《易传·系辞传上·第八章》
圣人见天下万事万物的繁杂，因而拟测万事万物的形态，而归纳为八个基本卦，以象征万事万物所适宜的物象，所以叫做 象 。
圣人有以见天下之赜，而拟诸其形容，像其物宜，是故谓之象。
The sage sees that all things in the world are complex and manifold, so he reflects upon the forms of all things and summarizes them into eight basic trigrams, which symbolize the images that are appropriate for all things. This is called Xiang.