SOURCE: “Chu Hsi's Jen-shuo” (Treatise on Humanity),” in Chu Hsi: New Studies, University of Hawaii Press, 1989, pp. 151-83.

[In the essay below, Chan studies Chu Hsi's Jen-shuo (“Treatise on Humanity”), examining the reasons Chu Hsi wrote the treatise, discussing the likely period of composition, and reviewing the major concepts—the character of the mind and the principle of love—explored by Chu Hsi within the treatise.]

Chu Hsi's philosophical thought centered on the basic concepts of the Great Ultimate (T’ai-chi), principle (li), material force (ch’i), humanity (jen), righteousness (i), equilibrium (chung), and harmony (ho). In these he perpetuated the doctrines of the Ch’eng brothers (Ch’eng Hao, 1032-1085, and Ch’eng I, 1033-1107) and added his own innovative views to compete with the prevailing philosophical schools of Hunan, Kiangsi, and Chekiang. To this end he carried on debates with Lu Hsiang-shan (1139-1193) of Kiangsi on the problem of the Great Ultimate,¹ with Change Shih (1133-1180) of Hunan on the issue of equilibrium and harmony,² and with Ch’en Liang (1143-1194) of Chekiang on the questions of righteousness versus profit and the way of the sagely king versus the way of the powerful despot.³ But there was no debate on the central concept of jen (humanity), as if Chu Hsi were not much concerned with it. In reality, however, after he compiled the Lun-yü yao-i (Essential meanings of the Analects) in 1163 at the age of thirty-four, Chu Hsi hardly passed a day without thinking and talking about jen. His ideas on it are found in his commentaries, letters, and conversations. The number of people with whom he discussed jen, both in person and in his correspondence, far exceeded the number with whom he discussed other topics. His correspondence on jen, now preserved in the Wen-chi, includes letters to Chang Ching-fu (Chang Shih), Lü Po-kung (Lü Tsu-ch’ien), Ho Shu-ching (Ho Hao), Hu Kuang-chung (Hu Shih), Wu Hui-shu (Wu I), Shih Tzu-chung (Shih Tun), Lin Hsi-chih (Lin Ta-ch’un), Lin Tse-chih (Lin Yung-chung), Hu Po-feng (Hu Ta-yüan), Lü Tzu-yüeh (Lü Tsu-chien), “Venerable Sir,” Yü Chan-chih (Yü Yü), Chou Shun-pi (Chou Mu), Chou Shu-chin (Chou Chieh), Fang Pin-wang (Fang I), Li Yao-ch’ing (Li T’ang-tzu), Ch’en An-ching (Ch’en Ch’un), Yang Chung-ssu (Yang Tao-fu), Ch’en Ch’i-chih (Ch’en Chih), and Hsü Chü-fu (Hsü Yü). The degree of fervent discussion can readily be seen.⁴

Besides his correspondence, Chu Hsi wrote the Jen-shuo, a 824-character treatise now preserved in chapter 67 of the Wen-chi. It is divided into two sections, the first on jen as “the character of the mind” (hsin chih te), and the second on jen as “the principle of love” (ai chih li). He also criticized the theories of jen forming one body with all things and jen as consciousness of pain. In addition, he drew the “Jen-shuo-t’u” (Diagram of the Treatise on Humanity) which appears at the end of chapter 105 of the Yü-lei—and in chapter 18 below (p. 281). The diagram was drawn after many years of discussion on jen and numerous revisions of the treatise. To Chu Hsi, the concept of jen was clearly far more important than those of the Great Ultimate and other philosophical categories. Why was this? As Chu Hsi himself confided, he simply could not help it.

THE MOTIVE

In a letter to Lü Tsu-ch’ien (1137-1181), Chu Hsi wrote,

Of course this treatise is superficial and lacks reserve. But in my humble opinion, in the teaching of the ancients there was already a clear explanation of terms like this beginning with elementary education, unlike the superficial, abstract, and artificial interpretations of later generations. In their learning, they understood the term clearly, but a principle like this must be put into actual practice. Therefore, in the School of the Sage [Confucius] the important task has been to search for humanity. The reason is that having understood the term to some extent, one has to strive to arrive at that state. People today have completely failed to understand. This being the case, what they are seeking eagerly is something of which they are ignorant throughout life. How can they be expected to love to discuss it and to know where to devote their effort? Therefore, although my words today are simple and plain compared to those of the ancients, I cannot help uttering them.⁵

Two points should be noted in this letter, namely, Chu Hsi's explanation of the term jen and his emphasis on the necessity of putting it into concrete practice. But one must first comprehend the principle of jen before one can practice it. In a letter to Lü Tsu-ch’ien's brother, Lü Tsu-chien (d. 1196), Chu Hsi said,

Jen, of course, cannot be interpreted purely from the point of view of function, but one must understand the principle that jen has the ability to function. Only then will it do. Otherwise, the term will be meaningless and cannot be explained. Take the sentence, “Origination is the leading quality of goodness.”⁶ It means the original substance which is the starting point of the origination of all things and which can function. One should not regard the original substance of jen as one thing and its function as another. … Generally speaking, the meaning of jen must be found in one idea and one principle. Only then can we talk on a high level about a principle that penetrates everything. Otherwise, it will be the so-called vague Thusness and stupid Buddha-nature,⁷ and the word jen will be left dangling. I have written my humble treatise precisely for this reason.⁸

The idea in this passage is similar to that in the letter to Lü Tsu-ch’ien—namely, that the concept of jen must be understood before its substance and function can be distinguished.

In his letter to Wu I, Chu Hsi said,

Generally speaking, in recent years scholars do not like to talk about jen in terms of love. Therefore, when they see that the Master Gentleman [Ch’eng I] talked about the mind of Heaven and Earth in terms of one yang [positive cosmic force] element producing things,⁹ they are certain to be sadly dissatisfied, and furthermore, to ascribe ideas over and above what is originally intended and make abstract inferences without realizing that the way Heaven and Earth exercise their mind is none other than this. If we talk about jen beyond this sense, we will degenerate into emptiness and fall into quiescence, and substance and function, and the fundamental and the secondary, will have no relation to each other.¹⁰

This letter puts special emphasis on the interpretation of jen as love, which is rooted in the mind of Heaven and Earth to produce things. The purpose is still to clarify the concept of jen.

From the above, we can see that Chu Hsi had three reasons for writing the Jen-shuo. First, scholars of his time wrote on the subject of jen in great confusion. Chang Shih, Lin Ta-ch’un, Chou Chieh, Yang Tao-fu, and “Venerable Sir” each wrote a treatise on jen. Strange doctrines sprang up, with no agreement among them. Especially mistaken were the theories that jen meant forming one body with all things and of jen as consciousness. Thus Chu Hsi wrote his treatise to clarify the meaning of the term. Second, he wanted to show that the concept jen as love is based on the notion that the mind of Heaven and Earth is to produce things, and thereby prevent scholars from falling into the errors of emptiness and quiescence. The Jen-shuo says, “I fear scholars talk about jen without reference to love. I have therefore propounded this particular doctrine of jen to make the idea clear.” Third, Chu Hsi wanted to correct the erroneous theory that substance and function are two different things.

