University of Virginia Library

3. Wang Ch`ung's Philosophy.

At first sight Wang Ch`ung's philosophy might seem dualistic,
for he recognises two principles, which are to a certain extent
opposed to each other, the Yang and the Yin fluid. But, although
the former, which is conceived as forming heaven as well as the
human mind, be more subtle than the latter, from which the earth
has been created, yet it is by no means immaterial. Both these
principles have been evolved from Chaos, when the original fluid
became differentiated and split into two substances, a finer one,
Yang, and a coarser one, Yin. We do not find a purely spiritual
or transcendent correlate to these two substances such e.g. as Tao,
the all-embracing mystical force of the Taoists, or Li "Reason,"
which in Chu Hsi's system rules over Matter "Ch`i," and thus makes
this system truly dualistic. Even Fate, which takes such a prominent
place in Wang Ch`ung's philosophy; has been materialised
by him, and it is hardly anything more than a sort of a natural
law. We cannot be far wrong, if we characterise his philosophy
as a materialistic monism.

Compared with western thought Wang Ch`ung's system bears
some resemblance to the natural philosophy of Epicurus and Lucretius.
In the East we find some kindred traits among the Indian materialists,
the Chârvâkas.

Epicurus attaches great importance to physics. The knowledge
of the natural causes of things shall be an antidote against superstitions.
Wang Ch`ung likewise takes a lively interest in all physical
problems, and tries to base his arguments on experience, as far as
possible. He wishes to explain all natural phenomena by natural
causes. His method is quite modern. If he often falls into error
nevertheless, it is not so much owing to bad reasoning as to the

poor state of Chinese science at his time. He regards many things as
proved by experience, which are not, and in spite of his radicalism
has still too much veneration for the sayings of old classical authors.

Wang Ch`ung's views agree, in many respects, with the Epicurean
Physics, but not with its Eudæmonology and Sensualism,
his Ethics being totally different. Ethical Epicureanism has its
representative in China in the pre-Christian philosopher Yang Chu, who
seems to have concerned himself with Ethics exclusively, whereas
Wang Ch`ung has especially devoted himself to the study of metaphysical
and physical questions. The professed aim of the philosophy
of Epicurus is human happiness. By delivering them from
errors and superstitions he intends to render people happy. Wang
Ch`ung likewise hopes to do away with all inventions, fictions, and
falsehoods, but in doing so he has truth, and not so much happiness
in view.

a) Metaphysics.

The pivots of Wang Ch`ung's philosophy are Heaven and Earth,
which have been formed of the two fluids, Yang and Yin. "The
fluids of the Yin and Yang, he says, are the fluids of Heaven and
Earth" (Chap. XXX). These two principles are not of Wang Ch`ung's
invention, they are met with in ancient Chinese literature, in the
Yiking and the Liki for instance (see Tchou Hi, Sa Doctrine et son
influence, par S. Le Gall, Chang-hai 1894, p. 35).

Earth is known to us, it has a material body like man
(p. 93), but what are we to understand by Heaven? Is it a spirit,
the Spirit of Heaven or God, or merely an expanse of air, the
Blue Empyrean, or a substance similar to that of Earth? Wang
Ch`ung considers all these possibilities and decides in favour of the
last. "Men are created by heaven, why then grudge it a body?"
he asks. "Heaven is not air, but has a body on high and far
from men" (Chap. XIX). "To him who considers the question, as
we have done, it becomes evident that heaven cannot be something
diffuse and vague." His reasons are that heaven has a certain
distance from earth, which by Chinese mathematicians has been
calculated at upwards of 60,000 Li, and that the constellations
known as the solar mansions are attached to it. These arguments
seem strange to us now, but we must bear in mind that the Greeks,
the Babylonians, and the Jews held quite similar views, regarding
heaven as an iron or a brazen vault, the "firmament" to which the
sun, the moon, and the stars were fixed, or supposing even quite a
number of celestial spheres one above the other, as Aristotle does.

With regard to the origin of the universe Wang Ch`ung simply
adopts the old creation theory, on which he writes as follows:—
"The commentators of the Yiking say that previous to the separation
of the primogenial vapours, there was a chaotic and uniform
mass, and the books of the Literati speak of a wild medley, and
of air not yet separated. When it came to be separated, the pure
elements formed heaven, and the impure ones, earth. According
to the expositors of the Yiking and the writings of the Literati
the bodies of heaven and earth, when they first became separated,
were still small, and they were not far distant from each other"
(loc. cit.). In conformity with this view Heaven and Earth were
originally one viz. air or vapour. This theory must be very old,
for it is already alluded to in the Liki, and the Taoist philosopher
Lieh Tse of the 5th cent. b.c., who gives the best exposition of it,
seems to refer it to the sages of former times. The passage is so
interesting, that I may be permitted to quote it in full:—

"The teacher Lieh Tse said:—The sages of old held that the
Yang and the Yin govern heaven and earth. Now, form being
born out of the formless, from what do heaven and earth take
their origin? It is said:—There was a great evolution, a great
inception, a great beginning, and a great homogeneity. During
the great evolution, Vapours were still imperceptible, in the great
inception Vapours originate, in the great beginning Forms appear,
and during the great homogeneity Substances are produced."

"The state when Vapours, Forms, and Substances though
existing were still undivided, is called Chaos, which designates
the conglomeration and inseparability of things. `They could not
be seen though looked at, not be heard though listened to, and
not be attained though grasped at,' therefore one speaks of (incessant)
evolution. Evolution is not bound to any forms or limits."

"Evolution in its transformations produces one, the changes
of one produce seven, the changes of seven produce nine. Nine
is the climax, it changes again, and becomes one. With one forms
begin to change."

"The pure and light matter becomes the heaven above, the
turbid and heavy matter forms the earth below. The mixture
of their fluids gives birth to man, and the vitalizing principle of
heaven and earth creates all beings" (Lieh Tse I, 2).

In the Liki we read:—"Propriety must have sprung from
the Great One. This by division became Heaven and Earth, and
by transformation the Yin and the Yang" (Legge's Liki, Vol. I,
p. 386).

It is curious to note the similarity of the Epicurean cosmogony
with that of the ancient Chinese. Lucretius sings:—

and further on:—

(Lucr.V, 439-449; 485-493.)

The principle of division is the same:—the light primary
bodies Wang Ch`ung and the Chinese cosmogonists term Yang, the
heavy ones they designate by Yin. Only in respect of the line of
demarcation the Epicureans and the Chinese differ, for, whereas
the former regard earth alone as heavy and water, air and ether
as light matter, the Chinese comprise earth and water under the
term Yin, and air and fiery ether under Yang. From various utterances
of Wang Ch`ung it would appear that he conceives the Yang
as a fiery and the Yin as a watery element, in short that Yang is
fire and Yin water. This would tolerably well account for the
formation of the universe. Fire forms the sun, the moon, and the
other luminaries of Heaven, while from water and its sediments
Earth, the oceans, and the atmosphere are developed. "The solar
fluid is identical with the heavenly fluid" (Chap. XVIII), says Wang
Ch`ung, and:—"Rain is Yin, and brightness Yang, and conversely
cold is Yin, and warmth is Yang" (Chap. XXI).

The other attributes given by Wang Ch`ung to the Yang and
the Yin principles are merely the qualities of fire and water. The

Yang, the fiery ether or the solar fluid, is bright, i. e. light (Chap. XX),
warm (Chap. XXI), dry (Chap. XVIII), vivifying, and creative
(Chap. XXI). The Yin, rain or water, is dark, cold, wet, and
destructive (p. 111). By itself water possesses neither light nor
warmth, and may well be called dark and cold.

There is not a strict separation of the fluids of Heaven and
Earth, they often mix and permeate one another. Heaven as well
as Earth enclose air (Chap. XIX). The immense mass of air forming
the gaseous part of Heaven, which, as we have seen, is credited
with a body, is called sky (p. 113).

Now, whereas Earth rests motionless in the centre of the
world, Heaven revolves around it, turning from east to west.
This movement is explained as the emission of the heavenly fluid
which, however, takes place spontaneously. Spontaneity is another
corner-stone of Wang Ch`ung's system. It means that this movement
is not governed by any intelligence or subservient to the
purposes of any spiritus rector, but is solely regulated by its own
inherent natural laws. The same idea is expressed in Madhavacharya's
Sarva-Darśsana Sangraha:

(Sarva-Darśsana-Samgraha,translated byE. B. CowellandA. E. Gough,
London 1882, p. 19.)

