Chinese History and Culture, volume 2: Seventeenth Century Through Twentieth Century

1. Some Preliminary Observations on the Rise of Qing Confucian Intellectualism

This is a thoroughly revised and much expanded version of a paper first drafted in 1971. Since it was originally intended to serve as an introduction to my book-length study, tentatively entitled The Rise of Confucian Intellectualism in the Qing , with it, I tried to cover rather than dig the ground. In rewriting this paper, I have still followed my original plan by avoiding, as much as possible, factual details. The central task I set for myself was to formulate certain conceptual schemes in light of which the internal development of Neo-Confucianism from the Song to the Qing may be looked at anew and, it is hoped, with fruitfulness. Some of the points of view suggested here have been more fully developed in several separate studies of mine that deal with various specific aspects of the intellectual history of this period. However, I now wish to present my preliminary observations on this vast and complicated subject with the hope that criticisms and comments from colleagues will help my whole projected study reach its final form sooner.

THE PROBLEM

In the West, there has been a deep-rooted conflict between faith and reason. In the Christian tradition, the conflict has centered more specifically around a faith versus learning controversy. The New Testament actually presents Jesus in two different images. On the one hand, Jesus sees learning as an obstacle to Christian piety. Later, this became the source of the stream of anti-intellectualism within the Church. On the other hand, Jesus also appears in the New Testament as a man of profound learning, that is, a scholar of the Scriptures, on the basis of which scholarship has been justified as a Christian calling by those who have sought to combine faith with reason.¹ Generally speaking, however, until the so-called Revival of Learning in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, faith far outweighed reason on the Christian scale. In its extreme form, Christian anti-intellectualism may be found in the well-known denunciation of classical pagan culture by Tertullian (ca. 190–240), who said: What has Athens to do with Jerusalem, the Academy with the Church? We have no need for curiosity since the Evangel.²

Historically, the conflict between faith and reason in medieval Christianity may be taken, to a large extent, to be a result of the struggle for domination between the Hebraic-Christian religious tradition on the one hand and the Greco-Roman classical culture on the other hand. Several centuries elapsed before the terrain between revealed truth and secular learning reached a state of compromise. In the persons of St. Jerome (347?–420) and St. Augustine (354–430), we first see the two prototypes of the Christian scholar: the former was a great scholar who was a Christian, whereas the latter was a great Christian who left an indelible mark on scholarship.³ Thus, the love of learning and the desire for God, to borrow the well-known title of Jean Leclerq’s monograph, became two basic elements in medieval monastic culture. How to reconcile these two apparently conflicting values therefore posed a perplexing dilemma for every monk. As Leclercq neatly puts it:

And if there is a problem, it is because the difficulty takes the shape of a tension between two elements whose reconciliation is always precarious and between which an equilibrium must be constantly established. There is always the risk of weighting the balance too heavily on one side or the other. These two elements are the two constants of Western monastic culture: on the one hand, the study of letters, on the other, the exclusive search for God, the love of eternal life and the consequent detachment from all else, including the study of letters…. There is no ideal synthesis which can be expressed in a speculative formula, as there might be if the solution were of the intellectual order; the conflict can be transcended only by raising it to spiritual order.⁴

Does a similar problem exist in Chinese intellectual history? The answer is yes, but with important qualifications. In contrast to the West, no such sharp opposition between faith and reason can be found in the Chinese case. As William de Bary has aptly remarked, Confucian rationalism does not involve a conscious exaltation of reason as opposed to faith or intuitions (none of the early masters seems to have acknowledged such an explicit dichotomy).⁵ Nevertheless, in early Confucianism, a central polarity can be discerned—the polarity between learning and speculative thinking.⁶ Confucius once discussed the relationship between xue 學 (learning) and si 思 (thinking) in the following way: Learning without thought is labor lost; thought without learning is perilous.⁷ Here learning and thinking are obviously taken as mutually complementary, neither functioning properly without the other. Sometimes, however, Confucius placed more emphasis on learning than on thinking: I have been the whole day without eating, and the whole night without sleeping—occupied with thinking. It was of no use. The better plan is to learn.⁸ These two statements taken together seem to mean that by learning Confucius meant to study in order to attain knowledge of things and by thinking he meant to speculate about things.⁹ Both learning and thinking involve the exercise of the mind, but the mind operates at two different levels. In learning, the mind operates at the concrete or factual level, and the result is knowledge of things as they are. In speculative thinking, the mind operates at the abstract or theoretical level, and theorizing enables one to grasp the significance of things. Learning and thinking are necessarily of two different orders because in Confucius’s scheme of things, the former must precede the latter. It is by no means an accident that in terms of priority, extensive learning (boxue 博學) is placed before careful thinking (shensi 慎思) in the Zhongyong (Doctrine of the Mean).¹⁰ Pure speculation is perilous because it lacks basis in factual knowledge in the first place. Nor would receptive learning always be fruitful, however. It is labor lost for the obvious reason that sheer erudition gets nowhere.

There were times when Confucius talked as if he were among Isaiah Berlin’s hedgehogs, who relate everything to a single central vision, one system less or more coherent or articulate, in terms of which they understand, think and feel—a single, universal, organizing principle in terms of which alone all that they are and say has significance.¹¹ A conversation Confucius had with his disciple Zigong 子貢 (Duanmu Ci 端木賜) illustrates this point: The Master said, ‘Ci, you think, I suppose, that I am one who learns many things and keeps them in memory?’ Zigong replied: ‘Yes,—but perhaps it is not so?’ ‘No’ was the answer; ‘I seek a unity all-pervading.’ ¹²

Here the emphasis is shifted to thinking. For the all-pervading unity (yiguan 一貫) can result only from speculative thinking or theorizing. In still another context, the Master also defined the polarity in terms of bo 博 (erudition) and yue 約 (essentialism): "By extensively studying the literature and getting to its essence in the light of li 禮 (rites), one may thus likewise not err from what is right."¹³

It is important to note that the term essentialism, expressed this way in the context of li, carries heavy moral connotations. And Confucius’s all-pervading unity must also be understood in this moral light. It is not systematic thinking or theorizing in the ordinary sense. It is, in fact, moralizing. Thus, in the final analysis, the Confucian polarity proves to be knowledge versus morality. This should occasion no surprise because in the Confucian frame of reference, knowledge should always serve a higher moral purpose.