MAIN IDEAS OF THE “JEN-SHUO”

Although the Jen-shuo is short, its ideas are well thought out. It starts with the sentences, “The mind of Heaven and Earth is to produce things. In the production of man and things, they receive the mind of Heaven and Earth as their mind.” The first sentence is a quotation from Ch’eng I;¹¹ the second was added by Chu Hsi himself. Chu Hsi continues, “The moral qualities of the mind of Heaven and Earth are four: origination, flourishing, advantage and firmness,¹² and origination unites and controls all their operations.” In the human mind, “There are also Four Virtues, namely: humanity, righteousness, propriety, and wisdom,¹³ and humanity embraces all their functions.” “Therefore, with reference to the character of the mind … we can only say that it is jen.” “For jen as constituting the Way consists of the fact that the mind of Heaven and Earth to produce things is present in everything. Before the feelings are aroused, this substance is already existent in its entirety. After feelings are aroused, its function is infinite. Thus if we can truly realize jen and preserve it, we have in it the spring of all virtues and the root of all good deeds. This is why the Confucian School always urged students to exert anxious and unceasing effort in the pursuit of jen.” Self-mastery, respect and reverence, conscientiousness and altruism, filial piety and brotherly respect—all are ways to preserve this mind and put it into practice. Before the feelings are aroused, it is nature, which is identical with jen. As feelings are aroused, it becomes love. That is why Chu Hsi defined jen as “the principle of love.” Though nature and feelings seem to belong to different spheres, their interpenetration make them one system, like arteries and veins. But among followers of the Ch’eng brothers,

Some [notably Yang Shih, 1053-1135] say that love is not jen and regard the unity of all things and the self as jen, while others [notably Hsieh Liang-tso, 1050-c. 1120] maintain that love is not jen but explain jen in terms of the possession of consciousness by the mind.¹⁴ … From what they call the unity of all things and the self, it can be seen that jen involves love for all, but unity is not the reality that makes jen a substance. From the way they regard the mind as the possession of consciousness, it can be seen that jen includes wisdom, but that is not the real reason why jen is so called. … To talk about jen in general terms of the unity of things and the self will lead people to be vague, confused, neglectful, and make no effort to be alert. The bad effect—and there has been one—may be to consider other things as oneself. To talk about jen in specific terms of consciousness will lead people to be nervous, irascible, and devoid of any quality of depth. The bad effect—and there has been one—may be to consider [selfish] desire as principle. In one case, [the mind] forgets [its objective]. In the other, [there is artificial effort to] help [it grow].¹⁵ Both are wrong.

This is the gist of the “Jen-shuo.”

WHEN WAS THE TREATISE WRITTEN?

We do not know exactly when the Jen-shuo was written. Liao Te-ming (1169 cs) asked, “Sir, in the Jen-shuo that you wrote some time ago, you generally consider the mind to embrace the principle of love, and that is why it is called jen. But now in your [Meng Tzu] chi-chu [Collected commentaries on the Book of Mencius], commenting on the sentence ‘Jen is the human mind,’¹⁶ you take it to mean ‘the master of dealing with all changes.’ How about it?”¹⁷ This was recorded by Liao after 1173, suggesting that the Jen-shuo was written before the compilation of the [Meng Tzu] chi-chu in 1177. However, Chu Hsi said, “For more than forty years I have thought over the Lun-Meng [chi-chu] [Commentaries on the Analects and the Book of Mencius],”¹⁸ and several days before he died he was still revising his commentary on the Great Learning. Thus what is found in the Lun-Meng chi-chu may very well have been written after the Jen-shuo.

In any case, the writing of the treatise must have taken a long time, although it also must not have been completed too late. In his letter to Lü Tsu-ch’ien on jen, Chu Hsi said that Ch’in-fu (Chang Shih) had written that he had no more doubts about the “Jen-shuo.” He added that he “wanted to write the [I-Lo] yüan-yüan lu [Records of the origin of the school of the Ch’engs] to include all the deeds and writings of the various gentlemen, from Chou [Chou Tun-i, 1017-1073] and the Ch’engs on. I am troubled not to have the material or the complete accounts of various scholars of the Yung-chia School. I have, therefore, written Shih-lung [Hsüeh Chi-hsüan, 1134-1173] to ask him to search and send them to me.”¹⁹ The fact that Chang Shih had no more doubts about the Jen-shuo indicates that the treatise had assumed its final form. Only then did Chu Hsi conceive the idea of compiling the I-Lo yüan-yüan lu and find that the material needed to do so was not yet available. The Yüan-yüan lu was completed in the sixth month of 1173. Assuming it took a year or two to write, the idea of compiling it must have occurred around 1171, by which time the final draft of the Jen-shuo must also have been written. Professor Tomoeda Ryūtarō believes that the treatise was completed about 1173, when Chu Hsi was forty-four.²⁰ My opinion is that it was finished before, not after, that year.

We do not know how many years Chu Hsi debated with Chang Shih on the Jen-shuo. There are four letters to Chang Shih in the Wen-chi devoted to discussions on the treatise.²¹ In his funeral address for Chang Shih, Ch Hsi said that for almost ten years they had debated back and forth, finally coming to an agreement.²² Although this is a general statement, it must include their discussions on the Jen-shuo, and indeed, the four letters are clear evidence of this fact. When Chu Hsi visited Chang Shih at Changsha in 1167, one of the topics for discussion was jen.²³ Although Chang Shih said he had no more doubts, that did not necessarily mean the two men were in complete agreement. As Chu Hsi said, in their former discussion he and Chang Shih “still had one or two points of disagreement.”²⁴ Thus the final draft of the treatise must have been preceded by years of discussion with Chang Shih. We may say that the Jen-shuo was largely finished by 1171, but it must have been started many years earlier.