Wang Ch`ung admits that he has adopted the principle of
spontaneity from the Taoists, who however, have not sufficiently
substantiated it by proofs (p. 97). He shows that Heaven cannot
display a conscious activity like man, because such activity is
evoked by desires and impulses, which require organs:—the eye,
the mouth, etc. The heavenly fluid is not a human body with
eyes and ears, but a formless and insensible mass (p. 93). The
observation of the natural growth of plants and of the regularity
of other natural phenomena precluding the idea of special designed
acts, has confirmed our philosopher in his belief in spontaneity.
"The principle of Heaven is inaction," he says. "Accordingly in
spring it does not do the germinating, in summer the growing,
in autumn the ripening, or in winter the hiding of the seeds.
When the Yang fluid comes forth spontaneously, plants will germinate
and grow of themselves and, when the Yin fluid rises, they
ripen and disappear of their own accord" (p. 99).

The movement of the Yin fluid is spontaneous likewise.
"Heaven and Earth cannot act, nor do they possess any knowledge"

(p. 101). They are not inert, but their activity is unintentional
and purposeless. Thus spontaneity is the law of nature.

From this point of view Wang Ch`ung characterises the fluid of
Heaven as "placid, tranquil, desireless, inactive, and unbusied" (p.
93), all attributes ascribed by the Taoists to their Mundane Soul, Tao.

At all times Heaven has been personified and deified. With
the Chinese as well as with us Heaven has become a synonym
for God. Wang Ch`ung notices that human qualities have been
attributed to him. We see in him the Father of Mankind, the
Chinese an emperor, the "Supreme Ruler," Shang Ti. He lives in
heaven like a king in his palace, and göverns the world (Chap. XXII)
meting out rewards and punishments to mankind, rewarding the
virtuous (p. 160), and punishing the wicked (p. 164). He reprimands
the sovereigns on earth for their misrule by means of extraordinary
natural phenomena, and, unless they reform, visits them and their
people with misfortune (p. 126). Thunder is his angry voice, and
with his thunderbolt he strikes the guilty (Chap. XXII).

Regarding Heaven as nothing else than a substance, a pure
and tenuous fluid without a mind, Wang Ch`ung cannot but reject
these anthropomorphisms. Heaven has no mouth, no eyes; it
does not speak nor act (p. 183), it is not affected by men (p. 110),
does not listen to their prayers (p. 113), and does not reply to the
questions addressed to it (p. 184).

By a fusion of the fluids of Heaven and Earth all the organisms
on earth have been produced (p. 104). Man does not make an
exception. In this respect Heaven and Earth are like husband and
wife, and can be regarded as the father and the mother of mankind
(Chap. XX). The same idea has been enunciated by Lucretius:—

(Lucr.I, 250-253.)

and further on:—

(Lucr.II, 988-995.)

Wang Ch`ung compares the creation of man to the freezing
of ice. He is the produce of the mixture and concretion or crystallization
of the two primary fluids:—"During the chilly winter
months the cold air prevails, and water turns into ice. At the
approach of spring, the air becomes warm, and the ice melts to
water. Man is born in the universe, as ice is produced so to
speak. The Yang and the Yin fluids crystallize, and produce man.
When his years are completed, and his span of life comes to its
end, he dies and reverts to those fluids" p. 196).

The Yin forms the body, and the Yang produces the vital
spirit and the mind. Both are identical, Wang Ch`ung does not
discriminate between the anima and the animus:—"That by which
man is born are the Yang and the Yin fluids; the Yin fluid produces
his bones and flesh, the Yang fluid the vital spirit. While man is
alive, the Yang and Yin fluids are in order. Hence bones and flesh
are strong, and the vital force is full of vigour. Through the vital
force he has knowledge, and with his bones and flesh he displays
strength. The vital spirit can speak, the body continues strong
and robust. While bones and flesh and the vital spirit are entwined
and linked together, they are always visible and do not perish"
(Chap. XVIII).

Man is imbued with the heavenly or vital fluid at his birth.
It is a formless mass like the yolk of an egg, before it is hatched,
showing in this respect the nature of the primogenial vapours, from
which it has been derived (p. 199). There is no difference between
the vital forces of man and animals. They have the same origin.
The vital fluid resides in the blood and the arteries, and is nourished
and developed by eating and drinking (p. 194). It has to
fulfil two difficult functions, to animate the body and keep it alive,
and to form its mind. All sensations are caused by the vital
fluid:—"When the vital fluid is thinking or meditating, it flows
into the eyes, the mouth or the ears. When it flows into the
eyes, the eyes see shapes, when it flows into the ears, the ears
hear sounds, and, when it flows into the mouth, the mouth speaks
something" (Chap. XVIII). Wang Ch`ung imagines that all sensations
are produced in their organs by the vital fluid, which must be the
mental power as well, since it thinks and meditates. Insanity is
defined as a disturbance of the vital force (eod.). There are no
supernatural mental faculties and no prophets or sages knowing
the future or possessing a special knowledge derived from any
other source than the vital force (p. 61). It is also the will, which
causes the mouth to speak. As such it determines the character.

which in Wang Ch`ung's belief depends upon its quantity (Chap. XXXI).
As vital energy it modifies the length of human life, which ceases,
as soon as this energy is used up (Chap. XXVII).

From what our author says about ghosts and spirits in particular,
which consist of the Yang fluid alone without any Yin, we
can infer that he conceived of the human soul also as an aura, a
warm breath identical to a certain extent with the solar fluid.

It is easy to see, how the Chinese came to denote the body
as Yin and the soul as Yang—I believe that these notions were already
current at Wang Ch`ung's time, who only took them up. The
body is formed of a much coarser stuff than the soul, consisting
as it does of solid and liquid matter. Therefore they presume
that it must have been produced from the heavier and grosser
substance, the Yin, while the purer and lighter Yang formed the
soul. A living body is warm, warmth is a quality of the Yang
fluid, consequently the vital force must be Yang. The mind enlightens
the body, the Yang fluid is light as well, ergo the mind
is the Yang fluid. The last conclusion is not correct, the mind not
being a material light, but a Chinese would not hesitate to use
such an analogy; their philosophy abounds with such symbolism.

The ideas of the Epicureans on the nature of the soul agree
very well with Wang Ch`ung's views. According to Epicurus the
soul is a tenuous substance resembling a breath with an admixture
of some warmth, dispersed through the whole organism:—ἡ ψυχὴ
σῶμά ἐστι λεπτομερές, παῤ ὅλον τὸ ἄϧροισμα παρεσπαρμένον, προσεμφερέστατον
δὲ πνεύματι ϧερμοῦ τινα κρᾶσιν ἔχοντι (Diog. Laert. X, 63).

Elsewhere the soul is described as a mixture of four substances:
a fiery, an aeriform, a pneumatical, and a nameless one,
which latter is said to cause sensations:—κρᾶμα ἐκ τεττάρων, ἐκ ποιοῦ
πυρώδους, ἐκ ποιοῦ ἀερώδους, ἐκ ποιοῦ πνευματικοῦ, ἐκ τετάρτου τινὸς ἀκατονομάστου
(Plut. Plac. IV, 3).

Lucretius says that the soul consists of much finer atoms than
those of water, mist or smoke, and that it is produced, grows, and
ages together with the body (Lucr. III, 425-427, 444-445). When
a man dies, a fine, warm, aura leaves his body (III, 232).

As regards man's position in nature Wang Ch`ung asserts that
he is the noblest and most intelligent creature, in which the mind
of Heaven and Earth reach their highest development (Chap. XLIII);
still he is a creature like others, and there exists no fundamental
difference between him and other animals (p. 202). Wang Ch`ung
likes to insist upon the utter insignificance of man, when compared
with the immense grandeur of Heaven and Earth. It seems

to have given him some satisfaction to put men, who are living
on Earth, on a level with fleas and lice feeding upon the human
body, for we find this drastic simile, which cannot have failed
to hurt the feelings of many of his self-sufficient countrymen, repeated
several times (p. 183, Chap. XXVI). In short, according to Wang
Ch`ung man does not occupy the exceptional position in the world
which he uses to vindicate for himself. He has not been created
on purpose, as nothing else has, the principle of nature being
chance and spontaneity (p. 103). The world has not been created
for the sake of man. "Some people," remarks Wang Ch`ung, "are of
opinion that Heaven produces grain for the purpose of feeding
mankind, and silk and hemp to clothe them. That would be
tantamount to making Heaven the farmer of man or his mulberry
girl, it would not be in accordance with spontaneity" (p. 92). As
an argument against the common belief that Heaven produces his
creatures on purpose, he adduces the struggle for existence, for
says Wang Ch`ung:—"If Heaven had produced its creatures on
purpose, he ought to have taught them to love each other, and
not to prey upon and destroy one another. One might object that
such is the nature of the five elements that, when Heaven creates
all things, it imbues them with the fluids of the five elements,
and that these fight together and destroy one another. But then
Heaven ought to have filled its creatures with the fluid of one
element only, and taught them mutual love, not permitting the fluids
of the five elements to resort to strife and mutual destruction" (p. 104).

