Examining One's Own Character at the Top of Contemplation

The final line examines the examiner. Legge's translation shows its subject contemplating his character to see whether it is indeed that of a superior man, and states that he will not fall into error, while the Little Symbolism adds a striking qualification: he cannot even yet let his mind be at rest. The hexagram closes with a person who has passed the test and is still not finished testing.

Standing at the summit of the upper trigram Xun, the wind that moves over the earth, this strong stroke occupies an even place and is incorrect by the standard rule. Top positions commonly mark someone past office, and the difference between this line and the fifth below it is precisely the difference between holding a standard and no longer having a post through which to apply it. What remains is character, examined for its own sake.

Set against the first line, the hexagram has covered the whole distance it set out to travel. It began with a lad looking at a rite he could not read and ends with a man reading himself and declining to be satisfied. The freedom from error the text grants is genuine, and the unrest the commentary describes is not a contradiction of it but the reason it holds. Contemplation ends here as a habit rather than as a conclusion, which is the only form of it that could survive the loss of an office.