Because one of the letters in which Chu Hsi discussed the Jen-shuo with Chang Shih contains the sentence, “In your letter you consider what I say in the K’e-chai [chi] [Account of the studio of self-mastery] to be better,”²⁵ and the K’e-chai chi was written in 1172, Professor Mou Tsung-san has determined that the first draft of the Jen-shuo was written before that date.²⁶ His theory is correct. However, he also maintains that Chu Hsi wrote the Jen-shuo two or three years after he had established the new doctrine of equilibrium and harmony in 1169; that his debates with scholars on the subject generally took place after he was forty-three years old (1172); and that the final draft was also written after this date. I am afraid he puts the matter too late, for we know that in 1172 Chang Shih had no more doubts. It may be argued that Chu Hsi said in his letter, “I wanted to make some revisions but have had no time to do so,” indicating that when the “K’e-chai chi” was written, the Jen-shuo was not yet completed. However, I am convinced this is not the case, because the letter also says, “Formerly, I presented the Jen-shuo to you.” “Formerly” may refer either to the first draft of a numbers of years before, to the final draft of only a year or two earlier, or even to some intermediate version. We do not know what it was that Chu Hsi had wanted to revise. He went on to say that Chang Shih “did not understand this completely.” The entire emphasis in the K’e-chai chi is on self-mastery, which is not a key idea in the Jen-shuo. Perhaps Chu Hsi did not make the revision, whatever it was, but even after he finished the treatise, he continued to discuss it with scholars. As late as 1185 he discussed it in a letter to Lü Tsu-chien,²⁷ in which he also referred to his debate with Ch’en Liang during the same year.²⁸ If Chu Hsi had wanted to make revisions even at this late date, there ought to have been no problem in doing so, just as after the Lun-Meng chi-chu was finished, he continued to make changes in it.

Based on the dates mentioned above, we may conclude that Chu Hsi's discussions on the Jen-shuo took place for many years after 1165 or 1166, when Chu Hsi was thirty-six or thirty-seven, and culminated in about 1171, when he was forty-two. In any case, the completion of the Jen-shuo preceded not only that of the Yüan-yüan lu but also that of the Chin-ssu lu (Reflections on things at hand) in 1175; the Ssu-shu chi-chu (Collected commentaries on the Four Books)²⁹ and the Ssu-shu huo-wen (Questions and answers on the Four Books) in 1177; his publication of the Four Books in 1190; and the Yü-shan chiang-i (Yü-shan lecture) in 1194.³⁰ Although the Four Books are the foundation of Chu Hsi's doctrines and the Yü-shan lecture their outline, Chu Hsi's thoughts had come to maturation in the Jen-shuo twenty years earlier.

IMPORTANT PHRASES

The Jen-shuo contains two key phrases, “the character of the mind” and “the principle of love.” These two refrains occur in more than ten places in the Lun-yü chi-chu (Collected commentaries on the Analects) and the Meng Tzu chi-chu (Collected commentaries on the Book of Mencius). In the former, it is said in the comments on Analects 1:2 that “Jen is the principle of love and the character of the mind,” and on 18:1 that “Jen does not violate the principle of love and has a way of preserving the character of the mind.” In the latter, in a comment on 1A:1, it is said that “Jen is the character of the mind and the principle of love.” In the Lun-yü huo-wen (Questions and answers on the Analects), it is also said that “The principle of love is the reason for the character of the mind.”³¹ In other places, the phrases “the character of the mind” and “the complete character of the mind” often occur, as do “the mind of jen is the mind to love people,” “the foundation of jen is love,” and “to love people is the application of jen.”³² Thus the use of “the character of the mind” and “the principle of love” is not incidental but the result of decades of careful deliberation. As Chu Hsi said, “In my Yü-Meng chi-chu [Collected commentaries on the Analects and the Book of Mencius], not a single word may be added and not a single word deleted.”³³ He also said, “For more than forty years I have thought over the Lun Meng [chi-chu]. I have weighed every word in them and would not allow myself to be offtrack.”³⁴

ORIGIN OF THE PHRASES

In his Kairoku (Records of the sea), Yamazaki Bisei (1797-1863) noted that in the Ryūgan tekagami (Paragon of the dragon niche) jen is explained thus: “Pronounced jen. It is the character of the mind and the principle of love.” Since the Ryūgan tekagami was written in 997 and the Lun-Meng chi-chu was completed 180 years later, in 1177, he concluded that the two phrases were originally Buddhist and were borrowed by Chu Hsi.³⁵ But as Yamaguchi Satsujō (1882-1948) pointed out, the preface of the Ryūgan tekagami says the book consists of some 26,430 words, whereas the edition that Yamazaki used contains 39,428 words. In the notes to this longer edition are notations such as “present addition,” and in the case of jen the enlarged edition has added, “It means affectionate love.” Yamaguchi therefore decided that the phrases “the character of the mind” and “the principle of love” were obviously later additions.³⁶ Accordingly, Fujitsuka Chikashi (1879-1948) said, “These phrases are found in the Korean enlarged edition of the Ryūgan tekagami. Both the Kairoku of Yamazaki Bisei and the Kobun kyūshō kō (Investigation of ancient texts) of Shimada Kan (1879-1915) are based on this reprint for their conclusions. How can they be relied on?”³⁷

Yamaguchi did not believe that Chu Hsi borrowed his key phrases from Buddhism, but he did assert that he borrowed from Chang Shih. According to Yamaguchi, Chang Shih's comment on Analects 12:22 says, “As we investigate human nature, its principle of love is jen and its principle of knowledge is wisdom.” Chang's Lun-yü chieh (Explanation of the Analects) was written in 1173, while Chu Hsi's Chi chu was completed after his Lun-Meng ching-i (Essential meaning of the Analects and the Book of Mencius) and Lun-Meng huo-wen. The Ching-i was compiled in 1172, a year earlier than Chang's Lun-yü chieh, but the Huo-wen was completed in 1177, four years after the Lun-yü chieh. For the sake of argument, Yamaguchi concluded that had the phrases “the character of the mind” and “the principle of love” not been used in the Ching-i, Chang Shih might have been the first to use them in his Lun-yü chieh.³⁸ We do not know in what month of 1173 the Lun-yü chieh was completed, but Chu Hsi's Yüan-yüan lu was finished in the sixth month of that year, at which time the “Jen-shuo” had assumed its final form. Even if Chang Shih finished the Lun-yü chieh in the first month of 1173, did Chu Hsi see it, immediately borrow the phrase “the principle of love,” and insert it in his Jen-shuo? Would this have been typical of Chu Hsi, who did not add or delete a word without a long period of thinking? Did his many discussions with Chang Shih on the Jen-shuo take place only during these several months of 1173? And even supposing that “the principle of love” did come from Chang Shih, where would “the character of the mind” have come from? In his reply to Chu Hsi, Chang Shih said, “I have read your letter several times and have been greatly benefited. What you called the principle of love has certainly opened me up.”³⁹ Thus we can see that it was Chu Hsi who inspired Chang Shih, not vice versa. It is therefore more convincing to say that Chang Shih borrowed from Chu Hsi, rather than the other way around. ōtsuki Nobuyoshi regarded “the principle of love” and “the character of the mind” as new meanings contributed by Chu Hsi.⁴⁰ This is not his own opinion but the consensus of scholars over the centuries.