Here again Wang Ch`ung is in perfect accord with the Epicureans.
Epicurus asserts that nothing could be more preposterous
than the idea that nature has been regulated with a view to the
well-being of mankind or with any purpose at all. The world is
not as it ought to be, if it had been created for the sake of man,
for how could Providence produce a world so full of evil, where
the virtuous so often are maltreated and the wicked triumph?
(Zeller, Philosophie der Griechen, III. Teil, 1. Abt., 1880, pp. 398
seq. and 428.)

The same sentiment finds expression in the following verses
of the Epicurean poet:—

(Lucr. II, 177-181 and V, 185-189.)

Although man owes his existence to the Yang and the Yin fluids,
as we have seen, he is naturally born by propagation from his
own species. Heaven does not specially come down to generate
him. All the stories of supernatural births recorded in the Classics,
where women were specially fecundated by the Spirit of Heaven,
are inventions (p. 48). Human life lasts a certain time, a hundred
years at most, then man dies (p. 46). A prolongation of life is
impossible, and man cannot obtain immortality (p. 50):—"Of all
the beings with blood in their veins, says our philosopher, there
are none but are born, and of those endowed with life there are
none but die. From the fact that they were born, one knows that
they must die. Heaven and Earth were not born, therefore they
do not die. Death is the correlate of birth, and birth the counterpart
of death. That which has a beginning must have an end,
and that which has an end, must necessarily have a beginning.
Only that which is without beginning or end, lives for ever and
never dies" (Chap. XXVIII).

To show that the human soul is not immortal and does not
possess any personal existence after death Wang Ch`ung reasons as
follows:—During life the Yang fluid, i. e. the vital spirit or the soul,
adheres to the body, by death it is dispersed and lost. By its
own nature this fluid is neither conscious, nor intelligent, it has no
will and does not act, for the principle of the Yang or the heavenly
fluid is unconsciousness, inaction, and spontaneity. But it acquires
mental faculties and becomes a soul by its temporary connection
with a body. The body is the necessary substratum of intelligence,
just as a fire requires a substance to burn. By death "that which
harbours intelligence is destroyed, and that which is called intelligence
disappears. The body requires the fluid for its maintenance,
and the fluid the body to become conscious. There is no
fire in the world burning quite of itself, how could there be an
essence without a body, but conscious of itself" (p. 195). The state
of the soul after death is the same as that before birth. "Before
their birth men have no consciousness. Before they are born, they
form part of the primogenial fluid, and when they die, they revert
to it. This primogenial fluid is vague and diffuse, and the human
fluid a part of it. Anterior to his birth, man is devoid of consciousness,
and at his death he returns to this original state of
unconsciousness, for how should he be conscious?" (p. 194.)

Wang Ch`ung puts forward a number of arguments against
immortality. If there were spirits of the dead, they would certainly
manifest themselves. They never do, consequently there are none

(p. 193). Other animals do not become spirits after death, wherefore
should man alone be immortal, for though the most highly
organised creature, still he is a creature and falls under the general
laws (p. 191). The vital spirit or soul is affected by external influences,
it grows by nourishment, relaxes, and becomes unconscious
by sleep, is deranged and partly destroyed by sickness, and the
climax of sickness, death, which dissolves the body, should not
affect it at all? (p. 196.)

At all times the dogma of immortality has been negatived by
materialistic philosophers. The line of arguments of the Greek as
well as the Indian materialists is very much akin to that of Wang Ch`ung.

Epicurus maintains that, when the body decays, the soul becomes
scattered, and loses its faculties, which cannot be exercised in
default of a body:—καὶ μὴν καὶ διαλυομένου τοῦ ὅλου ἀϧροίσματος ἡ ψυχὴ
διασπείρεται καὶ οὐκέτι ἔχει τὰς αὐτὰς δυνάμεις οὐδὲ κινεῑται, ὥστ᾿ οὐδ᾿ αἴσϧησιν
κέκτηται. οὐ γὰρ οἷόν τε νοεῖν αὐτὴν αἰσϧανομένην, μὴ ἐν τούτῳ τῷ συστήματι
καὶ ταῖς κινήσεσι ταύταις χρωμένην, ὅταν τὰ στεγάζοντα καὶ περιέχοντα μὴ
τοιαῦτ᾿ ἦ οἷς νῦν οὖσα ἔχει ταύτας τὰς κινήσεις (Diog. Laert. X, 65-66).

He adds that an immaterial essence can neither act nor
suffer, and that it is foolish to say that the soul is incorporeal:—
τὸ δὲ κενὸν οὄτε ποιῆσαι οὔτε παϧεῖν δύναται . . . . οί λέγogr;ντες ἀσώματον εῖναι
τὴν ψυχὴν ματαἴζουσιν.

From the fact that the vital fluid is born with the body, that
it grows, develops, and declines along with it, Lucretius infers that
the fluid must also be dissolved simultaneously with the body,
scattered into the air like smoke:—

(Lucr. III, 455-458.)

What Wang Ch`ung asserts about the influence of sickness on the
soul (p. 196), Lucretius expresses in the following pathetic verses:—

(Lucr. III, 463-471.)

The interaction of body and mind, which thrive only, as
long as they are joined together, and both decay, when they have
been separated, the poet describes as follows:—

(Lucr. III, 556-560.)

As the tree does not grow in the sky, as fish do not live on
the fields, and as blood does not run in wood, thus the soul cannot
reside anywhere else than in the body, not in the clods of earth,
or in the fire of the sun, or in the water, or in the air (Lucr. V,
133-134) and, when the body dies, it must become annihilated
likewise.

(Lucr. III, 781-786.)

(Loc. cit. 795-796.)

Of the Chârvâkas it is said by Sankara that "seeing no soul,
but body, they maintain the non-existence of soul other than
body."—"Thought, knowledge, recollection, etc. perceptible only
where organic body is, are properties of an organized frame, not
appartaining to exterior substances, or earth and other elements
simple or aggregate, unless formed into such a frame."

"While there is body, there is thought, and sense of pleasure
and pain, none when body is not, and hence, as well as from self-consciousness
it is concluded that self and body are identical."
(H. T. Colebroke, Miscellaneous Essays, vol. II, p. 428 seq.)

The dictum that everyone is the child of his time applies to
Wang Ch`ung also, free-thinker though he be. He has thrown over
board a great many popular beliefs and superstitions, but he could
not get rid of all, and keeps a good deal. His veneration of antiquity
and the sages of old is not unlimited, but it exists and induces
him to accept many of their ideas, which his unbiassed
critical genius would probably have rejected. Like the majority

of his countrymen he believes in Fate and Predestination. However,
his Fate is not Providence, for he does not recognise any Superior
Being governing the world, and it has been considerably materialised.
On a rather vague utterance of Tse Hsia, a disciple of
Confucius, who probably never thought of the interpretation it would
receive at the hands of Wang Ch`ung, he builds his theory:—"Life
and death depend on Destiny, wealth and honour come from Heaven"
(Analects XII, 5). The destiny, says Wang Ch`ung, which fixes the
duration of human life, is the heavenly fluid, i. e. the vital force,
with which man is imbued at his birth. This fluid forms his
constitution. It can be exuberant, then the constitution is strong,
and life lasts long; or it is scanty, then the body becomes delicate,
and death ensues early. This kind of Fate is after all nothing else
than the bodily constitution (pp. 138 and 46). In a like manner is
wealth and honour, prosperity and unhappiness transmitted in the
stary fluid, with which men are likewise filled at their birth. "Just
as Heaven emits its fluid, the stars send forth their effluence,
which keeps amidst the heavenly fluid. Imbibing this fluid men
are born, and live, as long as they keep it. If they obtain a fine
one, they become men of rank, if a common one, common people.
Their position may be higher or lower, and their wealth bigger
or smaller" (p. 138). Consequently this sort of Fate determining
the amount of happiness which falls to man's share during his
life-time, depends on the star or the stars under which he has
been born, and can be calculated by the astrologers. This science
was flourishing at Wang Ch`ung's time and officially recognised. On
all important occasions the court astrologers were consulted.

