Wood	Fire	Earth	Metal	Water
Direction	East	South	Centre	West	North
Colour	Green	Red	Yellow	White	Black
Tastes	Sour	Bitter	Sweet	Acrid	Salty
Emotion	Anger	Joy	Pensive	Grief	Fear
Seasons	Spring	Summer		Autumn	Winter

There are five elements and four seasons, thus the earth becomes assigned to the centre thereby aiding the other elements in the 'rule' of the seasons. This gives us a view of earth as the pivot around which the seasons revolve. However, there are some who assign mid-summer as earth's season and others who say that the mid-month of each season corresponds to earth. Tung Chung-Shu talks of earth as controlling nothing in particular but being the central authority of the four seasons. He writes "The Earth is the controller of the five elements and without the ch'i of the soil nothing can be accomplished". (Ch'un Ch'iu Fan Lu. Wu Hsing Chih Yi Chapter) The cause of the movements of the elements is the yin ch'i and the yang ch'i which alternate between flourishing and declining. Here we have the three most important concepts of Chinese thought brought together, yin-yang, wu hsing and ch'i. Ch'i has a wide variety of meaning, we can speak of yin ch'i tang ch'i, the ch'i of each of the five elements, the ch'i of social order, the ch'i of the individual. Each 'thing' is considered to have its proper ch'i and the movement of ch'i gives us the movement of yin and yang through the five elements. Each element is said to flourish when its ch'i is yang and to decline when its ch'i is yin, thus seasonal changes are caused by the flourishing and decline of Yin-Yang. This shows the cyclic nature of the perpetual motion of all changes.
This cosmological theory was developed by thinkers of all later schools. The concepts were used to correlate human actions with the actions of nature. This idea, in differing expressions, was used by both Confucian and Taoist philosophers during the Han Dynasty. The Confucians used it to develop political and ethical ideas whilst the Taoists concentrated on the direct relationship between individuals and nature. Both the public and the private areas of life were covered with these concepts. As it is the way of nature to process through periods of flourishing and decline so it is with human affairs. The patterns of nature are reflected in both the life of the individual and of the wider society.
There was one further area that was covered with these concepts, that of History. History was cyclic, as it was considered to be the counterpart in the human sphere of the cycles of the universe. It is this cyclic notion of the myriad things and the centrality of change that makes Chinese thinkers so different from those of other traditions. Unlike their Japanese, Jewish or Christian counterparts they did not assign a temporal beginning to the universe, neither did they talk of the end of the universe. In the Yin-Yang/Five Elements theory time itself is a series of cycles based upon the movement of the planets. For these thinkers time extends indefinitely into the past and the future. As long as there is motion in the universe there is time and thereby change. There is no idea of a creator, because there is no beginning and as long as the planets are in motion there can be no end. These ideas are direct developments of the cosmological theory.
It is the interdependent interaction of Yin-Yang and Wu Hsing that sustains everything. The concepts of Yin-Yang and Five Elements have a great influence in Chinese life, from the Emperor to the ordinary people all are governed by these ideas of the relations between humans and nature. Yin-Yang nurture and produce the myriad things, the Five Elements describe their natural progression through their 'life'. All things have their natural state of activity, and are connected together by the ch'i of each of the myriad things. Thus humans and nature, heaven and earth, the individual and society are bound together in a harmonious relationship. The scholars concentrated on the metaphysical and cosmological aspects of these ideas, whilst the 'ordinary people' used them to give authority to the various forms of divination that developed over the years. These ideas permeate all areas of Chinese thought and action, and form the ground of Chinese culture and civilisation for over two thousand years.