THE CHARACTER OF THE MIND

The central concepts of the Jen-shuo are “the character of the mind” and “the principle of love.” What do these mean? “The character of mind” is sometimes rendered as “the Way of the mind”⁴¹ and “the character of nature.”⁴² Hu Hung (1106-1161) had said in his Hu Tzu chih-yen (Master Hu's understanding of words) that “Jen is the way of the mind,”⁴³ which could have inspired Chu Hsi. The words tao (way) and te (character) are interchangeable. Nevertheless, tao refers to function, whereas te refers to substance. There was a special reason for Chu Hsi to use the term “character.” He said, “It is like saying that being moist is the character of water and being dry and hot is the character of fire.”⁴⁴ The chief character of jen is sheng, to produce or to give life. In commenting on the Book of Mencius 5A:11, he said, “Jen is the character of the mind. As Master Ch’eng [Ch’eng I] has said, ‘The mind is comparable to seeds of grain. The nature of growth is jen.’”⁴⁵ Chu Hsi's idea was derived from Ch’eng I's doctrine of sheng-sheng (production and reproduction, perpetual renewal of life). Ch’eng I's novel interpretation of jen as seeds was a breakthrough in the philosophy of jen. And just as jen is comparable to seeds, Ch’eng I said, so “the mind is the principle of production.”⁴⁶ He also said, “The mind of Heaven and Earth is to produce things.”⁴⁷ Chu Hsi agreed with this. The first sentences of the Jen-shuo are “The mind of Heaven and Earth is to produce things. In the production of man and things, they receive the mind of Heaven and Earth as their mind.” This is the basic point of the Jen-shuo, a point that provoked a great deal of discussion among scholars. We shall deal with it in more detail below.

Because jen has the connotation of growth, it can include the Four Virtues of humanity, righteousness, propriety, and wisdom. Ch’eng I said, “Spoken of separately, it is one of the several, but spoken of collectively, it embraces all four.”⁴⁸ Chu Hsi also agreed with this. His pupil Ch’en Ch’un (1159-1223) once asked, “Jen is the character of the mind. Are righteousness, propriety, and wisdom also characters of the mind?” Chu Hsi answered, “They are all characters of the mind, but jen alone embraces all of them.”⁴⁹ And in answering a similar question from Huang Kan (1152-1221), he said, “They all are, but jen is the greatest.”⁵⁰ What he meant by “embraces all of them” and “is the greatest” is that “spoken of together, all four are characters of the mind, but jen is the master.”⁵¹ In other words, “Jen being the character of the mind, it possesses all the other three. … What is called the character of the mind here is similar to what Master Ch’eng meant by ‘collectively, it embraces all four.’”⁵²

Although Chu Hsi agreed with Ch’eng I, his Jen-shuo is original in many respects. Ch’eng I had said, “Jen is the correct principle of the world.”⁵³ Chu Hsi did not adopt this definition but coined his own—namely, “the character of the mind.” Many of his pupils were skeptical about this and questioned him repeatedly, either in person or by letter. Chu Hsi thought Ch’eng I's definition too broad or too vague,⁵⁴ for righteousness, propriety, and wisdom can also be correct principles of the world.⁵⁵ To Chu Hsi, Ch’eng I was speaking only in general terms, not about the substance of jen.⁵⁶ If correct principle is applied to jen, it would be the character of the mind.⁵⁷ That is to say, jen is not a general principle of the world but the correct principle of the mind; it “is merely the correct principle of my mind.”⁵⁸ Hence, in answering his pupil Ch’eng Hsün's letter, in which Ch’eng had equated jen with the Principle of Heaven, Chu Hsi said, “This statement should be fully explained and not dismissed like this.”⁵⁹ Elsewhere he noted, “It is necessary to say that jen is the complete character of the original mind, and there is thus the Principle of Heaven,”⁶⁰ and because “jen is the complete character of the original mind, if the innate mind of the Principle of Heaven as it naturally is has been preserved and not lost, whatever one does will be orderly and harmonious.”⁶¹

Thus the character of the mind is of course the substance of jen,⁶² and is of course internal, not external.⁶³ As Chu Hsi said, “One must see what the feeling is if one loses or preserves the character of the mind, and then one can see what jen really is.”⁶⁴ The Jen-shuo says,

“Be respectful in private life, be serious (ching) in handling affairs, and be loyal in dealing with others.”⁶⁵ This is the way to preserve the mind. “Be filial in serving parents, be respectful in serving the elder brother,⁶⁶ and be altruistic in dealing with others.”⁶⁷ These are the ways to practice this mind. [The Analects also say,] “One obtains jen if one seeks it.”⁶⁸ The fact that [Po-i and Shu-ch’i] yielded the throne to each other, filed, and later appealed [to King Wu (r. 1121-1104 b.c.)] not to send a military expedition [against the Shang dynasty (c. 1751-1112 b.c.)], choosing to starve to death [after the Shang fell],⁶⁹ was because of their ability not to lose the mind.

Preserving, practicing, and not losing all refer to the character of the mind. There are only two questions on the Jen-shuo in the Yü-lei. One was asked by Shen Hsien, who inquired about the mind of Heaven and Earth to produce things, a point discussed below. The other was asked by Kan Chieh, who inquired about preserving and not losing the character of the mind. Kan Chieh asked, “Sir, in your Jen-shuo you say this is to preserve [jen] and this is not to lose [jen], but at the same time you say that when one practices this, jen is in it, but practicing is not jen.” Chu Hsi answered, “Of course it is not all right to call it jen, but to say that it is not jen is simple to deny it is jen in so many words. Mencius went on to explain jen, but Confucius did not do this.”⁷⁰ What Kan Chieh meant was that practice belongs to worldly affairs, whereas jen is character. At bottom, jen is man's mind, while righteousness is man's path.⁷¹ Chu Hsi himself also said, “Jen is the character of the mind. As soon as one preserves this mind, there will be nothing but jen. Take the saying, ‘To master oneself and return to propriety [is jen].’⁷² What the saying calls for is that after selfish desires have been eliminated, the mind is forever preserved. It does not cover practice.”⁷³

There is clearly a difference between principle and worldly affairs. However, since Chu Hsi interpreted jen as the character of the mind, and since this character means the spirit of life, ideas must be expressed in practice. Here Chu Hsi seems to contradict himself. As Ch’en Ch’un explained, “Jen is the complete character of the mind. It includes and controls all the other four virtues. Righteousness, propriety, and wisdom are impossible without jen. This is so because jen is the principle of production in the mind, always operating in the process of production and reproduction without cease, and remaining from the beginning to the end without interruption.”⁷⁴ This means that jen is the principle of production and reproduction, operating everywhere in actual practice.