From the point of view of intellectual history, this polarity produced a lasting influence on the shaping of the Confucian tradition. Insofar as Confucius stressed extensive learning or erudition, he created the image of a scholar, and insofar as he emphasized the all-pervading unity or essentialism, he created the image of a thinker or philosopher. After Confucius, although learning and thinking were generally taken as two inseparably complementary aspects of the Confucian teaching, the individual emphasis of each Confucian often varied. Thus, Mencius, who more closely fits the mold of a Confucian thinker, stressed essentialism (yue) rather than erudition (bo).¹⁴ On the other hand, Xunzi, being more a scholar, attached a greater importance to learning than to thinking.¹⁵

With the rise of Neo-Confucianism in the Song, the polarity became more clearly than ever before one between knowledge and morality. This polarization manifested itself in a variety of ways, old and new. Between the two major schools of Zhu Xi and Lu Xiangshan, it was seen as a controversy, respectively, over dao wenxue 道問學 (following the path of inquiry and study) and zun dexing 尊德性 (honoring the moral nature). Zhu Xi once confessed that he had overstressed the role of inquiry and study just as Lu perhaps had overstressed that of moral nature.¹⁶ Lu, on the other hand, persistently held his view that it is pointless to pursue inquiry and study without honoring the moral nature in the first place.¹⁷ Since the two key terms, zun dexing and dao wenxue, occupy a central place in Neo-Confucianism and since we discern in these two broad comprehensive concepts a polarization between morality and knowledge, a word of explanation is in order so that a nonspecialist Western reader may make a better sense out of such English expressions as honoring the moral nature and following the path of inquiry and study.

In the Neo-Confucian context, zun dexing implies, above all, the awakening of moral faith through the understanding of our own nature, which partakes of the moral quality of Dao. As a result, we gain a kind of moral knowledge that more or less resembles the Christian revealed truth. Dao wenxue, on the other hand, deals with the whole territory of what we call objective knowledge, which ranges from knowledge of a Confucian classical text to that of a blade of grass. But the important question here is how do zun dexing and dao wenxue stand in relation to each other? The answer differs sharply between an intellectualist such as Zhu Xi and an anti-intellectualist such as Lu Xiangshan. In a manner quite reminiscent of Thomas Aquinas, Zhu Xi thinks that he who knows anything knows something about Dao. According to this view, then, knowledge obtained through dao wenxue has a built-in moral quality, though the moral quality of such knowledge may vary greatly in degree from one case (say, knowledge of a Confucian classical text) to another (say, knowledge of a blade of grass). Moreover, total awakening of moral faith will arrive only at the end of a long painstaking process of inquiry and study. By contrast, Lu Xiangshan does not seem to have assigned any significant role to inquiry and study in man’s quest for Dao. The awakening of moral faith cannot be brought about by knowledge accumulated through dao wenxue, which is at best morally irrelevant. When the awakening takes place, it takes place as a leap, which is nonintellectual in character. To be fair to Lu Xiangshan, he does not repudiate inquiry and study altogether. Nevertheless, he does insist that only after having experienced the leap of moral faith can one then justifiably speak of inquiry and study. Without zun dexing, dao wenxue is like a ship without a rudder. Here Lu Xiangshan’s view is diametrically opposite to Zhu Xi’s conception that moral faith must build itself on a firm intellectual foundation. Polarization between morality and knowledge in Neo-Confucianism can be understood as having resulted mainly from the lasting conflict between these two opposing attitudes.

Within the Cheng-Zhu school, the polarity of morality and knowledge also found an expression characteristically its own. It took the form of an active tension between moral cultivation and the extension of knowledge, as best expressed in the formula moral cultivation requires seriousness and the pursuit of learning depends on the extension of knowledge.¹⁸ This reminds us analogously of the tension between learning and piety in the Christian tradition. Even Zhu Xi’s own intellectual career also shows traces of a lifelong inner struggle with this polarity. His extensive discussions of various Confucian polarities—such as jujing 居敬 (exercising seriousness) and qiongli 窮理 (thorough study of principles), moral cultivation and extension of knowledge, knowledge and action, and the all-pervading unity and extensive learning—all bear importantly on the basic problem of how to establish a balance between the moral element and the intellectual element on the Confucian scale.¹⁹ Particularly noteworthy is his critical reexamination of the polarity between erudition and essentialism. His conclusion that essentialism must operate from the intellectual base of erudition leaves not even the slightest doubt as to where he placed his own emphasis.²⁰ It may well be construed as a logical extension of his fundamental emphasis on inquiry and study.

In Song Neo-Confucianism, not only was the primordial Confucian polarity between learning and thinking transformed into a dichotomy of knowledge and morality, but out of that polarity, a tension also gradually grew between what may be called, respectively, intellectualism and anti-intellectualism. The possible implications of these last two elusive terms in Chinese intellectual history are explored more fully in the appendix to this paper. Suffice it to say now, though, that there were two major types of Neo-Confucians: those whose minds were more inquiry and study orientated; those who tended to assign a greater role to knowledge in the Confucian scheme of things; and those whose minds were more moral nature orientated and who tended to take acquisition of knowledge, including even knowledge of the classics, to be the least essential part of Confucian teachings. For convenience, we will simply term the first type intellectualists and the second type anti-intellectualists. In this very loose sense, therefore, Zhu Xi belongs to the intellectualist type, whereas Lu Xiangshan belongs to the anti-intellectualist type.

Corresponding to this general distinction between intellectualism and anti-intellectualism, there also arose a unique Neo-Confucian theory of knowledge, which distinguishes between what may be termed, again for convenience, intellectual knowledge and moral knowledge. This theory was first put forward by Zhang Zai 張載 (1020–1077),²¹ but later was more neatly formulated in the writings of Cheng Yi 程頤 (1033–1107). Cheng said: The knowledge obtained through hearing and seeing is not the knowledge obtained through moral nature. When a thing (the body) comes into contact with things, the knowledge so obtained is not from within. This is what is meant by extensive learning and much ability today. The knowledge obtained from moral nature does not depend on seeing and hearing.²² Clearly, then, according to this theory, moral knowledge (dexing zhi zhi 德性之知) differs categorically from all other knowledge, which comes from the senses’ contact with the external world (wenjian zhizhi 聞見之知 or intellectual knowledge). It deals exclusively with the inner world of man’s moral nature. This distinction between moral knowledge and intellectual knowledge also has its counterpart in Christianity. According to one view, the so-called truths propounded by faith form what is known as religious knowledge. And religious knowledge differs from other knowledge in that it deals with a higher realm, to which rational inquiry and its methods have no access at all.²³ Just as Tertullian’s denunciation of classical pagan culture led to Christian anti-intellectualism, the Neo-Confucian elevation of moral knowledge to a level beyond the reach of the senses also inevitably gave rise to anti-intellectualistic tendencies. From Zhang Zai to Wang Yangming 王陽明 (1472–1529), many individual Neo-Confucians repudiated, to a greater or lesser degree, intellectual knowledge on the ground that it can shed no light on our knowledge of the moral nature. The Cheng-Zhu school on the whole, for example, was, in the Song Period, more intellectualistic in its theoretical orientations. In early Ming times, however, even this school underwent a transformation in the anti-intellectualistic direction, resulting in a clear subordination of the intellectual element within the entire Cheng-Zhu system.²⁴ Not until late Ming and early Qing did the pendulum slowly but steadily swing back to the other side. In terms of these trends, therefore, I suggest that Qing intellectual history may be more meaningfully viewed as a period that witnessed the rise of Confucian intellectualism.

