Page:Eminent Chinese Of The Ch’ing Period - Hummel - 1943 - Vol. 2.pdf/97

 markings in a piece of jade or the grain in wood. The mind, though a physical organ, is capable of differentiating the li, the principle or characteristic features of things; but to do so it must "lean on nothing but the facts" (空所依傍). These principles cannot be adequately revealed by introspection or meditation; nor will they come to man in a flash of "sudden enlightenment" as the Sung philosophers had maintained. They can be known only by "wide learning, careful investigation, exact thinking, clear reasoning, and sincere conduct." There are, in short, dependable laws and principles in things which can be ascertained and predicted with reasonable certainty. Reason is not something superimposed by Heaven on man's physical nature; it is exemplified in every manifestation of his being, even in the so-called baser emotions.

Tai Chên held that the social consequences of regarding li as a Heaven-sent entity, and of the desires as essentially evil, had worked a great harm on China. He therefore reserved for these concepts his most vehement denunciation. He did, of course, recognize that the thought of li as present in even the humblest man, had had at times a truly salutary influence—enhancing the dignity of the commonest man, giving him in effect a higher law to which he could appeal when dispassionate analysis failed to win for him freedom from injustice and oppression. But an appeal as subjective as this, had evil consequences as well. Tai Chên declared that no man's private opinion should be called li, for it is a word which "should never be used lightly". One can discern here intimations of the modern view: that scientific proof is not private, but public; that facts are things to which all men can point to equally, and not things to which one man points alone. If li is to be interpreted only by the intuitions of the neart, and not by reference to the facts of the case, what will prevent the powerful, the eloquent, or the corrupt from imposing their private ideas of li on the weak, the untutored and the innocent? Li so interpreted, said Tai, is "no li at all." It then becomes, as it often did become in actual practice, a bludgeon need by the powerful and the unscrupulous to enforce their private ends. Li is the internal structure or system in things, and this it is the business of the mind to discover, unclouded by its own prejudices and undeceived by the prejudices of others.

The Sung practice of relating the desires to ch'i or matter, and so giving to them an inferior status, and the teaching that the desires must be minimized or suppressed, were both equally objectionable to Tai Chên. In his opinion, the ideal society is one in which the natural desires and feelings can be freely expressed. He believed that the ancients ruled by giving scope to men's desires but, as time went on, one natural impulse after another was branded as vulgar or seductive, until the people hardly knew what standards to accept. He insisted that even the great qualities of fellow-feeling, righteousness, decorum and wisdom are simply extensions of the fundamental instincts of food and sex or the natural urge to preserve life and to postpone death, and that they are not to be sought apart from these urges. They are, in fact, manifestations of the tao which, as stated above, he identified with the endless process of change and activity. "Everything that has breath and intelligence", said he, "must by its very nature have desires." Virtue is therefore not the absence of desires, but their orderly fulfilment and expression. The attempt to lessen or repress them results, in his view, in hypocrisy, injustice and innumerable other social ills.

Perhaps the only contemporaries of Tai Chên who can be said to have grasped the import of his teachings were Hung Pang 洪榜 and. Hung wrote a biography of Tai in which he described the essentials of his philosophy, but he died young and thus his influence was slight. Though Chang appreciated Tai's merits, he took offense, as did others, at his attacks on the time-honored doctrines of Chu Hsi. Tuan Yü-ts'ai revered him as a teacher but, being almost devoid of philosophical interests, could not advance his master's views. and carried on Tai's thought in part, but failed to stress certain essentials, with the result that, after their time, Tai's views ceased to have a vogue in China. Under the pressure of Western aggression and internal disorder a need for the consolations of Sung philosophy again asserted itself; and it was not until the opening of this century, when Tai's nearness to Western thought became apparent, that his really important place in the history of philosophy has been appreciated. [See Note by Hu Shih on Tai Chên, Chao I-ch'ing and Ch'üan Tsu-wang, p. 970. Ed.]

[Anhwei ts'ung-shu, sixth series; Hu Shih, "The Philosophy of Tai Tung-yüan" (in Chinese), Kuo-hsüeh chi-k'an (Jour. of Sinological Studies), vol. II, no. 1, Dec. 1925; idem., "The Philosopher, Ch'êng T'ing-tso, of the School of Yen Yüan" (in Chinese), Kuo-hsüeh chi-k'an, vol. 5, no. 3, 1935; Freeman, Mansfield, "The Philosophy of Tai 699