relaxes, wrongdoing multiplies, and grievances fester unaddressed until the sovereign himself is imperiled. From After Completion to Progress, fire-and-water balance yields to fire rising above the earth — the brightness of Progress emerging from darkness. Yet the verse is ironic: progress should illuminate and correct, but here the advancing light only exposes how thoroughly corruption has eaten through the system. The completed order decayed precisely because no one upheld the standards that made completion possible.