THE HAN-SONG CONTROVERSY IN QING INTELLECTUAL HISTORY

Reevaluation of Qing intellectual history in terms of Confucian intellectualism, however, must begin with a critical review of some of the dominant theses advanced by modern scholars to deal specifically with the nature of Qing learning and its significance in the Confucian tradition as a whole. In the mid-eighteenth century, a major controversy arose between proponents of the so-called Han Learning (Han xue 漢學) and adherents of Song Learning (Song xue 宋學), a controversy that, as will be shown below, characterized much of Chinese intellectual history until the end of the nineteenth century. To begin with, it may be noted that the term Han Learning is actually a name Qing scholars applied to their own philological approach to the study of the Confucian classics, an approach they believed was very much in the exegetical tradition of the Han times. It is also known by the name of kaozheng 考證 or kaoju 考據, meaning, literally, evidential investigation. On the other hand, Song Learning is a reference to the type of metaphysical speculations started by, though not confined to, Song Neo-Confucians. During the Qing Period, it was also called yili 義理, which may be rendered as moral principles. Hence, very imprecisely speaking, Han Learning (kaozheng) and Song Learning (yili) are the Chinese equivalents of the two respective Western terms philology and philosophy.²⁵

This Han-Song controversy later became the conceptual starting point for various modern interpretations of Qing intellectual history. Thus, we find in most, if not all, modern interpretations that Song Learning is generally identified with the entire Song-Ming philosophical tradition (or simply, as in current Western usage, Neo-Confucianism), whereas Han Learning is equated with Qing philology. Insofar as the relationship between Song-Ming Neo-Confucianism and Qing learning is concerned, two basic classical views may be distinguished. The first view stresses discontinuity in intellectual history and therefore suggests that Qing learning was beginning when Neo-Confucianism was ending: Liang Qichao and Hu Shi are the chief proponents of this thesis. Liang implies this discontinuity when he says, The point of departure of Qing learning was a violent reaction against the Neo-Confucianism of the Song and Ming.²⁶ Hu Shi is even more precise. In his view, the Neo-Confucian philosophical tradition, which had begun during the Northern Song, came to a sudden end with the Qing. With the beginning of the Qing dynasty, Chinese intellectual history entered into an entirely new age.²⁷

The second view of the relationship between Song-Ming Neo-Confucianism and Qing learning stresses historical continuity rather than discontinuity; it sees the Neo-Confucian philosophical tradition being carried well into the Qing Period. Fung Yu-lan (Feng Youlan) and Ch’ien Mu (Qian Mu) may be taken as the two outstanding representatives of this second thesis. According to Fung, when the School of Han Learning in the Qing came to deal with philosophy, the topics that were discussed…and the classical texts that were used remained the same as those of the Song and Ming Neo-Confucians. From this point of view, therefore, the Han Learning of the Qing was a continuation of Song and Ming Neo-Confucianism.²⁸ Qian Mu’s concern is much broader than philosophical discussion and textual analysis. He is ultimately concerned with Neo-Confucianism as a living intellectual as well as moral tradition. In this sense, he points out, Song Learning was highly active among the leading Ming loyalist-scholars in Qing times. Han Learning, both as a name and a reality, did not come into existence until the reign of Qianlong (1736–1796). And still during that time, in his estimation, many of the classical philologists were still profoundly steeped in the Neo-Confucian tradition. More often than not, he further argues, a scholar’s achievement in Han Learning was measurable in terms of his orientations in Song Learning.²⁹

The two dominant theses of continuity or discontinuity, opposed to each other as they appear to be, nevertheless share a common ground. In the Liang-Hu thesis, Han Learning and Song Learning are treated as if they were diametrically antithetical to each other from the very beginning. To this obviously overdrawn distinction, the Fung-Qian thesis has served as an important corrective. Even in the Fung-Qian thesis, however, there is no denying that Song Learning and Han Learning are, in their most mature forms, two entirely different types of intellectual discipline, each of which must be pursued according to its own rules. In terms familiar to the Qing scholars, Song Learning seeks to establish, chiefly through metaphysical speculations, Confucian moral principles, whereas Han Learning attempts as its central task to examine, critically and always on the basis of textual evidence, the very grounds of such principles. Therefore, in the last analysis, the real difference between the two schools of classical interpretation boils down to whether the Neo-Confucian philosophical tradition died a sudden and violent death in the early Qing or a slow and natural death in the middle Qing.³⁰

From the point of view of intellectual history, the continuity thesis of Fung and Qian does seem more attractive and satisfying than the discontinuity thesis of Liang and Hu. It still leaves something to be desired, however. To register just one particular complaint, it does not address itself specifically enough to the question of the inner logic in the fundamental transformation from Song-Ming philosophy of Qing philology. Of this inner logic, more will be discussed below. For the moment, a word or two must be said about the Han-Song controversy itself.