Now, Fate, whether it be the result of the vital force or of
the stary fluid, is not always definitive. It may be altered or
modified by various circumstances, and only remains unchanged,
if it be stronger than all antagonistic forces. As a rule "the
destiny regulating man's life-time is more powerful, than the one
presiding over his prosperity" (p. 137). If a man dies suddenly,
it is of no use that the stary fluid had still much happiness in store
for him. Moreover "the destiny of a State is stronger than that
of individuals" (loc. cit.). Many persons are involved in the disaster
of their country, who by Heaven were predetermined for a
long and prosperous life.

The circumstances modifying man's original fate are often
denoted as Time. Besides Wang Ch`ung distinguishes Contingencies,
Chances, and Incidents, different names for almost the same idea
(p. 142). These incidents may be happy or unhappy, they may

tally with the original destiny or disagree with it, completely
change it, or be repulsed. If an innocent man be thrown into jail,
but is released again, this unlucky contingency was powerless
against his favourable destiny; whereas, when hundreds or thousands
perish together in a catastrophe "the disaster they met with
was so paramount that their good fate and thriving luck could not
ward it off" (eod.).

We see Wang Ch ung's Fate is not the inexorable decree of
Heaven, the εἱμαρμένη of the Greeks, the dira necessitas, or the
patristic predestination, being partly natural (vital fluid), partly
supernatural (stary fluid), and partly chance.

Epicurus impugns fatalism, and so does Mê Ti and his school
on the ground that fatalism paralyzes human activity and is subvertive
of morality. There were scholars at Wang Ch`ung's time who
attempted to mitigate the rigid fatalism by a compromise with self-determination.
They distinguished three kinds of destiny:—the
natural, the concomitant, and the adverse. Natural destiny is a
destiny not interfered with by human activity. The concomitant
destiny is a combination of destiny and activity both working in
the same direction, either for the good or for the bad of the
individual, whereas in the adverse destiny the two forces work in
opposite directionś, but destiny gets the upper hand (p. 138).

Wang Ch`ung repudiates this scholastic distinction, urging that
virtue and wisdom, in short that human activity has no influence
whatever on fate, a blind force set already in motion before the newborn
begins to act (p. 141). There is no connection and no harmony
between human actions and fate. Happiness is not a reward for
virtue, or unhappiness a punishment for crimes. Wang Ch`ung adduces
abundance of instances to show, how often the wise and
the virtuous are miserable and tormented, while scoundrels thrive
and flourish (Chap. XII). Therefore a wise man should lead a
tranquil and quiet life, placidly awaiting his fate, and enduring
what cannot be changed (p. 145).

In the matter of Fate Wang Ch`ung shares all the common
prejudices of his countrymen. Fate, he thinks, can be ascertained
by astrology and it can be foreseen from physiognomies, omens, dreams,
and apparitions of ghosts and spirits. There are special soi-disant
sciences for all these branches:—anthroposcopy, divination, oneiro-mancy,
necromancy, etc.

Anthroposcopy pretends to know the fate not only from man's
features and the lines of his skin (p. 47), but also from the osseous
structure of the body and particularly from bodily abnormities

(Chap. XXIV). Many such instances have been recorded in ancient
Chinese books. Of features the physiognomists used to distinguish
70 different classes (p. 72). In accordance with this theory Wang
Ch`ung opines that the vital fluid, the bearer of destiny, finds expression
in the forms and features of the body, and can be read
by the soothsayers. He remarks that a person's character may
likewise be determined from his features, but that no regular science
for this purpose has been developed (Chap. XXIV).

Of Omens or Portents there are auspicious and inauspicious
ones, lucky or unlucky auguries. Freaks of nature, and rare specimens,
sometimes only existing in imagination, are considered auspicious
e. g. sweet dew and wine springs believed to appear in very
propitious times, in the vegetable kingdom:—the purple boletus, and
auspicious grass, in the animal kingdom:—the phœnix, the unicorn,
the dragon, the tortoise, and other fabulous animals (p. 56). Wang
Ch`ung discourses at great length on the nature and the form of
these auguries. They are believed to be forebodings of the rise
of a wise emperor or of the birth of a sage, and harbingers of a
time of universal peace. Those Sages are oftentimes distinguishable
by a halo or an aureole above their heads. The Chinese historical
works are full of such wonderful signs. But all these omens are
by no means intentionally sent by Heaven, nor responses to questions
addressed to it by man. They happen spontaneously and
by chance (p. 186), simultaneously with those lucky events, which
they are believed to indicate. There exists, as it were, a certain
natural harmony between human life and the forces of nature,
manifested by those omens.

"Dreams, says Wang Ch`ung, are visions. When good or bad
luck are impending, the mind shapes these visions" (p. 215). He
also declares that dreams are produced by the vital spirit (p. 200),
which amounts to the same, for the mind is the vital fluid. In
Wang Ch`ung's time there already existed the theory still held at
present by many Chinese that during a dream the vital spirit leaves
the body, and communicates with the outer world, and that it is
not before the awakening that it returns into the spiritless body.
Wang Ch`ung combats this view, showing that dreams are images
only, which have no reality. He further observes that there are
direct and indirect dreams. The former directly show a future
event, the latter are symbolical, and must be explained by the
oneirocritics.

Wang Ch`ung denies the immortality of the soul, but at the
same time he believes in Ghosts and Spirits. His ghosts, however,

are very poor figures, phantoms and semblances still less substantial
than the Shades of Hades. They are unembodied apparitions, have
no consciousness (p. 194), feel neither joy nor pain, and can cause
neither good nor evil (Chap. XLII). They have human shape or
are like mist and smoke (Chap. XLIV). The origin of ghosts and
spirits is the same as that of the other manifestations of fate: features,
omens, and dreams, namely the solar fluid and the vital force
or Yang. "When the solar fluid is powerful, but devoid of the Yin,
it can merely produce a semblance, but no body. Being nothing
but the vital fluid without bones or flesh, it is vague and diffuse,
and when it appears, it is soon extinguished again" (Chap. XVIII).

Consequently ghosts and spirits possess the attributes of the
solar fluid:—"The fluid of fire flickers up and down, and so phantoms
are at one time visible, and another, not. A dragon is an
animal resorting from the Yang principle, therefore it can always
change. A ghost is the Yang fluid, therefore it now appears and
then absconds. The Yang fluid is red, hence the ghosts seen by
people, have all uniform crimson colour. Flying demons are Yang,
which is fire. Consequently flying demons shine like fire. Fire
is hot and burning, hence the branches and leaves of trees, on
which these demons alight, wither and die" (eod.). The solar
fluid is sometimes poisonous, therefore a ghost being burning poison,
may eventually kill somebody (Chap. XXIII).

Many other theories on ghosts were current at Wang Ch`ung's
time, one of which very well agrees with his system, to wit that
in many cases ghosts are visions or hallucinations of sick people.
Others were of opinion that ghosts are apparitions of the fluid of
sickness, some held that they are the essence of old creatures.
Another idea was that ghosts originally live in men, and at their
deaths are transformed, or that they are spiritual beings not much
different from man. According to one theory they would be the
spirits of cyclical signs (Chap. XVIII).

According to Wang Ch`ung's idea ghosts and spirits are only
one class of the many wonders and miracles happening between
heaven and earth. "Between heaven and earth, he says, there
are many wonders in words, in sound, and in writing. Either the
miraculous fluid assumes a human shape, or a man has it in himself,
and performs the miracles. The ghosts, which appear, are all
apparitions in human shape. Men doing wonders with the fluid
in them, are sorcerers. Real sorcerers have no basis for what they
say, and yet their lucky or unlucky prophecies fall from their lips
spontaneously like the quaint sayings of boys. The mouth of boys

utters those quaint sayings spontaneously, and the idea of their
oration comes to wizards spontaneously. The mouth speaks of
itself, and the idea comes of itself. Thus the assumption of human
form by the miracles, and their sounds are spontaneous, and their
words come forth of their own accord. It is the same thing in
both cases" (loc. cit.). The miraculous fluid may also assume the
shape of an animal like the big hog foreboding the death of Duke
Hsiang of Ch`i (eod.), or of an inanimate thing like the yellow
stone into which Chang Liang was transformed (Chap. XXX).

b) Physics.

Wang Ch`ung does not discriminate between a transcendental
Heaven and a material Sky. He knows but one solid Heaven formed
of the Yang fluid and filled with air.

This Heaven appears to us like an upturned bowl or a reclining
umbrella, but that, says Wang Ch`ung, is an optical illusion
caused by the distance. Heaven and Earth seem to be joined at
the horizon, but experience shows us that that is not the case.
Wang Ch`ung holds that Heaven is as level as Earth, forming a
flat plain (Chap. XX).