THE PRINCIPLE OF LOVE

As Chu Hsi explained it, “Jen is the principle of love. Principle is the root, while love is the sprout. The love of jen is comparable to the sweetness of sugar and the sourness of vinegar. Love is the taste.”⁷⁵ The principle of love is also “comparable to the root of a plant and the spring of water.”⁷⁶ Love is active while principle is tranquil.⁷⁷ Here the word “principle” should be emphasized. Lü Tsu-ch’ien interpreted “the principle of love” as “the beginning of activity and the way of growth,” but Chu Hsi considered that the word “beginning” was too weak.⁷⁸

By love, Chu Hsi meant the principle of jen in the mind. This mind is expressed in filial piety and brotherly respect. Before these feelings are aroused, what is preserved in the mind is only the principle of love.⁷⁹ Chang Shih had explained the passage “Filial piety and brotherly respect are the root of jen”⁸⁰ by saying that “beginning with filial piety and brotherly respect, the way of jen will grow indefinitely.” Commenting on this, Chu Hsi said, “Here the word jen refers precisely to the principle of love.”⁸¹ Because it is this principle, it has the spirit of life of jen, which has to be expressed. Liao Te-ming asked about jen as the principle of love, saying, “Sir, in the ‘Jen-shuo’ that you wrote some time ago, you generally consider the mind to embrace the principle of love, and that is why it is called jen. But now in your [Meng Tzu] chi-chu [Collected commentaries on the Book of Mencius], commenting on the sentence ‘Jen is the human mind,’⁸² you take it to mean ‘the master of dealing with all changes.’ How about it?” Chu Hsi answered:

You don’t have to look at it this way. Nowadays, when people talk about jen they mostly look upon it as something abstract. That won’t do. At the time [of the presence of mind], the sprouts of humanity, righteousness, propriety, and wisdom are already there, but have not yet been activated. … Propriety is basically the principle of culture. As it is activated, it becomes deference and humility. Wisdom is basically the principle of discrimination. As it is activated, there are the right and wrong.⁸³

If the mind is merely considered the master of dealing with the tens of thousands of transformations, jen as the spirit of growth will be lost.

The principle of love is the same as the original substance of jen. In a letter in reply to Hu Shih, Chu Hsi said,

Of course it is wrong simply to equate jen with love, but the principle of love is the substance of jen. Since Heaven, Earth, and the ten thousand things form one body with the self, of course love should cover everything, but that is not the reason that jen is the principle of love. We must realize that humanity, righteousness, propriety, and wisdom are all characters of nature, the principle that originally exists by itself without any artificial manipulation. But jen is the principle of love and the way of growth. Because of this, it can include the Four Virtues and is the essential of learning.⁸⁴

To say that jen is the principle of love means that “jen is nature while love is feeling.” In other words, “Love is the feeling of jen and jen is the nature of love,”⁸⁵ but the two cannot be separated.⁸⁶ Questioned about jen as the principle of love, Chu Hsi said,

The term will become clear if you look at the mind, nature, and feeling separately. Undifferentiated within one's person is the master, which is the mind. There are humanity, righteousness, propriety, and wisdom, which are one's nature. When these are expressed, they become commiseration, shame and dislike, deference and humility, and the sense of right and wrong. These are feelings. Commiseration is love, the beginning of jen. Jen is substance, while love is function.⁸⁷

Someone asked, “Why is jen the principle of love?” Chu Hsi answered,

Man is endowed with the best of the Five Agents⁸⁸ at birth. Therefore, his mind is constituted so that before it is activated it possesses the nature of humanity, righteousness, propriety, wisdom, and faithfulness as its substance, and after it is activated it has the nature of commiseration, shame and dislike, respect and reverence, the sense of right and wrong, and truthfulness as its function. For the spirit of Wood is jen,⁸⁹ which is the principle of love. … All this is the Principle of Heaven as it surely is, and why the human mind is wonderful. From this we can infer that jen is the principle of love.⁹⁰

He also said,

Jen is the principle of love, while love is the function of jen. It is simply called jen before it is activated, when it has neither shape nor shade. It is called love only after it is activated, when it has shape and shadow. Before it is activated and called jen, it can include righteousness, propriety, and wisdom. After it is activated and called commiseration, it can include respect and reverence, deference and humility, and the sense of right and wrong. We call these the Four Beginnings,⁹¹ “beginning” being comparable to sprouts or buds. Commiseration is the beginning that issues from jen.⁹²

In his explanation of the principle of love, Ch’en Ch’un said,

Jen is the totality of the mind's principle of production. It is always producing and reproducing without cease. Its clue becomes active in the mind. When it sets forth, naturally there is the feeling of commiseration. As the feeling of commiseration grows in abundance to reach a thing, it becomes love. Therefore, jen is the root of love, commiseration the sprout from the root, and love the sprout reaching its maturity and completion. Looking at it this way, we can easily see the vital connection between jen as the principle of love and love as the function of jen.⁹³

Ch’en Ch’un understood his teacher's ideas quite well.

From this we know that Chu Hsi regarded love as active and as the force of production. Before it is activated, love is nature, is the substance of jen, and includes the Four Virtues. When it is aroused and expressed as feeling because of its activity and growth, it includes the Four Beginnings. However, nature and feeling are not to be separated, for substance and function are not bifurcated. The principle of love is original with one's nature, and does not become so because of impartiality. Since one's nature is pure, one can penetrate Heaven, Earth, and the ten thousand things, yet one does not become jen after such penetration.

THE CHARACTER OF THE MIND AND THE PRINCIPLE OF LOVE

Thus far the character of the mind and the principle of love have been treated separately, but this does not mean that they are two different things. In his elucidation of jen, Chu Hsi combined the two, a point that should not be overlooked. However, jen is neither love nor the mind, nor love and mind combined. Chu Hsi said, “Love is not jen; the principle of love is jen. The mind is not jen; the character of the mind is jen.”⁹⁴ Therefore jen combines the character of the mind and the principle of love. Moreover, Chu Hsi explained jen not only in terms of the mind but also in terms of principle. He said, “Jen is the principle of love. That is why it is the character of the mind. Because it is principle, it is therefore character. The relation between the two is a necessary one and neither can be lacking.”⁹⁵ In other words, principle is the cause and character is the effect. In the final analysis, Chu Hsi's explanation of jen is in terms of principle. Therefore Ch’en Ch’un said, “Jen may be spoken of in terms of principle or in terms of mind. … When Wen Kung [Chu Hsi] said that jen is the character of the mind and the principle of love, he was speaking in terms of principle.”⁹⁶

According to Chu Hsi, in the Analects and the Book of Mencius there are cases where jen is spoken of purely from the point of view of the character of the mind, such as “Master oneself and return to propriety,”⁹⁷ “Be respectful in private life,”⁹⁸ and “Humanity is man's mind.”⁹⁹ There are also cases where jen is spoken of purely from the point of view of the principle of love, such as “Filial piety and brotherly respect are the root of jen,”¹⁰⁰ “The man of jen loves others,¹⁰¹ “The mind of commiseration [is jen],”¹⁰² and so forth.¹⁰³ But this does not mean that the two aspects are two different things. The difference between them is only that between substance and function, and between being spoken of collectively or separately. When Chu Hsi said that jen is the principle of love, he meant what Ch’eng I intended in saying that “spoken of separately, it is one of the four”¹⁰⁴—that is, humanity, righteousness, propriety, and wisdom spoken of separately; when he said that jen is the character of the mind, he meant what Ch’eng I intended in saying that “spoken of collectively, it embraces all four”¹⁰⁵—that is, the Four Virtues spoken of together.¹⁰⁶ Chu Hsi said, “The character of the mind is spoken of from the combination of the Four Beginnings, while the principle of love is spoken of merely from the whole and part of jen itself, the issuing forth of which is love, while its principle is jen. Jen includes the Four Beginnings because of the operation of its spirit of life.”¹⁰⁷ He also said, “Righteousness, propriety, and wisdom are all present in the mind, but humanity is merged as one. Separately speaking, jen is the master of love. Collectively speaking, it includes the other three virtues.”¹⁰⁸ In other words,