This controversy started with the claim of mid-Qing philologists that through their thorough textual investigations of the basic Confucian sources, they had brought to light for the first time since the Han dynasty the true meanings of the sages’ Dao. By contrast, as they asserted, Song Neo-Confucianism was based, more often than not, on incorrect readings of the Confucian texts, which, in turn, resulted from the Song thinkers’ inadequacy or even lack in philological training. In the eighteenth century, Hui Dong 惠棟 (1697–1758) and Dai Zhen 戴震 (1723–1777), the two great masters of philology, contributed, each in his own way, to this sharp distinction between Han Learning and Song Learning. Hui not only denounced Song Neo-Confucianism as no more than a mixture of Chan Buddhism and Daoism,³¹ he even accused Song Neo-Confucians of illiteracy (Song Ru bu shizi 宋儒不識字).³² Dai’s position on this matter is nowhere more clearly shown than in the following statement:

It has often been said that there is Han classical learning and there is Song classical learning; the former is philological in approach and the latter, philosophical. I am greatly puzzled by this statement. Alas, if the so-called philosophical ideas (of the sages) can be obtained by sheer speculation apart from the classics, then anyone is able to grasp them out of emptiness. If that is so, what do we need classical learning for? It is precisely because sheer speculation cannot lead one to the ancient sages’ philosophical ideas that one has to seek them from the ancient classics. Since messages contained in the surviving records have gradually fallen into oblivion due to the expanse of time between the past and the present, one therefore has to seek them through etymological studies (of the classics). Thus, only if etymology is clear, can the ancient classics be understood, and only if the classics are understood, can the sages’ philosophical ideas be grasped.³³

By the time of the nineteenth century, the Han-Song controversy was greatly intensified as well as publicized with the publication of Jiang Fan 江藩 (1761–1831)’s Hanxue shicheng ji 漢學師承記 (Record of the transmission of the Masters of the School of Han Learning). Jiang, it may be noted, was a second-generation disciple of Hui Dong.³⁴ Jiang’s glorification of Han Learning of Qing drew immediate critical reaction from Gong Zizhen 龔自珍 (1792–1841), who first read the work in manuscript form. In his letter to Jiang, written sometime in 1817, Gong listed altogether ten reasons to oppose application of the term Han Learning to the Qing case. In his opinion, Classical Learning (jingxue 經學) would be a more appropriate appellation. He was particularly dissatisfied with the arbitrary distinction between Song Learning and Han Learning. As he saw it, neither did Han Confucians shun metaphysical speculation, nor were Song Neo-Confucians entirely ignorant of philological analysis of classical texts.³⁵ Gong’s views proved to be widely shared by scholars of various intellectual persuasions in nineteenth-century China. The following three examples, selected on the basis of representativeness, should suffice to serve the purpose of illustration. Fang Dongshu 方東樹 (1772–1851) from Tongcheng 桐城 reacted most strongly and directly to Jiang’s book with his influential and controversial Hanxue shangdui 漢學商兌 (Critical evaluation of Han Learning), 1826. In this book Fang launched a systematic and all-out attack on the so-called Han Learning. He emphatically made the point that Song Neo-Confucians, especially Zhu Xi, were very much at home with philology.³⁶ Chen Li 陳澧 (1810–1882), himself a classical philologist of great distinction, wrote the Hanru tongyi 漢儒通義 (Penetrating the meanings of the Han Confucians) to show that, contrary to the view held by fellow philologists of his day, Han Confucians were interested in philosophy no less than Song Neo-Confucians.³⁷ Huang Yizhou 黃以周 (1828–1899), the last giant of the Eastern Zhejiang school, also considered the so-called Han-Song distinction to be overdrawn. In his words: There are cases in which Zheng (Xuan)’s 鄭玄 philosophical remarks (on the classics) are better than Zhu Xi’s, and Zhu Xi’s philological explication of the text is superior to Zheng’s. To insist that we must follow the Han philologically and the Song philosophically, thus splitting (classical learning) into two separate parts, is but a parochial view of the conventionalistic type of Confucian.³⁸ Criticism of this kind immediately calls into question the nature of Song Learning as it has been traditionally defined. More important, it also forces us to reopen the discussion of how Qing philology is related to Song-Ming Neo-Confucianism in general, and the Cheng-Zhu tradition (known also as Lixue 理學 Rationalism) in particular. Earlier we noted that both Hui Dong and Dai Zhen actually claimed not only that Qing philology was independent of Neo-Confucianism but also that it should replace the latter as the new Confucian orthodoxy. According to Zhang Xuecheng’s 章學誠 (1738–1801) firsthand account, it was precisely this philological claim to independence and orthodoxy that led followers of Dai Zhen, if not Dai himself, to believe that Dai’s Neo-Classicism had completely demolished Neo-Confucian Rationalism and that their master, Dai Zhen, would soon take the place of Zhu Xi in the Confucian pantheon.³⁹

At this point, some intriguing questions arise. For example, is it true that apart from being a negative response, Qing philology owed nothing to Song-Ming Neo-Confucianism? Is it really the case that Qing philologists picked up the thread of Confucian classical learning where Han exegetes left it? If the distinction between Han Learning and Song Learning is ultimately reducible to the distinction between classical scholarship and metaphysical speculation, as most Qing controversialists seem to have agreed, is the Han-Song controversy somehow historically and structurally related to the various Confucian polarities, discussed previously, such as learning and thinking, erudition and essentialism, following the path of inquiry and study and honoring the moral nature, etc.? Needless to say, there are no ready-made answers to all these questions.

Fortunately, some of Zhang Xuecheng’s writings provide us with interesting clues as to how such answers can be found. As an intellectual historian, he refused to accept at face value the then-fashionable distinction between Han Learning and Song Learning. He fully recognized the importance of philology to Confucian learning as a whole, but questioned the validity of the Qing philological claim beyond the methodological level.⁴⁰ In two richly suggestive essays, Zhu and Lu (朱陸) and Zhedong xueshu 浙東學術 (The Zhedong intellectual tradition), he offered his own account of Neo-Confucian developments from Southern Song times to his own day. It is interesting to note that in Zhang’s account, the true intellectual heirs to Zhu Xi in the Qing are to be found in the line of classical philologists from Gu Yanwu 顧炎武 (1613–1682) to Dai Zhen, whereas the intellectual successors to Lu Xiangshan and Wang Yangming are to be found in the line of what he called Eastern Zhejiang historians from Huang Zongxi 黃宗羲 (1610–1695) to, presumably, Zhang himself. In these two essays as well as elsewhere, he further characterized the two separate intellectual traditions in the Qing mainly in terms of erudition versus essentialism. It is in this sense that he called, respectively, classical philologists erudites (boya 博雅) and Eastern Zhejiang scholars specialists (zhuanjia 專家), specialization in Zhang’s terminology being interchangeable with essentialism. Moreover, Zhang often used the term essentialism in an intellectual rather than a moral context. It no longer meant moralizing or grasping what is morally essential but came very close to what we would call synthesizing or systematizing.⁴¹ Zhang’s redefinition of essentialism is highly indicative of the climate of opinion during his time. Intellectualization of key Confucian moral concepts must be regarded as a sign of the rise of Confucian intellectualism.⁴²

