uncle Chang Tsai, and the scientist-statesman Ssu-ma Kuang. The Ch’eng
brothers’ contacts, even with the positions they rejected, shaped their creativity
by opposition. It was because of their central position amidst the antagonisms
and opportunities of the field that they came to forge the most successful
philosophy.
Ch’eng Hao gave an especially moralistic emphasis to his philosophy,
tending to anthropomorphize nature as having a mind, and animated by the
basic Confucian virtue of jen, humanity. His main philosophical contribution
was to add another level of abstraction besides ch’i, the basic substance: there
is also li, principle, which underlies both natural and moral phenomena.
Ch’eng I, the most original thinker of the group, developed a cosmological
model in which new ch’i is continuously created as old ch’i is burned up: “The
universe is a vast furnace.” Physical and mental are aspects of the same thing,
while abstract principle (li) governs the whole. “A thing is an event. If the
principles underlying the event are investigated to the utmost, then all princi-
ples will be understood.” “Principle is one but its manifestations are many.”
Graham (1958: xix) calls Ch’eng I “the greatest Confucian thinker of the
last two thousand years.” If we are concerned with the higher levels of abstract
philosophy, we could extend this judgment all the way back to the beginning.
The Chinese themselves made a cult of the pre-Han thinkers, and cast them-
selves in the role of mere commentators. Modern historians have been willing
to see later Confucians as nothing but footnotes to a fixed body of ideas. In
reality, Confucius, Mencius, and Chuang Tzu are not in the same league with
the later philosophers at constructing sophisticated arguments for clearly rec-
ognized metaphysical conceptions. Long cumulation across intellectual genera-
tions opens new realms of creativity which are beyond the purview of early
generations.
Test Case: An Abortive Confucian Sage Religion in the Late T’ang
If the sociological explanation of Sung Neo-Confucianism is correct, similar
conditions should have been involved in an episode in the late T’ang in which
a similar doctrine appeared. Sung Neo-Confucianism developed among the
factions contending for political control in a government dominated by schol-
ars. The expanding examination system provided the material basis for intel-
lectual movements as burgeoning numbers of students opened up careers for
teachers and led to the founding of numerous private schools. Competition
became severe for the small number of government positions at the end of the
educational sequence, building up dissatisfaction and fostering proposals for
curricular reform. Educational factions split over revising, reinterpreting, or
replacing the classics on which the examinations were based, and over the issue
Revolutions: Buddhist and Neo-Confucian China • 309