The principle of love is spoken of separately as one thing, while the character of the mind is spoken of collectively as including the four. Therefore, when spoken of together, all the four are characters of the mind and jen is the master. Spoken of separately, jen is the principle of love; righteousness, the principle of appropriateness; propriety, the principle of respect and reverence, deference and humility; and wisdom, the principle of discriminating what is right and wrong.¹⁰⁹

The character of the mind and the principle of love can also be spoken of as substance and function. Chu Hsi said, “To speak of the character of the mind collectively, before it is activated it is substance, and after it is activated it is function. To speak of the principle of love separately, jen is substance and commiseration is function.”¹¹⁰ Ch’en Ch’un said, “The character of the mind refers, collectively, to substance, while the principle of love refers, separately, to function.”¹¹¹ But regardless of whether one is speaking collectively or separately, of substance or of function, jen cannot be divided in two. It is not the case that aside from the character of the mind there is a separate principle of love.¹¹² That is why Chu Hsi said, “The character of the mind is the same as the principle of love. They are not two different things.”¹¹³ The character of the mind as the substance of jen is the mind of Heaven and Earth to produce things, and the principle of love as the function of jen is “the warm and rich air of spring in which the mind of Heaven and Earth is revealed. By summer the force of life grows, by autumn the force of life is collected, and by winter the force of life is stored.”¹¹⁴ The central point here is that the character of the mind and the principle of love are both forces of life. A pupil asked, “To be completely merged without any selfishness is the principle of love. Is the practice of jen with realization in the self the character of the mind?” Chu Hsi answered, “It is all right to explain the terms this way, but I am afraid it is not thorough enough as far as the fundamental is concerned.”¹¹⁵ By “the fundamental,” Chu Hsi meant Ch’eng I's doctrine of jen as comparable to seeds.¹¹⁶

There is a long passage by Chu Hsi that summarizes the ideas brought forth above:

The [Lun-meng] chi-chu explains jen as the principle of love and the character of the mind. Love is commiseration, which is feeling. Its principle is called jen. With reference to the character of the mind, character is merely love. When it is called the character of the mind, it means the controlling power of love. In the way man is made up, his principle is the principle of Heaven and Earth and his material force is the material force of Heaven and Earth. Principle has no trace and cannot be seen; it can be seen in material force. One must realize that the idea of jen means a warm and harmonious force without differentiation. Its material force is the material force of the positive cosmic element (yang) and spring of Heaven and Earth, and its principle is the mind of Heaven and Earth to produce things. … Disciples in the Confucian School generally only asked about the task of practicing jen. As to the whole and part of jen, each of them had understood the idea. … There is only one jen. Although spoken of separately, numerous principles are embraced in it, and although spoken of collectively, numerous principles are embraced in it.¹¹⁷

We have here the cardinal ideas of the Jen-shuo.

Scholars understood the principle of love and the character of the mind differently. Perhaps the most sophisticated among them were Chu Hsi's pupils Li T’ang-tzu and Hsü Yü. Li T’ang-tzu said,

“Comforting the old, being faithful to friends, and cherishing the young”¹¹⁸ are of course jen, but they are also love. … The reason for comforting, being faithful, and cherishing is principle, not love. … Therefore love belongs to feeling and is one of the items of jen. Principle belongs to nature and the totality of the way of jen. Hence love is not jen but the principle of love is jen. … The mind is the master of nature and feeling. Since it is the master of nature, all principles of why a thing is so are present in the mind, and since it is the master of feeling, all principles of why a thing should be so issue forth from the mind. In this process principle is fully realized and love operates, because the mind is the master. This being the case, isn’t jen the character of the mind?

Commenting on this, Chu Hsi said, “Your explanation of the principle of love is close to the truth, but with regard to the character of the mind you should think of Master Ch’eng's analogy of seeds.”¹¹⁹ Li's interpretation in terms of what is and what should be, and of the mind as the master of nature and feeling, is truly refined, but he overlooked the mind of Heaven and Earth to produce things and jen as seeds, and thus overlooked the opening passage of the Jen-shuo.

Hsü Yü said,

The character of the mind is the way to produce. This is so because the mind of Heaven and Earth is to produce things, and man receives it as his mind, which is called jen. Its substance is identical with Heaven and Earth and penetrates all things. Its principle unites all goodness and includes the Four Beginnings. … Spoken of collectively, it is the character of the mind. Spoken of separately, it is the principle of love. The foundation of what is spoken of collectively issues forth to become the function of what is spoken of separately, and the function of what is spoken of separately is combined to become the foundation of what is spoken of collectively. They should not be bifurcated as two different things that are big and small, fundamental and secondary. Because the principle of jen has not been clearly understood, people have been misled by material endowment and beclouded with selfish desires, causing the way of growth to stop and the Principle of Heaven to cease operation. … If man can personally realize jen, he will make sure that not the slightest selfishness can be injected into the substance of production and reproduction, so that it will operate and penetrate, reaching everywhere and covering everything. Only then can the character of the mind and the principle of love be fully realized.

Commenting on this, Chu Hsi said, “The general idea of this passage is correct, but the principle of love should not be understood [purely] as function. You should ponder this. In time, things will become smooth and harmonious, and what is right and what is wrong will naturally be seen.¹²⁰

Hsü's interpretation is superior to Li's because Hsü emphasized the way of production. But his idea of identification with Heaven and Earth was a notion that Chu Hsi did not easily accept. In his reply to Chou Mu (1141-1202), the Master said,

What is called the character of the mind is the same as what Master Ch’eng called seeds of grain, and what is called the principle of love is precisely jen as love before it is activated and love as jen that has been activated. You should only think along these lines and need not introduce extraneous conceptions that will only confuse the issue. If one understands jen at this point, it is all right to be identified with Heaven and Earth and the ten thousand things. If one does not understand this and forthwith considers forming one body with Heaven and Earth and the ten thousand things as jen, there will be no solution.¹²¹