To sum up, Zhang’s thesis throws an entirely different light on the Han-Song controversy in Qing intellectual history. First, it treats the Han-Song distinction as more apparent than real. For if, as most late Qing controversialists suggested, Han Learning consists essentially of classical philology, then it cannot possibly be antithetical to Song Neo-Confucianism, and much less so to Zhu Xi’s tradition, which, with its built-in emphasis on inquiry and study, presupposes philology on the methodological level. Second, Zhang’s thesis stresses continuity between Song-Ming Neo-Confucianism and Qing learning from a point of view distinctly his own. Both Neo-Confucian schools of Zhu and Lu extended well into the Qing Period, but a metamorphosis transformed their extension: what had separated the two schools previously in the area of metaphysical speculations now continued to do so in the realm of classical and historical studies. Thus, we find that the previous division into two systems of thought has become a distinction between two approaches to empirical studies. There was not, therefore, as Fung Youlan defined it, a continuity limited to common philosophical topics and texts. Third, the central problem in Qing intellectual history arose not so much out of the distinction between Han Learning and Song Learning as it did from a renewed tension between erudition and essentialism—a tension, however, that had shifted from moral grounds to intellectual grounds. Particular attention must be called to the fact that Zhang placed Han Learning squarely in Zhu Xi’s tradition. This is tantamount to saying that Han Learning was more than mere philology (kaozheng). In fact, Zhang recognized in the Qing philological movement, from Gu Yanwu to Dai Zhen, a central philosophical point, which derived from Zhu Xi’s emphasis on inquiry and study as a starting point for the quest for the Confucian Dao. According to Zhang’s thesis, therefore, Han Learning can claim its immediacy to Dao only when it rises above philology.

In the pages that immediately follow, I shall first try to clarify the term Song Learning. Only with this clarification can we expect to develop a more objective and balanced view of Neo-Confucianism. Then, on the basis of a redefinition of Song Learning, I shall propose a new scheme of periodization, according to which the development of Neo-Confucianism from the early Song to the mid-Qing times may be understood in terms of the inner logic of intellectual history. When we return to the Qing case at a later juncture, it is hoped that some of the profound implications of Zhang Xuecheng’s thesis will also become more readily appreciable.

TWO CONCEPTS OF SONG LEARNING

Generally speaking, we can discern two different concepts of Song Learning in Chinese intellectual history. The first concept, defined in a narrow sense, identifies Song Learning with metaphysical speculation on the Confucian Dao. This concept was formally established in the Yuan Period when a new category of Daoxue 道學 was adopted in the Songshi (History of the Song Dynasty) to honor the thinkers of the Cheng-Zhu school.⁴³ It was greatly strengthened in the Ming, during which time metaphysical speculation happened to be the dominant form of Confucianism. The Ming acceptance of this narrow interpretation of Song Learning is well illustrated by the fact that the Daoxue Biographies in the History of the Song were published as a separate book, for which Chen Xianzhang 陳獻章 (1428–1500) wrote an important foreword (xu 序) in 1485.⁴⁴ Furthermore, attention must also be called to the unique and unexcelled Ming contributions to Confucian speculative philosophy. In the estimate of Huang Zongxi:

The literary and practical accomplishments of the Ming did not measure up to those of former dynasties. Yet in the "philosophy of Principle (Lixue 理學) it attained what other dynasties did not. In everything Ming scholars made the finest of distinctions and classifications, as if they were sorting the hair of an ox or picking silk threads from a cocoon. They thereby discovered what other scholars had failed to discover." ⁴⁵

It was through this kind of metaphysically colored telescope of the Ming that the metaphysical importance of Song Learning was magnified out of proportion in the Qing. When Qing philologists talked about Song Learning unanalytically, they meant, almost without exception, Daoxue or Lixue.⁴⁶ In modern times, this narrow concept of Song Learning still continues to enjoy great popularity. Metaphysical speculation is seen to be what is essentially new in the Song revival of Confucian learning.⁴⁷ The concept has even penetrated into the Western intellectual world. The Western term, Neo-Confucianism, for example, is used mainly as an equivalent of Daoxue or Lixue in Chinese, although such an interpretation often presents difficulties.⁴⁸

Intellectual historians, however, have long been critical of this partial and restricted view of Song Learning. Huang Zongxi, for instance, found little sense in the creation of the new category Daoxue in the History of the Song. In his judgment, the traditional category Rulin 儒林 (Confucian Scholars) is quite adequate to take care of the so-called Daoxue philosophers such as Zhou Dunyi, the Cheng brothers, Zhang Zai, and Zhu Xi. The Daoxue category is particularly misleading because it tends to suggest that the transmission of the Confucian Dao is separable from that of the Confucian classics, the latter being the central concern of the traditional Rulin category.⁴⁹ This leads to a second and broadly defined concept of Song Learning, which Huang developed in his unfinished Song-Yuan Xue-an 宋元學案 (Scholarly cases of Song and Yuan classical scholars).⁵⁰

In Scholarly Cases of Song and Yuan Classical Scholars, Hu Yuan 胡瑗 (993–1059), Sun Fu 孫復 (992–1057), Fan Zhongyan 范仲淹 (989–1052), and Ou-yang Xiu 歐陽修 (1007–1072) are treated, in that order, as the founders of Song Learning, none of whom, it may be noted, achieved any distinction in metaphysical speculation. In offering this new interpretation of the Confucian revival in the early Song, both Huang Zongxi’s and Quan Zuwang’s 全祖望 (1705–1755) historical judgments are well grounded. Methodologically, they distinguished the premetaphysical conception of Song Confucianism from the metaphysically colored view of the later periods. Thus, in each and every case of the above four Neo-Confucian scholars, the choice was made on the basis of a Song evaluation. As Quan Zuwang clearly explained in his Introductory Remarks:⁵¹ Hu Yuan and Sun Fu were selected as the forerunners of Song Learning because they had been so recommended by both Cheng Yi and Zhu Xi. The placement of Fan Zhongyan next to Hu and Sun was originally also Zhu Xi’s idea. In the case of Ou-yang Xiu, he was included in spite of his aversion to metaphysical speculation.⁵² On the authority of Yang Shi 楊時 (1053–1135), however, Quan Zuwang insisted that Ou-yang Xiu’s status as a Neo-Confucian scholar and thinker must be reestablished. He should be much more than merely a master of Song literature.