Heaven turns from East to West round the Polar Star as a
centre, carrying with it the Sun, the Moon, and the Stars. The
Sun and the Moon have their own movements in opposite direction,
from West to East, but they are so much slower than that of
Heaven, that it carries them along all the same. He compares
their movements to those of ants crawling on a rolling mill-stone
(eod.). Plato makes Heaven rotate like a spindle. The planets
take part in this movement of Heaven, but at the same time, though
more slowly, move in opposite direction by means of the σϕάνδυλΟι
forming the whirl (überweg-Heinze, Geschichte der Philosophie,
vol. I, p. 180).

Heaven makes in one day and one night one complete circumvolution
of 365 degrees. One degree being calculated at 2,000 Li,
the distance made by Heaven every 24 hours measures 730,000 Li.
The sun proceeds only one degree = 2,000 Li, the Moon 13 degrees
= 26,000 Li. Wang Ch`ung states that this is the opinion
of the Literati (eod.). Heaven's movement appears to us very
slow, owing to its great distance from Earth. In reality it is very
fast. The Chinese mathematicians have computed the distance at
upwards of 60,000 Li. The Taoist philosopher Huai Nan Tse avers
that it measures 50,000 Li (Chap. XIX).

The body of the Earth is still more solid than that of Heaven
and produced by the Yin fluid. Whereas Heaven is in constant
motion, the Earth does not move (Chap. XX). It measures 10,000 million
square Li, which would be more than 2,500 million square-km.,
and has the shape of a rectangular, equilateral square, which is of
course level. Wang Ch`ung arrives at these figures in the following
way. The city of Loyang in Honan is by the Chinese regarded as
the centre of the world and Annam or Jih-nan as the country over
which the sun in his course reaches the southermost point. Annam
therefore would also be the southern limit of the Earth. The
distance between Loyang and Annam is 10,000 Li. Now, Chinese
who have been in Annam have reported that the sun does not
reach his south-point there, and that it must be still further south.
Wang Ch`ung assumes that it might be 10,000 Li more south. Now
Loyang, though being the centre of the known world i.e. China,
is not the centre of the Earth. The centre of the Earth must be
beneath the Polar Star, the centre of Heaven. Wang Ch`ung supposes
the distance between Loyang and the centre of the Earth below
the pole to be about 30,000 Li. The distance from the centre of
the Earth to its southern limit, the south-point of the sun, thus
measuring about 50,000 Li, the distance from the centre to the
north-point must be the same. That would give 100,000 Li as the
length of the Earth from north to south, and the same number
can be assumed for the distance from east to west (Chap. XIX).

The actual world (China) lies in the south-east of the universe
(Chap. XX). This peculiar idea may owe its origin to the observation
that China lies south of the Polar Star, the centre of Heaven, and
that at the east-side China is bordered by the ocean, whereas in
the west the mainland continues.

Tsou Yen, a scholar of the 4th cent. B.C. has propounded the
doctrine that there are Nine Continents, all surrounded by minor
seas, and that China is but one of them, situated in the south-east.
Beyond the Nine Continents there is still the Great Ocean. Wang
Ch`ung discredits this view, because neither the Great Yü, who is
believed to have penetrated to the farthest limits of the Earth and
to have written down his observations in the Shan-hai-king, nor
Huai Nan Tse, who had great scholars and experts in his service,
mention anything about different continents (Chap. XIX).

This Earth is high in the North-West and low in the South-East,
consequently the rivers flow eastwards into the ocean (Chap. XX).
This remark again applies only to China, which from the table land
of Central Asia slopes down to the ocean, where all her big rivers flow.

Among the celestial bodies the Sun is the most important. He
is a star like the Moon and the Planets, consisting of fire. His
diameter has been found to measure 1,000 Li. The Sun follows
the movement of Heaven, but has his own at the same time. The
common opinion that the sun and the other stars are round is
erroneous. They only appear so by the distance. The Sun is
fire, but fire is not round. The meteors that have been found,
were not round. Meteors are stars, ergo the stars are not round
(loc. cit.).

At noon, when the Sun is in the zenith, he is nearer to us
than in the morning or the evening, because the perpendicular line
from the zenith to the earth is shorter than the oblique lines,
which must be drawn at sunrise or sunset. It is for this reason
also that the sun is hottest, when he is culminating. That the
Sun in the zenith appears smaller than, when he rises or sets,
whereas, being nearer then, he ought to be bigger, is because in
bright daylight every fire appears smaller than in the darkness or
at dawn (eod.).

This question has already been broached by Lieh Tse V, 9
who introduces two lads disputing about it, the one saying that
the Sun must be nearer at sunrise, because he is larger then, the
other retorting that at noon he is hottest, and therefore must be
nearest at noon. Confucius is called upon to solve the problem,
but cannot find a solution.

Wang Ch`ung is much nearer the truth than Epicurus, whose
notorious argument on the size of the sun and the moon, is not
very much to his credit. He pretends that the stars must be
about the size, which they appear to us, because fires did not
lose anything of their heat, or their size by the distance (Diog.
Laert. X, 91), which is an evident mis-statement. Lucretius repeats
these arguments (Lucr. V, 554-582).

The different lengths of day and night in winter and summer
Wang Ch`ung attributes to the shorter and longer curves described
by the Sun on different days. In his opinion the Sun would take
16 different courses in heaven during the year. Other scholars
speak of 9 only (eod.). Wang Ch`ung is well acquainted with the
winter and summer Solstices and the vernal and autumnal Equinoxes
(eod.).

Whereas the Sun consists of fire, the Moon is water. Her
apparent roundness is an illusion; water has no definite shape
(eod.). Of the movement of the Moon we have already spoken.
In Chinese natural philosophy the Moon is always looked upon as

the opposite of the Sun. The Sun being the orb of day and light
is Yang, fire, consequently the Moon, the companion of night and
darkness, must be Yin, water. The Sun appears brilliant and hot
like a burning fire, the Moon pale and cool like glistening water.
What wonder that the ancient Chinese should have taken her for
real water, for Wang Ch`ung merely echoes the general belief.

In the matter of Eclipses Wang Ch`ung does not fall in with
the view of many of his time, to the effect that the Sun and the
Moon over-shadow and cover one another, nor with another theory
explaining the eclipses by the preponderance of either of the two
fluids, the Yin or the Yang, but holds that by a spontaneous movement
of their fluids the Sun or the Moon shrink for a while to
expand again, when the eclipse is over. He notes that those
eclipses are natural and regular phenomena, and that on an average
an eclipse of the Sun occurs every 41 or 42 months, and an eclipse
of the Moon every 180 days (eod.).

Epicurus and Lucretius are both of opinion that the fading of
the Moon may be accounted for in different ways, and that there
would be a possibility that the Moon really decreases i.e. shrinks
together, and then increases again (Diog. Laert. X, 95; Lucr. V,
719-724).

Wang Ch`ung is aware that ebb and high-tide are caused by
the phases of the Moon, and that the famous "Bore" at Hangchou
is not an ebullition of the River, resenting the crime committed
on Wu Tse Hsü, who was unjustly drowned in its waters (p. 48).

The Stars except the Five Planets, which have their proper
movement, are fixed to Heaven, and turn round with it. Their
diameter has been estimated at about 100 Li viz. 1/10; of the diameter
of the Sun. That they do not appear bigger to us than eggs is
the effect of their great distance (Chap. XX). They are made
of the same substances as the Sun and the Moon and the various
things, and not of stone like the meteors. They emit a strong
light. The Five Planets:—Venus, Jupiter, Mercury, Mars, and
Saturn consist of the essence of the Five Elements:—water, fire,
wood, metal, and earth. The fact that the Five Planets are in
Chinese named after the Five Elements:—The Water Star (Mercury),
the Fire Star (Mars), etc. must have led Wang Ch`ung to the belief
that they are actually formed of these elements. The language
must also be held responsible for another error into which Wang
Ch`ung has fallen. He seems to believe that the stars and constellations
are really what their Chinese names express e. g., that
there are hundreds of officials and two famous charioteers in

Heaven, who by emitting their fluid, shape the fate of men, (p. 138)
and that the 28 Solar Mansions are actually celestial postal stations
(Chap. XIX). It is possible however that the intimations of Wang
Ch`ung to this effect are not to be taken literally, and that he only
makes use of the usual terminology without attaching to them the
meaning which his words would seem to imply. We are sometimes
at a loss to know, whether Wang Ch`ung speaks his mind or
not, for his words are often only rhetorical and dialectical devices
to meet the objections of his opponents.