As to the task of practicing jen, Chu Hsi repeatedly said that if one personally realizes and thinks about the character of the mind and the principle of love, one will understand jen.¹²² Personal realization means effort. A pupil said, “When one compares the love that has been activated, one knows that it is the character of the mind. And when one points to jen that has not been activated, one knows that it is the principle of love.” Chu Hsi commented,

One must clearly see the principle in places where one applies oneself to the concrete task. Then the particular meaning will emerge. Take “Mastering oneself and returning to the propriety.”¹²³ How should these be done to become jen? “Be respectful in private life and be serious in handling affairs,”¹²⁴ and “When you go abroad, behave to everyone as if you were receiving a great guest.”¹²⁵ Mastering oneself and returning to propriety is basically not jen, but one must find out from mastering oneself and returning to propriety wherein jen lies, personally realize it in the way relevant to oneself, and not seek it outside.¹²⁶

Professor Mou Tsung-san vigorously opposes Chu Hsi's doctrine of the principle of love and the character of the mind. He regards Chu Hsi as following Ch’eng I’s theory of jen as nature and love as feeling; dividing the substance of jen into the three portions of mind, nature, and feeling; splitting principle and material force into two categories; and explaining jen according to the formula of “the character of the mind and the principle of love.” In this way, he says, Chu Hsi made jen static and dead. The jen Chu Hsi talked about is “merely the existing principle of existentialism, quietly lying there,” according to Professor Mou. Therefore it is not concrete, vital, or alive. The character of the mind is merely the character of the operation of the material force, for the Four Virtues are rooted in origination, flourishing, advantage, and firmness,¹²⁷ which are but the four stages of the transformation of the two material forces of yin and yang (passive and active cosmic forces).¹²⁸

Professor Mou agrees with Ch’eng Hao and Lu Hsiang-shan's theory that mind is principle. To him, the mind is the original mind, not the mind that commands and unites nature and feeling; likewise, nature is the original nature, not the nature different from feeling that involves material force. Hence Professor Mou thinks that Chu Hsi rigidly adhered to Ch’eng I's line of thought and that his theoretical construction was based on the idea that jen is the character of the mind and the principle of love—a formula decidedly different from the linear, direct system of Confucius and Mencius as understood by other Sung dynasty (960-1279) Confucians.¹²⁹ Since Mou's standpoint is that “mind is principle,” whereas Chu Hsi's was that “nature is principle,” naturally they cannot be expected to agree. To Ch’eng I and Chu Hsi, jen was a force of growth and the mind was the principle of growth. To say that their idea of jen was a static one is hardly fair. According to Professor Ch’ien Mu, Chu Hsi's “doctrine that jen is the character of the mind and the principle of love is a synthesis of the ideas of Ch’eng I and Lu Hsiang-shan. Later scholars who arbitrarily put Chu Hsi on the side of Ch’eng I and declare him different from Lu really have failed to examine the matter clearly.”¹³⁰

JEN AS FORMING ONE BODY WITH THINGS AND JEN AS CONSCIOUSNESS

The Jen-shuo puts forth the theory that jen is the character of the mind and the principle of love. On this basis Chu Hsi criticized two doctrines. One is that jen means forming one body with things. Its chief representative was Yang Shih. Chu Hsi held that forming one body with things does not really make jen a substance. The other is the doctrine that jen is consciousness, as advocated by Hsieh Liang-tso. To Chu Hsi, this theory does not explain what jen itself is. But in neither case did Chu Hsi go into detail. Having made these main points in the Jen-shuo, he proceeded to say that, generally speaking, those who advocate the theory of forming one body will cause people to be vague, confused, and perhaps to treat things as the self, while those who advocate the theory of jen as consciousness will cause people to get excited and perhaps confuse selfish desires with principle. He did not explain further.

There has been a great deal of discussion on these two theories, but it is not necessary to go into them here except to quote Professor T’ang Chün-i. According to him, Chu Hsi regarded impartiality as what precedes jen and forming one body as what follows jen, and therefore regarded neither as being its substance. As to consciousness, T’ang holds that it refers to jen as including wisdom, for the mind can be conscious of principle and does possess the character of wisdom. Thus consciousness is the last expression of jen but is not jen itself. This explanation by T’ang is simple and perfectly clear. He goes on to say that Chu Hsi was different from previous thinkers, who only discussed jen in one respect:

Chu Hsi views jen from what precedes it, namely impartiality; from what follows it, namely, forming one body with things; from the inside, namely, the nature of consciousness of the mind; and from the outside, namely, the feeling resulting from the consciousness of things. Above, it penetrates Heaven. Below, it permeates man. As the root, it exists in the one principle in the self. As branches, it scatters to become the ten thousand things—from love, respect, appropriateness, and the discrimination of right and wrong, to loving people and benefiting things. All these are delineated. In this discussion of jen from what is before and what is after, from the inside and the outside, from above and below, and from the root and branches, there is, of course, a refined and careful idea.¹³¹

This amounts to a eulogy for the Jen-shuo.

Professor Mou looks at the matter differently. To him, forming one body with things is the manifestation of the true mind, which is precisely substance in the true sense. He also says that the consciousness of people's pain is precisely that which explains what jen itself is. In his view, Chu Hsi's assertion that the doctrine of jen as forming one body is inadequate and the doctrine of jen as consciousness goes too far is absolutely absurd.¹³² Mou's analysis of the Jen-shuo is extremely sophisticated.¹³³ His refutation is also in sharp contrast to T’ang's standpoint. Chu Hsi rejected the two doctrines because jen as forming one body with things deals with only one aspect of jen, and jen as consciousness does not distinguish between substance and function. In other words, the former fails to understand substance and the latter attends exclusively to function. For Chu Hsi, jen is a complete virtue with both substance and function, which come from the same source and are not two different things.

DISCUSSIONS ON THE “JEN-SHUO”

Both before and after the Jen-shuo was finalized, it must have circulated extensively among pupils and friends, for the response to it was great. The Jen-shuo was the focus of many of the discussions about the mind of Heaven and Earth to produce things, the character of the mind, the principle of love, forming one body with things, and the theory of jen as consciousness. Chu Hsi's replies to Wu I on the mind of Heaven and Earth to produce things, the character of nature, the principle of love, and consciousness¹³⁴ do not explicitly refer to the Jen-shuo, but the fact that the order of topics is the same as that in the Jen-shuo makes it plausible that the questions pertained to the treatise. His discussions with Chang Shih on the Jen-shuo consist of four letters in the Wen-chi and two in Chang's literary collections on the Jen-shuo.¹³⁵

The first letter to Chang Shih explains every sentence of the Jen-shuo.¹³⁶ Chu Hsi's treatise begins with the statement that “the mind of Heaven and Earth is to produce things.” Chang Shih found fault with this, but Chu Hsi insisted that the aim of Heaven and Earth is to give life and that the sentence is not wrong. In reply, Chang Shih said, “The sentence that ‘the mind of Heaven and Earth is to produce things’ is all right as ordinarily understood, but I am afraid it makes better sense merely to say that there is the mind of Heaven and Earth to produce things and that man receives this mind as his mind.”¹³⁷