In a sense, it may be contended that what Huang Zongxi and Quan Zuwang were attempting was actually a historical reconstruction of the self-image of Song Neo-Confucianism. In this regard, they must be considered highly successful, for, interestingly enough, their reconstruction of the early Song Neo-Confucian development is confirmed by the following observation of the Southern Song scholar Chen Fuliang 陳傅良 (1137–1203):

With the rise of the Song, [the style of] learning among scholars underwent no less than three changes. From the reign of jianlong 建隆 (960–962) to the reigns of tiansheng 天聖 (1023–1031) and mingdao 明道 (1032–1033), vulgar [intellectual] customs dating from the period of the Five Dynasties were wiped out. [Scholars] then had a clearer idea of the direction [in which learning] should be developed. However, some of the old and conventionalized practices were yet to be transformed. Then Fan Zhongyan and his followers came to the forefront, promoting moral integrity as a timely remedy. Prompted by a sense of shame, everybody in the Empire followed their lead. When Ou-yang Xiu appeared on the scene, he impressed the world with the purity and elegance of both his expressed ideas and his literary art, which far surpassed those of the Wei and Jin periods. Finally, after a while, Zhou Dunyi 周敦頤 (1027–1073) entered the field. He dropped all the nonessential embellishments and founded his learning primarily on the basis of the Six Classics.⁵³

This account agrees even in detail with the Huang-Quan thesis presented in the Scholarly Cases of Song and Yuan Classical Scholars. Although the names of Hu Yuan and Sun Fu are not mentioned, Chen Fuliang must have had them in mind when he referred to the beginning of a new sense of direction in learning in the mingdao period, for it was precisely that period which marks the beginning of the lasting influence of Hu Yuan’s Neo-Confucian educational program, established first in Suzhou and finally in the Imperial Academy.⁵⁴

Thus, in contrast to the narrowly defined view, a broad conception of early Song Neo-Confucianism eventually crystallized. Consciously distinguishing these two different concepts of Song Learning is essential to our understanding of the relationship between Han Learning and Song Learning. To say the least, unnecessary confusion of different levels of discussion in the Han-Song controversy can be avoided. With this clarification, it can be readily recognized that while Qing scholars such as Hui Dong and Dai Zhen attacked Song Learning in its narrow sense, others such as Gong Zizhen and Fang Dongshu defended it in its broad sense.

Much of the entangled nature of the long-standing Han-Song Learning controversy therefore results from the fact that the controversialists are not always talking about the same Song Learning. A clear recognition of the fact that there have been two conceptual levels of Song Learning is equally important for the interpretation of the nature of Qing intellectual history, especially in the way the Qing intellectual development stands in relation to the Song. It is one thing to contrast Qing philology with Song Neo-Confucianism in its narrow, metaphysical sense, but it is an entirely different matter to explain the rise of Qing philology against the background of the whole Neo-Confucian tradition conceived in broad terms. While the former approach suggests discontinuity, the latter implies continuity. As an intellectual historian, my emphasis will be placed on the latter approach, although I wish also to show specifically how Neo-Confucian metaphysical speculation eventually gets itself helplessly involved in a philological argument.⁵⁵

Although the meaning of the narrow concept of Song Learning has always been clear, Song Learning in its broad sense is not readily susceptible to a simple, neat definition. It hinges very much on how the Confucian Dao was conceived by the early Song Neo-Confucians. In this connection, a much quoted passage by Liu Yi 劉彛(1017–1086) may be cited to serve as a basis for our discussion. In 1069, Liu Yi, a leading disciple of Hu Yuan, explained the Confucian Dao to Emperor Shenzong in the following words:

Your minister has heard that the Way (Dao) of the Sages has three aspects: substance (ti 體), function (yong 用) and literary expression (wen 文). The bond between prince and minister and between father and son, humanity, righteousness, rites and music—these are things which do not change through the ages; they are the substance of Dao. The Classic of Poetry and the Classic of History, the dynastic histories, the writings of the philosophers and the works of men of letters—these perpetuate the example down through the ages; they are the Dao’s literary expression. To activate this substance and put it into practice throughout the empire, enriching the life of the people and ordering all things to imperial perfection—this is its function.⁵⁶

As de Bary observes, In this threefold conception of the Dao, we have a concise statement of the aims of the Song school in their most general terms…suggesting broad lines along which it was to be developed by the manifold activities of Song scholars.⁵⁷

Liu’s threefold formulation of the Confucian Dao may be briefly explained as follows: Of the three aspects, the ti, or substance, is, of course, most fundamental to Neo-Confucianism. Since Liu was no metaphysician, he merely described it in plain language and presented it as no more than a set of Confucian ethical principles governing human relationships of various kinds. Like most Neo-Confucians of his day, however, he also firmly believed that the substance of Dao is not subject to change. It was precisely this belief that led other Neo-Confucians with a metaphysical turn of mind to search intensively for the metaphysical foundations of the Confucian Dao. In its extreme form, as Dai Zhen later pointed out, the substance of Dao (or its equivalent Li Principle) was conceived as a completely self-sufficient metaphysical entity that, being obtained from Heaven, becomes embodied in the mind.⁵⁸

Liu uses the term wen (literary expressions) in a very broad sense. It practically includes all the four major categories of books in traditional bibliographical classifications. It is not clear whether by the name zi 子, Liu meant writings of all philosophical schools or those of the Confucians only. Even if he intended the latter meaning, the whole range of literary expressions was already wide enough to engage the energy and time of scholars for generations.

The problem of function (yong) of the Confucian Dao is immensely complicated and therefore requires further comment. To begin with, it must be emphasized that in the Neo-Confucian context, substance and function are but two sides of the same coin. Logically, the two imply each other. In this sense, then, the functional aspect of the Confucian Dao must be regarded as far more important and real than its literary (including classical or, more appropriately, scriptural) traditions. The functions of Dao are multitudinous, however. Therefore, those mentioned in Liu’s statement can only be considered as a very incomplete list given by way of illustration. Upon closer scrutiny, one will find that Liu’s functions are essentially of the political and social kind. In the most general terms, the functions of the Confucian Dao may be classified into two major categories, which correspond, respectively, to what is commonly referred to as sageliness within and kingliness without (neisheng waiwang 內聖外王).⁵⁹ To borrow a more clearly formulated expression from the seventeenth century writer Shao Tingcai 邵廷采 (1648–1711), the Dao functions outwardly to put the world in order and inwardly to nourish man’s nature and feelings (wai qi jingshi, nei yang xingqing 外期經世, 內養性情).⁶⁰