Wang Ch`ung's ideas on Meteors and Shooting Stars are chiefly
derived from some classical texts. He comes to the conclusion that
such falling stars are not real stars, nor stones, but rain-like phenomena
resembling the falling of stars (Chap. XX).

Rain is not produced by Heaven, and, properly speaking, does
not fall down from it. It is the moisture of earth, which rises
as mist and clouds, and then falls down again. The clouds and
the fog condense, and in summer become Rain and Dew, in winter
Snow and Frost (eod.). There are some signs showing that it is
going to rain. Some insects become excited. Crickets and ants
leave their abodes, and earth-worms come forth. The chords of
guitars become loose, and chronic diseases more virulent. The fluid
of rain has this effect (p. 109).

The same holds good for Wind. Birds foresee a coming storm,
and, when it is going to blow, become agitated. But Wang Ch`ung
goes farther and adopts the extravagant view that wind has a
strange influence on perverted minds, such as robbers and thieves,
prompting them to do their deeds, and that by its direction it influences
the market-prices. From its direction moreover, all sorts
of calamities can be foreseen such as droughts, inundations, epidemics,
and war (p. 111). There is a special science for it, still practised
to-day by the Imperial Observatory at Peking.

Heat and Cold correspond to fire and water, to the regions,
and to the seasons. Near the fire it is hot, near the water, cool.
The Yang fluid is the source of heat, the Yin fluid that of cold.
The South is the seat of the Yang, the North of the Yin. In summer
the Yang fluid predominates, in winter the Yin. The temperature
can never be changed for man's sake, nor does Heaven express
its feelings by it. When it is cold, Heaven is not cool, nor
is it genial and cheerful, when it is warm (Chap. XXI).

When the Yin and the Yang fluids come into collision, we
have Thunder and Lightning (p. 126). The fire of the sun colliding
with the water of the clouds causes an explosion, which is the

thunder. Lightning is the shooting forth of the exploding air
(Chap. XXII, XXIX). Wang Ch`ung alleges 5 arguments to prove that
lightning must be fire (Chap. XXII). He ridicules the idea that thunder
is Heaven's angry voice, and that with its thunderbolt it destroys
the guilty. "When lightning strikes, he says, it hits a tree, damages
a house, and perhaps kills a man. But not unfrequently
a thunder-clap is without effect, causing no damage, and destroying
no human life. Does Heaven in such a case indulge in useless
anger?" And why did it not strike a fiend like the Empress Lü
Hou, but often kills sheep and other innocent animals? (eod.) Lucretius
asks the same question:—

(Lucr. VI, 380-389).

The poet states that tempests are brought about by the conflict
of the cold air of winter with the hot air of summer. It is
a battle of fire on the one, and of wind and moisture on the other
side. Lightning is fire (eod. 355-375). Thunder is produced by
the concussion of the clouds chased by the wind (eod. 94seq.).

c) Ethics.

In the Lun-hêng, ethical problems take up but a small space.
Probably Wang Ch`ung has treated them more in detail in his lost
work, the Chi-su-chieh-yi "Censures on Morals." In the Lun-hêng
they are touched upon more incidentally.

Men are all endowed with the same heavenly fluid, which
becomes their vital force and their mind. There is no fundamental
difference in their organisation. But the quantity of the fluids
varies, whence the difference of their characters. "The fluid men
are endowed with, says Wang Ch`ung, is either copious or deficient,
and their characters correspondingly good or bad" (Chap. XXXI).
Epicurus explains the difference of human characters by the different
mixture of the four substances constituting the soul.

The vital fluid embraces the Five Elements of Chinese natural
philosophy: Water, fire, wood, metal, and earth, which form the
Five Organs of the body: the heart, the liver, the stomach, the
lungs, and the kidneys. These inner parts are the seats of the
Five Virtues:—benevolence, justice, propriety, knowledge, and truth
(p. 105). The Five Virtues are regarded as the elements of human
character and intelligence. Thus the quantity of the original fluid
has a direct influence upon the character of the person. A small
dose produces but a small heart, a small liver, etc. and these
organs being small the moral and mental qualities of the owner
can be but small, insufficient, bad. The copiousness of the fluid
has the opposite result.

The Five Organs are the substrata of the "Five Virtues."
Any injury of the former affects the latter. When those organs
become diseased, the intellect loses its brightness, and morality
declines, and, when these substrata of the mind and its virtues
are completely destroyed by death, the mind ceases likewise (p. 195).

Being virtually contained in the vital or heavenly fluid, the
Five Virtues must come from Heaven and be heavenly virtues
(Chap. XLIII). Heaven is unconscious and inactive, therefore it
cannot practise virtue in a human way, but the results of the spontaneous
movement of the heavenly fluid are in accordance with virtue.
It would not be difficult to qualify the working of nature as benevolent,
just, and proper, which has been done by all religions, although
unconscious benevolence and unconscious justice are queer
notions, but how about unconscious knowledge and unconscious
truth, the last of the Five Virtues? Wang Ch`ung finds a way out
of this impasse:—"The heart of high Heaven, he says, is in the
bosom of the Sages," an idea expressed already in the Liki (Cf.
Legge's transl. Vol. I, p. 382). Heaven feels and thinks with their
hearts (p. 128 seq.). Heaven has no heart of its own, but the heart
of the Sages as well as of men in general are its hearts, for they have
been produced by the heavenly fluid. This fluid, originally a shapeless
and diffuse mass, cannot think or feel by itself. To become conscious
it requires an organism. In so far it can be said that by
consulting one's own heart, one learns to know the will of Heaven,
that "Heaven acts through man" and that "when it reprimands,
it is done through the mouths of Sages" (eod.).

Wang Ch`ung does not enter upon a discussion on what the
moral law really is, and why it is binding. He simply takes the
Five Virtues in the acceptation given them by the Confucianists.
But he ventilates another question, which has been taken up by

almost all the moralists from Mencius downward, that of the original
goodness or badness of human nature. Wang Ch`ung acquaints
us with the different views on this subject. The two extremes
are represented by Mencius, who advocates the original goodness,
and by Hsün Tse, who insists upon its badness. There are many
compromises between these two contrasting theories. Wang Ch`ung
himself takes a middle course, declaring that human natural disposition
is sometimes good, and sometimes bad, just as some people
are by nature very intelligent, while others are feeble-minded
(Chap. XXXII).

Original nature may be changed by external influences. Good
people may become bad, and bad ones may reform and turn good.
Such results can be brought about by intercourse with good or
bad persons. With a view to reforming the wicked the State makes
use of public instruction and criminal law (Chap. XXXI). Wang
Ch`ung adopts the classification of Confucius, who distinguishes average
people and such above and below the average (Analects VI, 19).
"The character of average people," he says, "is the work of habit.
Made familiar with good, they turn out good, accustomed to evil,
they become wicked. Only with extremely good, or extremely bad
characters habit is of no avail." These are the people above and
below the average. Their characters are so inveterate, that laws
and instructions are powerless against them. They remain what
they are, good or bad (Chap. XXXII).

The cultivation of virtue is better than the adoration of spirits,
who cannot help us (Chap. XLIV). Yet it would be a mistake to believe
that virtue procures happiness. Felicity and misfortune depend
on fate and chance, and cannot be attracted by virtue or crime
(Chap. XXXVIII). On the whole Wang Ch`ung does not think much
of virtue and wisdom at all. He has amalgamated the Confucian
Ethics with his system as far as possible, but the Taoist ideas
suit him much better and break through here and there. The
Taoists urge that virtue and wisdom are a decline from man's original
goodness. Originally people lived in a state of quietude and
happy ignorance. "Virtuous actions were out of the question, and
the people were dull and beclouded. Knowledge and wisdom did
not yet make their appearance" (p. 100). They followed their
natural propensities, acted spontaneously, and were happy. Such
was the conduct of the model emperors of antiquity, Huang Ti, Yao,
and Shun. They lived in a state of quietude and indifference, did
not work, and the empire was governed by itself (p. 98). They
merely imitated Heaven, who's principle is spontaneity and inaction.

Now-a-days this high standard can only be attained by
the wisest and best men. "A man with the highest, purest, and
fullest virtue has been endowed with a large quantity of the
heavenly fluid, therefore he can follow the example of Heaven,
and be spontaneous and inactive like it" (loc. cit.). He need not
trouble about virtue, or act on purpose, for he is naturally virtuous,
and all his spontaneous deeds are excellent. The majority
of people, however, cannot reach this height. Having received
but a small quota of the heavenly fluid, they cannot follow its
example, and become active. They practise the routine virtues,
which for the superior man, who naturally agrees with them, are
of little importance.

d) Critique.

