their schools depended on the intensified demand. Organizational expansion
of the means of intellectual production created the conditions under which
autonomous intellectual networks could take off.
Doubtless these same conditions were involved in the upsurge of many
other forms of cultural innovation during these centuries. The Sung dynasty
experienced a sudden outpouring of work in science, archaeology, and mathe-
matics (Needham, 1956: 493–495; 1959: 38–51). Beginning around 1030 and
continuing into the 1300s, there was a stream of scientists producing research
and reasoned compilations in biology, astronomy, fossil records, medicine,
agriculture, and mathematics, as well as critical historical scholars who at-
tacked apocryphal books and established careful editions of old records. All
the contending factions of Sung political-intellectual life seem to have been
involved in this scientific and rational-scholarly movement. Although Neo-
Confucian politics was archaizing, and the movement’s religious wings bor-
dered on the mystical, nevertheless many of its leaders supported empirical
science. Ssu-ma Kuang, the minister who undid the Wang An-shih reforms
which had put science into the examinations, was himself a historical scholar,
he agreed with the slogan of Ch’eng I that knowledge derives from the inves-
tigation of things: “Every blade of grass possesses principle and should be
examined.” This ambiguous statement might be taken as advocacy of scientific
induction, or as a doctrine of knowledge as a flash of insight resulting from
Buddhist-like meditation. Chu Hsi, who promoted both empirical science
(especially geology) and spiritual exercises, shows a similar combination.
The Neo-Confucian movement drew on diverse cultural capitals; its long-
term success came from working out a synthesis that appealed to various
intellectual and career interests within the gentry class. Its opposition to the
examination system was not to last, and eventually its own works took over
the curriculum. But the initial opposition was crucial for shaping its innova-
tions. At a time when the examination system was in flux and contending
factions disputed its content, Neo-Confucianism outflanked the narrower po-
sitions by uniting key elements of the scholarly world with some of the main
appeals of the non-Confucian religions.
The Decline of Elite Buddhism and Taoism
To understand why the Neo-Confucians were philosophically creative and not
merely reactionary, we must see them as appropriating a religious space that
became open at this time. Colonization of this niche distinguished them from
other movements among the gentry on both the reform and conservative sides.
They remained Confucians by adhering to their core strategy, the claim by lite-
rati on government positions; within this stance, the Neo-Confucians reshaped
Revolutions: Buddhist and Neo-Confucian China • 305