In the history of Confucianism in general and of Neo-Confucianism in particular, the internal functioning of Dao was manifested mainly in the form of moral self-cultivation. Moral cultivation involved relatively fewer complications because at least in theory, attainment of sageliness within needed nothing from outside. On the other hand, however, the external functioning of Dao in terms of putting the world in order presented a perennially difficult problem to the Confucians. This aspect of the Dao transcended the realm of thought and depended for its final solution on external factors, which were, by definition, beyond the control of Confucian thinkers as individuals. As history has repeatedly shown, each time external conditions proved unfavorable for the realization of Confucian ideals, the Confucians withdrew to their own inner world of ideas with the expectation that after sufficient waiting, they could find a better opportunity to emerge. In this regard, the life of Confucius is highly symbolic of the fate of Confucianism in later Chinese history. According to tradition, Confucius turned to the world of classical scholarship only after he had accepted the fact that it was impossible for the Dao he promoted to prevail in the outside world. It may be suggested that the pattern of withdrawal and return, to borrow a favorite expression of Arnold J. Toynbee, is ever-recurrent and characterizes a large part of the long, frustrating historical experience of the Confucian Dao in its quest for political and social realization, from Confucius himself down to Gu Yanwu and Huang Zongxi.⁶¹

NEO-CONFUCIANISM: A NEW SCHEME OF PERIODIZATION

With Song Neo-Confucianism so broadly defined, a new periodization of the whole Neo-Confucian intellectual development from the Song to the Qing may be attempted. Three different stages of the development can be clearly discerned. The Song Period represents the beginning and first stage of Neo-Confucianism when all the three aspects of the Tao—substance, function, and literary, including scriptural tradition—found their lively expressions. The middle and second stage began in late Southern Song and culminated in the Ming dynasty. In this stage, metaphysical speculations on the substance of Dao eventually gained ascendancy over the other two aspects in Neo-Confucianism. Thus, the functional aspect was largely confined to the realm of sageliness within or moral self-cultivation, and the study of the Confucian literary tradition on the whole ceased to make any significant progress. It was also during this period that the idea of Song Learning in its narrow sense gradually became crystallized. The final and third stage clearly started in the late Ming and early Qing times and came to full fruition in the eighteenth century. The central task Neo-Confucian scholars set for themselves during this third period was to restudy as well as to purify the Confucian literary tradition, especially the scriptural domain. The quest for the substance of Dao through moral self-cultivation was definitely out of fashion, as was the interest in the internal aspect of the function of Dao. It would be unjust, however, to say that Qing scholars were entirely unconcerned with the substance of Dao. In fact, they justified classical and historical studies as a Confucian calling on the ground that the quest for the true Confucian Dao must begin with intellectual clarification. Nor was the idea of function with respect to kingliness without completely dead during this whole period. On the contrary, the idea still showed great vitality throughout the third stage. For example, it pulsed vibrantly through the political criticisms of the Donglin 東林 movement of the late Ming Period, the expectations of Gu Yanwu and Huang Zongxi, the pragmatism of Yan Yuan 顏元 (1635–1704) and Li Gong 李塨 (1659–1733), the political and social philosophy of Dai Zhen, and Zhang Xuecheng’s theory of history being practically serviceable to society (jingshi 經世). The rise of the well-known Jingshi school in the nineteenth century, it may be noted, owed much to the intellectual inspirations of Zhang’s writings. Even with all these modifications, the final stage of the Neo-Confucian development is clearly marked by a much more genuine interest in the Confucian scriptural tradition (wen) than in either the substantial (ti) or functional (yong) aspect of Dao.

We must now proceed to analyze the above three stages of development of Neo-Confucianism in terms of the inner logic of intellectual history. As Liu Yi’s statement indicates, early Song Neo-Confucians meant to develop the Confucian Dao along three broad lines through manifold activities, which, in fact, they did. It hardly needs to be said that the long and distinguished genealogy of Neo-Confucian philosophers, from Chou Dunyi, Zhang Zai, and the two Cheng brothers all the way to Zhu Xi and Lu Xiangshan, was primarily concerned with the quest for the substance of Dao. As regards wen (literary expressions), however, the Song accomplishments have long been underestimated. Recent studies have convincingly shown that in the fields of classical and historical studies, Song scholars distinguished themselves in at least two aspects: first, their critical investigations and reevaluations covered almost every single aspect of the ancient cultural heritage; second, even in terms of methodological innovations, they also anticipated much of what has been generally considered as unique contributions of Qing philologists.⁶²

Confucian Dao in the Song, like Christian faith during the Reformation, is a busy, active thing. It changes society and builds the Kingdom.⁶³ A major curriculum reform Hu Yuan introduced into the Imperial Academy in the third decade of the eleventh century, for example, placed emphatic stress on management of practical affairs (zhishi 治事) alongside classical studies (the so-called jingyi 經義) in Confucian higher education.⁶⁴ Needless to say, classical scholarship dealt with the substance of Dao and management of practical affairs dealt with its function or application. This simultaneous concern with both substance and function is by no means unique with Hu Yuan. In fact, it is a spirit common to Northern Song Neo-Confucians. Sun Fu’s study of the Chunqiu 春秋 (Spring and Autumn Annals)⁶⁵ and Li Gou’s 李覯 (1009–1059) study of the Zhouli 周禮 (Rites of Zhou),⁶⁶ to give two additional examples, show an equally immediate functional sensitivity to the needs of the state and society during Song times. From the point of view of intellectual history, it was out of this Song zeitgeist,⁶⁷ so to speak, that the reform movement from Fan Zhongyan to Wang Anshi arose, which was the culmination of the functioning of Dao in the realm of kingliness without.

The failure of Wang Anshi’s reforms marks a turning point in the development of Neo-Confucianism. It put to an end the Neo-Confucian dream of experimenting with political and social reconstruction and therefore turned Neo-Confucianism inwardly toward the realm of sageliness within. In the twelfth century, Neo-Confucianism faced a difficult historical choice between political participation and intellectual withdrawal. Opinion was divided between what may be called the fundamentalist wing⁶⁸ of Zhu Xi, Lü Zuqian 呂祖謙 (1137–1181), and Zhang Shi 張栻 (1133–1180) on the one hand, and the utilitarian wing, including, among others, Chen Liang 陳亮 (1143–1194) and Ye Shi 葉適 (1150–1223) on the other. While the latter group continued to preach immediate political reformism, the former urged a retreat into the intellectual and moral world to tackle what they regarded as the more fundamental issues in Neo-Confucianism. As we all know, it was the fundamentalists that eventually triumphed over their utilitarian rivals. It should be added, however, that the fundamentalists’ retreat was originally conceived as a temporary strategic move, for Zhu Xi and his allies were all profoundly convinced that only when the fundamental issues were satisfactorily solved, could they then expect to return to deal effectively with the practical affairs of state and society.⁶⁹