Wang Ch`ung not only criticises the common ideas, superstitions,
and more or less scientific theories current at his time, but he also
gives his judgment upon the principal scholars, whose tenets he
either adopts or controverts, and it is not without interest to learn,
how he values well known philosophers and historians.

α) Philosophers.

Of all philosophers by far the most frequently cited is Confucius.
In Wang Ch`ung's estimation he is the Sage of China. He
calls him the "Nestor in wisdom and virtue, and the most eminent
of all philosophers" (Chap. XXXII). Wang Ch`ung seems to believe
that he has won his cause, whenever he can quote Confucius as his
authority, and that with a dictum of the Sage he can confound
all his adversaries. In quoting Confucius he uses great liberty, interpreting
his utterances so as to tally with his own views. But
this veneration does not prevent him from criticising even Confucius.
He thinks it necessary to vindicate himself from the charge of
impiety and immorality, intimating that even Sages and Worthies
are not infallible and may err sometimes (Chap. XXXIII). He might
have done anything else, but this offence the Literati will never condone.
His attacks on Confucius are very harmless and not even very
clever. He does not impugn the Confucian system, which on the
contrary he upholds, though he departs from it much farther than
he himself knows. His method consists in hunting up contradictions
and repugnancies in the Analects. He not seldom constructs
a contradiction, where there is none at all, by putting much
more into the words of Confucius than they contain. He forgets

that in freely talking with friends or pupils—and the Analects
are nothing else than such conversations—one does not weigh
every word. Besides the peculiar circumstances and the form of
mind of the speaker must be taken into consideration, which Wang
Ch`ung often neglects. In short, the essay on Confucius is in no
way a master-piece of criticism and not worth the fuss made about it.

Mencius, the second Sage, is also very often mentioned. Wang
Ch`ung holds him in high esteem, but treats his work in the same
way as the Analects. The objections raised keep more or less on
the surface, and do not affect the substance of his doctrine.

The highest praise is bestowed on Yang Hsiung, another famous
Confucianist of the Han epoch. Wang Ch`ung compares the historian
Sse Ma Ch`ien with the Yellow River and Yang Hsiung with the Han
(Chap. XXXVII). He rose like a star (p. 81), and his chief work,
the T`ai-hsüan-ching was a creation (p. 88).

Like Huai Nan Tse, Wang Ch`ung very often mentions Mê Ti
conjointly with Confucius as the two great Sages of antiquity. At
that time the fame of Confucius had not yet eclipsed the philosopher
of mutual love. Though appreciating him, Wang Ch`ung rejects his
system as unpractical, maintaining that its many contradictions
have prevented its spreading (Chap. XXXVII). The Mêhists believe
in ghosts and spirits and adore them, imploring their help. At the
same time they neglect the funerals and the dead, and they deny
the existence of fate.

When Lao Tse is referred to, he is usually introduced together
with Huang Ti, who like Lao Tse is looked upon as the
father of Taoism. They are both called truly wise (p. 98). The
Taoist school established the principle of spontaneity and inaction.
The philosophy of Wang Ch`ung is to a great extent based on their
doctrines without, however, becoming Taoistic, for he leaves out
the quintessence of their system, Tao, nor will he have anything
of their transcendentalism, mysticism or other extravagancies.

Wang Ch`ung is well acquainted with the Taoist writer Huai
Nan Tse, from whose work he freely culls, oftener than he mentions
him. He refutes the legend that Huai Nan Tse by his alchimistical
studies obtained immortality, and with his entire household,
including his dogs and poultry ascended to Heaven, submitting
that he either was beheaded for some political intrigues
or committed suicide (Chap. XXVIII).

Against Han Fei Tse, who wrote on the theory of government
and legislation, and whose writings are strougly tainted with
Taoism, Wang Ch`ung shows a pronounced antipathy. He most

vehemently attacks him for having declared the scholars and literati
to be useless grubs in the State. Han Fei Tse was of opinion
that rewards and punishments were sufficient to keep up order.
Wang Ch`ung objects that in his system virtue has no place. Han
Fei Tse despises divination, which Wang Ch`ung defends. Han Fei
Tse was much appreciated by the Emperor Ch`in Shih Huang Ti, a
great admirer of his works, which, however, did not hinder the
tyrant from condemning him to death for some political reason.

It is passing strange that the great Taoist philosophers Lieh
Tse and Ch`uang Tse are not once named. Were they so little read
at Wang Ch`ung's time, that he did not know them? Some of his
stories are told in Lieh Tse likewise with nearly the same words,
but it does not follow, that they must be quoted from Lieh Tse,
for such narrations are often found in several authors, one copying
from the other without acknowledging his source.

A scholar, of whom Wang Ch`ung speaks very often is Tung
Chung Shu, a very prolific writer of the 2nd cent. b.c. He was said
by many to have completed the doctrine of Confucius, while others
held that he had perverted it. Wang Ch`ung thinks that both views
are wrong (Chap. XXXVII). Tung Chung Shu devoted his labours to
the Ch`un-ch iu, but he also wrote on the magical arts (p. 84) and
on Taoism. Wang Ch`ung says that his arguments on Taoist doctrines
are very queer, but that his ideas on morals and on government
are excellent. In human nature Tung Chung Shu distinguishes
between natural disposition and feeling. The former,
he says, is the outcome of the Yang principle and therefore good, the
feelings are produced by the Yin and are therefore bad (Chap. XXXII).
Tung Chung Shu seems to have been the inventor of a special
rain-sacrifice. The figure of a dragon was put up to attract the
rain. Wang Ch`ung stands up for it with great fervour and attempts
to prove its efficacy (p. 55, N. 47).

Of Tsou Yen many miracles were already related at Wang
Ch`ung's time. He rejects them as fictions. Tsou Yen's writings
were brilliant, he says, but too vague and diffuse (Chap. XXXVII).
With his above mentioned theory of the Nine Continents Wang
Ch`ung does not agree.

The sophist Kung Sun Lung as well as Kuan Tse and Shang
Yang, who both have philosophised on the State, are rather severely
dealt with (Chap. XXXVII). On the other hand Wang Ch`ung
is very lavish in his praise of the writers of the Han time viz. Liu
Hsiang, Lu Chia, author of the Hsin-yü, a work on government, Huan
Chün Shan, author of the Hsin-lun, and Huan K`uan, who wrote the

Yen-t`ieh-lun, a work on finance and other State questions. Besides
Wang Ch`ung gives the names of a number of his contemporaries
to whom he predicts immortality, but he has been a bad prophet,
for save one they are all forgotten now.

β) Historians.

It was a great controversy during the Han epoch, which
commentary to the Ch`un-ch`iu was the best. The Tso-chuan had
not yet secured the position, it holds now; many scholars gave
the preference to the works of Kung Yang or Ku Liang. Wang
Ch`ung avers that Tso Ch`iu Ming's Tso-chuan surpasses all the others,
and that having lived nearer to Confucius' time than the other
commentators, Tso Ch`iu Ming has had more facilities to ascertain
the views of the Sage and to give them in their purest form.
Wang Ch`ung confirms that the Kuo-yü is also the work of Tso
ch`iu Ming (Chap. XXXVII). Many of Wang Ch`ung's stories and
myths are taken from the Tso-chuan.

Of the Lü-shih-ch`un-ch`iu of Lü Pu Wei, an important work
for antique lore, Wang Ch`ung says that it contains too much of
the marvellous.

To illustrate his theories Wang Ch`ung often lays the Shi-chi
under contribution. Of its author, Sse Ma Ch`ien, he speaks with
great deference, and regards him as the greatest writer of the Han
period. What he reproaches him with, is that Sse Ma Ch`ien too
often leaves us in the dark as to his own opinion on a question,
stating only the bare facts, or giving two different versions of the
same event without deciding, which is the correct one (loc. cit.).

Pan Ku, Wang Ch`ung's contemporary and the son of his
teacher Pan Piao, is lauded for his good verses and memorials
(loc. cit.). He is the one contemporary of our philosopher, who
really has become immortal by his great work, the Han-shu. At
Wang Ch`ung's time it had not yet appeared, and so is never referred
to. It was completed and published after Pan Ku's death
by his sister Pan Chao.