Hence, in terms of Liu Yi’s threefold formulation, it may be said that in Southern Song times, the Neo-Confucian emphasis shifted gradually to the substance (ti) of Dao, although the idea of function (yong) was still very much alive. In other words, Neo-Confucianism turned away from seeking immediate improvement of the external world and began a long metaphysical journey in search of the inner meanings of the substance of Dao. This shift, though not clearly perceptible in the beginning, is more or less reflected in the changing views of substance and function in Song Neo-Confucian philosophy. In the eleventh century, for instance, Cheng Yi took substance and function to be of the same origin (tiyong yiyuan 體用一源), which suggests that they are the two inseparable aspects of Dao.⁷⁰ But Cheng Yi gave no clear indication as to which of the two aspects should be stressed. In the twelfth century, the idea of the inseparability of substance and function was still current. The emphasis, however, was placed more on substance than on function. On the positive side there was Zhu Xi’s view that substance generates function,⁷¹ which must be regarded as a significant departure from Cheng Yi’s view. On the negative side, there was Lü Zuqian’s warning against overstressing function. As Lü put it, function is always an essential part of the Confucian Dao, but we must not single it out as something of particular importance, for if we do, we would be inevitably led astray.⁷² Conceivably, Lü’s view was developed as a fundamentalist’s answer to the challenge of the utilitarian wing.

It is difficult to say precisely when the second stage of Neo-Confucianism began. I have been very much tempted to take the Goose Lake Temple Debate between Zhu Xi and Lu Xiangshan in 1175 as the beginning. However, two reasons make me hesitate to do so. First, the debate was, in all likelihood, more important to Neo-Confucians of later centuries than to those of the twelfth century. Zhu Xi, for instance, only referred to this event casually in some of his letters.⁷³ At any rate, there is no evidence that the debate attracted much immediate attention from Zhu’s and Lu’s contemporaries. Second, in Zhu Xi’s time, a considerable degree of equilibrium was still maintained between the subjective quest of Dao through moral cultivation and the objective study of the Confucian scriptural tradition. Zhu Xi himself is a great classical scholar, even judging by the rigid standards of Qing philology.

If we must choose a date for the beginning of the second stage, the thirteenth century is preferable to the twelfth. In the middle of the thirteenth century, a serious attempt was made by a certain Tang Zhong 湯中 to reconcile the differences between Zhu’s following the path of inquiry and study and Lu’s honoring the moral nature.⁷⁴ This is the earliest of such reconciliations in Neo-Confucian intellectual history, after the Goose Lake Debate. Unfortunately, we know very little about the details of Tang Zhong’s reconciliation. However, the very fact that Tang had found it necessary to make such an effort is sufficient indication that the Zhu-Lu controversy had by then already become one of the inner tensions in Neo-Confucianism. From the point of view of intellectual history, it is only logical that a few decades later, in early Yuan times, Wu Cheng 吳澄 (1249–1333), the well-known and well-respected follower of Zhu Xi, also turned to stress the importance of honoring the moral nature, for which he was severely criticized by his contemporaries.⁷⁵

In the second stage, while the functional aspect of Dao appears to have receded from the forefront of Confucian consciousness, the quest for the substance of Dao became inextricably involved with the whole Confucian scriptural tradition (wen). It was precisely because of this involvement that zun dexing and dao wenxue became the central tension in Neo-Confucianism. We have seen previously how this central tension implies a dichotomy between morality and knowledge in the Confucian context. Now we must examine briefly and in highly generalized terms how this tension can further be fitted into the analytical scheme provided by Liu Yi’s threefold formulation of Dao. On the basis of Liu Yi’s formulation, the major controversy in this middle stage of Neo-Confucianism arose from the fact that there were two conflicting views on the role of that part of the Confucian scriptural tradition (wen) that dealt with metaphysical speculations on the substance (ti) of Dao.

The substance of Dao, as Neo-Confucian philosophers of this second stage all agreed, is predominantly moral in nature. They also basically agreed that true knowledge of this substance can be obtained primarily through the inner light of man’s moral nature. Moral self-cultivation therefore becomes the first and central task for every Neo-Confucian. But what role would the Confucian literary tradition, especially the scriptural domain, play in this inner search for the substance of Dao? At this point, we find the Neo-Confucian house extremely divided. At one extreme, there is the view that since all the moral truths about the Dao had already been discovered by ancient sages and are contained in their writings, it is important that we study these sources carefully to find out what the Dao really is. The primacy of moral cultivation is, of course, not questioned. However, the scriptural tradition is very much emphasized as a necessary intellectual prerequisite for the right kind of moral cultivation. At the other extreme, we find a view that stresses the transcendency of the moral substance of Dao. This view does not deny that moral truths had been previously discovered by the sages, but it tends to imply that man’s moral awakening, or recovery of his moral mind, consists, in each and every case, in an original creation and discovery all his own. In other words, no matter how many times the same truth had been discovered by sages before him, a man would still have to find it out all by himself and for himself. With this view, therefore, study of the Confucian literary (including scriptural) sources becomes at least peripheral, if not completely irrelevant, to the quest of the substance of Dao.

Needless to say, the above presentation is necessarily oversimplified and overgeneralized. Moreover, between the two extremes, many intermediate views with varying degrees of inclination toward one side or the other can be discerned as well. On the whole, however, the conflict between the two fundamentally divergent attitudes figures centrally in the Neo-Confucian inner tension involving the relationship between honoring the moral nature and following the path of inquiry and study, or, as the Song distinction goes, between moral knowledge and intellectual knowledge.

During the Ming Period, when the quest for moral knowledge reigned supreme, what Liu Yi referred to as the literary expression (wen) of the Confucian Dao received the least attention from Neo-Confucian philosophers. This situation is most characteristically illustrated by the fact that, historically, the lowest ebb of Confucian classical scholarship comes during the Ming. As Gu Yanwu neatly put it, "Since the adoption of the eight-legged style in the examination, ancient learning has been discarded; with the publication of the Sishu wujing daquan 四書五經大全 (Complete Collection of the Four Books and Five Classics), all the old exegeses have fallen into oblivion."⁷⁶ Although in actual practice Ming Neo-Confucianism ceased to contribute significantly to classical and historical studies, in theory, intellectual knowledge continued to be of central importance in philosophical discussions. The dominant Ming Neo-Confucian theory of knowledge, ranging from Chen Xianzhang to Wang Yangming, as it has been generally known, places moral knowledge in an absolute and completely self-sufficient realm to which