That he possesses some abilities in the field of literary and
historical critique himself, Wang Ch`ung shows in his remarks on
the origin and history of the Classics. He tells us, how they were
composed, how discovered after the Burning of the Books, how
handed down, and how divided into books and chapters (Chap.
XXXVI). In spite of his profound veneration for the classical
literature he does not hesitate to censure those passages, which do
not find his approval, or to expose the exaggerations and fables

with which they teem (p. 51, N. 27). In like manner he is indefatigable
in detecting Taoist fictions and inventions and in reducing
them to their true measure, for it does not satisfy him to
demonstrate their impossibility; he desires to find out, how they
originated (p. 50, N. 24). He combats the legends which have
found their way into the historical literature, although they are
less frequent than in the Taoist works (p. 50, N. 25-26). The
entire Lun-hêng is a big battle agains these errors. His discussions
would seem sometimes a little lengthy, and the subject not to require
such an amount of arguments, for we would prove the same with
a few words, or not discuss it at all, the proposition being for us
self-evident. We must however bear in mind, that what for us
now is self-evident and indisputable, was not so for the Chinese,
for whom Wang Ch`ung wrote his book, and that to shake them in
their deep-seated persuasions a huge apparatus of logic was necessary.
Even then probably the majority held fast to their preconceptions.
The triumphant march of logic is checked, as soon
as sentiment and prejudice comes in.

Historically Wang Ch`ung takes another point of view than
his contemporaries, who for the most part took little interest in
their own time, and let their fancies wander back to the golden
age of remote antiquity. Wang Ch`ung is more modern than most
Chinese of the present day. He was of opinion that the Han dynasty
was as good, even better than the famous old dynasties
(p. 56, N. 56). Five essays bear upon this thesis. His reasoning
is very lame however, for instead of speaking of the government,
he only treats of the auspicious portents proving the excellence of
the ruling sovereigns.

e) Religion and Folklore.

The religion of the Chinese at the Han time was a cult of
nature combined with ancestor worship. They regarded certain
parts of nature and certain natural phenomena as spirits or as
animated by spirits, and tried to propitiate them and the ghosts
of their ancestors by prayers and sacrifices. Convinced that these
spirits and ghosts could help them, or do them harm, as they
chose, they contrived to win their good graces, praying for happiness,
imploring them to avert evil, and showing their gratitude for
received benefits by their offerings.

The chief deities worshipped during the Chou period were:—

Heaven and its parts:—the Sun, the Moon, and the Stars. Among
the latter the Five Planets take the first place, but the 28 Solar
Mansions and other constellations, such as the Dipper and the Stars
of Longevity were likewise adored.

Earth and its parts, Mountains and Rivers, the Soil, and the
Grain growing on it, and some of its phenomena:—Earth-quakes,
Water (Inundations), and Droughts.

Meteorological phenomena:—Wind and Rain, Heat and Cold,
Thunder and Lightning.

The Four Seasons and the Four Quarters.

The Five Parts of the House:—The Gate, the Door, the Wall,
the Hearth, and the Court.

Deified Heaven was often looked upon as an emperor, the Emperor
on High or the Supreme Ruler, and so were the Planets,
called the Blue, Red, Yellow, White, and Black Emperors. The
other stars and constellations were their officials. All these deities
have, as a rule, no distinct personality, and still quite clearly show
the traces of their origin. The "Prince of the Wind," the "Master
of Rain," the "Thunderer," the "Door God," and the "Spirit of
the Hearth" or "Kitchen God" were perhaps more than the
others apprehended as personal gods.

The Spirits of the Soil and Grain were at the outset probably
not different from the other spirits animating nature, but according
to very old traditions two persons:—Kou Lung and Ch`i have after
their deaths been deified and raised to the rank of tutelary genii
of the land and grain. These apotheoses of men after their death
became more frequent in later ages. Under the Ch`in dynasty
Ch`ih Yu, a legendary personage renownded for his military exploits,
was worshipped as War God. The three sons of the mythical
emperor Chuan Hsü after their death became Water Spirits and Spirits
of Epidemics, and a woman, who had died in childbed, and whose
ghost had appeared to somebody after her decease, was made
Princess of Demons under the Han dynasty.

Here we have ancestral worship. Every family used to revere
the ghosts of its deceased ancestors, but only in such exceptional
cases as those quoted above did these ghosts later on become
national gods.

The cult of the afore-mentioned deities was continued during
the Han epoch, and with some few alterations has gone on up to
the present day. It is the State religion of China, sanctioned by
Government, and practised by the Son of Heaven and his highest
officials. Buddhism and Taoism are only tolerated. Confucianism

is no religion, but the official moral system, which completely
agrees with the cult of nature.

The sacrifices to the spirits of nature were in ancient times
performed by the Emperor, the Feudal Princes, and the officials,
acting as high-priests for their people. The people used to sacrifice
only to their own ancestors and to the Spirits of the Door or
the Hearth. The oblations were burnt-offerings of animals and
libations of wine. There was no clergy to mediate between the
gods and the people. These rules were less strictly observed
during the Han epoch, when occasionally priests sacrificed in the
place of the Emperor, and even priestesses were allowed to make
offerings in their temples. In out-of-the-way places, where no
officials were near, the people could themselves worship the gods,
whose service else was incumbent upon the magistrates (cf. Chap. XLI,
XLII and Shi-chi chap. 27-28).

Wang Ch`ung asserts that most of these sacrifices are superfluous,
because the deities thus honoured are merely parts of others,
to which offerings are made likewise. The Sun, the Moon, and the
Stars are parts of Heaven. They must participate in the oblations
offered to Heaven, why then give them special sacrifices to boot?
With Mountains and Rivers, the Soil and Grain, which are the
constituent parts of Earth, it is the same. Would any reasonable
person, irrespective of his usual meals, specially feed his limbs?
(Chap. XLI.)

Moreover, spirits and ghosts cannot enjoy the sacrifices, for
there are none, at least not personal beings, as people seem to
imagine (Chap. XLIV). If they were air, they could not eat nor smell,
and if they had a body, it would be so enormous, that men could
never satisfy their appetite. How should they feed the Earth or even
a Mountain or a River? (eod. and Chap. XLI.) Being formed of the
shapeless fluid, ghosts and spirits can neither feel nor act, consequently
they cannot do anything for man nor against him. Ergo by sacrifices
he does not obtain his end, divine protection (Chap. XLII). Therefore
sacrifices can be nothing more than symbolical acts, showing
the gratitude and the affection of the sacrificer. He is thankful
for all the kindness he has received from Heaven and Earth, and
from his parents and forefathers (eod.). Sacrifices are manifestations
of the piety of him, who offers them, but their omission cannot
have any evil consequence.

Exorcism is the correlate of prayers and sacrifices. The ancient
Chinese used to practise it particularly with the Spirit of
Sickness, whom they expelled. Wang Ch`ung thinks it as useless as

sacrifices, for, says he, provided the spirits are mist and vapours,
they cannot do any harm, should they really exist, however, then
they would indubitably not allow themselves to be driven off.
They would not only offer resistance, but also resent the affront,
and take their revenge upon the exorcist (Chap. XLIV).

Primitive Chinese religion has not produced a mythology
worth speaking of, but a variety of superstitions have clustered
around it. Some of them Wang Ch`ung brings to our notice. The
principle aim of Chinese religion is to obtain happiness and to
remove evil. But is does not suffice to worship the spirits, one
must also avoid such actions, as might bring down misfortune. In
the popular belief there is a certain mystic connection, a sort of
harmony between fate and human activity, though one does not
see how. When the Yamen officials are very bad, the number of
tigers increases so much, that plenty of people are devoured by
them. The rapacity of the underlings is believed to cause grubs
and insects to eat grain (p. 55, N. 48-49). It is dangerous to extend
a building to the west, one must not see women who recently
have given birth to a child, and children born in the first or the
fifth months should not be brought up, for they will be the cause
of their parents death (p. 59, N. 68). Exceptional precautions must
be taken in building a new house (p. 60, N. 74).

For most actions in every-day-life the time chosen is of the
utmost importance. An unlucky time spoils everything. The Chinese
at the Han epoch had not only their dies fasti and nefasti, but propitious
and unpropitious years, months, days, and hours. Special
books gave the necessary information. For some actions certain
lucky days had to be chosen, for others certain unlucky ones had
to be avoided. Special days were assigned for the commencing of
a new-building or for funerals. Bathing on certain days, women
were sure to become lovely, on others they would become ill-favoured.
Moving one's residence one should avoid a collision
with the Spirit of the North, T`ai Sui (p. 59, N. 70, 72, 73). People
neglecting these rules would fall in with malignant spirits, or meet
with evil influences. These ideas have come down to our time, and
are still cherished by the majority of the Chinese. The calendar
published every year by the Board of Astronomy serves them as
a guide, noting that which may be safely done on each day, and
that which may not. Wang Ch`ung has done his best to eradicate
these superstitions, showing their unreasonableness and futility, as
we see with little success, so deeply are they still rooted in the
Chinese mind after nearly two thousand years.