What Chang Shih was saying is that Heaven and Earth do not consciously produce things, but that man receives from them the mind to produce things. This suggestion was not accepted. Chang Shih also questioned whether “the mind that cannot bear to see the suffering of others can embrace [or encompass] the Four Beginnings [of the feelings of commiseration, shame and dislike, deference and compliance, and right and wrong].” To Chu Hsi, however, “That the mind that cannot bear to see the suffering of others can embrace the Four Beginnings is comparable to the fact that humanity can embrace the Four Virtues of humanity, righteousness, propriety and wisdom.” Later, Chang Shih wrote to say that although the mind that cannot bear to see the suffering of others can embrace the Four Beginnings, it is better to generalize and call it humanity.¹³⁸ To Chang Shih, the substance of the man of jen is always good, but Chu Hsi felt that Chang Shih did not understand that jen is the source of all virtues. Chang Shih thought that “when spoken of along with righteousness, propriety, and wisdom, the manifestation of humanity becomes the mind that cannot bear the suffering of others.” Chu Hsi felt this was unsatisfactory, because humanity, righteousness, propriety, and wisdom “are all rooted in the mind. They are principles before manifestation.” Chang Shih held that “the way of the man of jen embraces everything,” but Chu Hsi wanted to know why it embodies everything.

Chang Shih also considered that “what Master Ch’eng [Ch’eng I] criticized was defining jen as love.” This is a criticism of Chu Hsi's statement in the Jen-shuo that “what Master Ch’eng criticized was defining the expression of love as jen.” Chu Hsi countered, “Master Ch’eng said, ‘Humanity is nature while love is feeling. How can one regard love as humanity?’ This saying explicitly disapproves of treating feeling as nature, but does not say that the nature of humanity is not expressed in the feeling of love, or that humanity in love is not based on the nature of humanity.”

Moreover, Chang Shih took the meaning of yüan (origination) as going beyond producing things. Chu Hsi thought it was a great defect to say this, for he believed that yüan is the source not only of things but of all virtues.¹³⁹ Chang Shih replied, “When I said the other day that the meaning of yüan goes beyond the production of things, it leads to the suspicion that I was only talking about producing things and thus did not fully bring out the idea of yüan as production and reproduction [in all spheres of life]. Now you have fully explained the concept of production.”¹⁴⁰

Finally, Chang Shih believed that the man of jen loves everything but that there is a distinction in the application of jen, whereas Chu Hsi regarded making the distinction as the task of righteousness. “Although humanity and righteousness are not separated, in their function they each have their own sphere and should not be confused.”

Chu Hsi's second letter on the Jen-shuo¹⁴¹ is his reply to Chang Shih's response to his first letter.¹⁴² Chang Shih had contended that the substance of jen is impartiality (kung). When one is impartial, he said, there will not be the selfishness that divides the self and others, and thus love will prevail everywhere. To Chu Hsi, however, “Jen is the character of nature and the foundation of love. … If impartiality, which is extended to the whole world and which eliminates the selfishness that divides the self and others, is considered the substance of jen, I am afraid that that impartiality is totally devoid of feeling, like the emptiness of wood and stone.”

Chu Hsi's third letter is concerned with the theory of jen as consciousness.¹⁴³ Chang Shih had written Chu Hsi on the theory, but his letter is no longer extant. In his reply Chu Hsi said, “The man of jen has consciousness, it is true, but consciousness itself is not jen. Who is going to make the mind know, or make it conscious? … However, consciousness is merely the functioning of wisdom. Only the man of jen can have both jen and wisdom. Therefore it is all right to say that a man of jen certainly has consciousness, but is not all right to say that the mind's consciousness is jen.”

Chu Hsi's fourth letter stresses the point that neither impartiality nor forming one body with things is the substance of jen. Chang Shih had written that “one forms one body with Heaven and Earth because man and things share the secret of production and reproduction inherent in the mind of Heaven and Earth, and this is the principle of love.”¹⁴⁴ In response, Chu Hsi said that when one is impartial one looks upon Heaven and Earth and things as one body and loves all, but added that “the principle of love is an original principle that exists by itself and is not the result of forming one body with Heaven and Earth and all things.”¹⁴⁵

In this debate, Chu Hsi won most of the arguments, although sometimes he went too far in criticizing his friend. For example, Chang Shih merely said that the man of jen is always good, but Chu Hsi criticized him for not knowing that jen is the highest good; also, Chang Shih only said that love is prevalent everywhere, but Chu Hsi censured him for not recognizing the substance of jen. Moreover, Chu Hsi's understanding of consciousness left something to be desired. As Professor Mou Tsung-san has pointed out, “Chu Hsi mistakenly considers the consciousness of jen as the consciousness of wisdom. Because of this misunderstanding, he has confined consciousness to wisdom.”¹⁴⁶ Mou's analysis of Chu Hsi's four letters is extremely refined.¹⁴⁷ He does not completely agree with Chang Shih, but in every case considers Chu Hsi to be wrong.

In the Wen-chi there are also two letters to Ho Hao (1128-1175) on the Jen-shuo.¹⁴⁸ A survey of the Yü-lei and the Wen-chi shows that the opening sentence of the Jen-shuo, about the mind of Heaven and Earth, generated the most controversy. To Ho Hao, the mind of Heaven and Earth is jen because when the yang element grows, the spirit of unceasing production and reproduction is revealed; however, Chu Hsi thought that to wait for the yang element to grow would divide the process into two sections, because that theory leaves the yang element before its return unaccounted for.¹⁴⁹ Chu Hsi's student Shen Hsien did not understand the idea that the mind of Heaven and Earth is to produce things. The Teacher explained it to him, saying, “The mind of Heaven and Earth is simply to produce. Everything has to be produced before there can be a thing. … This is a general discussion on the substance of jen. Within it are items and specifications.”¹⁵⁰ We do not know whether this clarified matters for Shen, but Chu Hsi's discussions with Chang Shih, reported above, in all likelihood satisfied him. As Chu Hsi told Hu Shih, “I recently received two letters from Ch’infu [Chang Shih] on the ‘Jen-shuo’ in which he raised many critical questions. I have answered them all. Lately he has written to say that he no longer has any doubts.”¹⁵¹

Due to these discussions, the Jen-shuo was modified in some respects. As Chu Hsi wrote Lü Tsu-ch’ien, “The Jen-shuo has recently been revised further, becoming clearer and more refined than before.”¹⁵² Comparing the treatise with Chang Shih's questions and objections, we can see that the passage about the Four Beginnings being encompassed by the mind that cannot bear to see others' suffering is no longer found in the treatise. Nor does the final treatise refer to Mencius' idea that the man of jen loves all, an omission obviously due to Chang Shih's argument. But Chu Hsi held firmly to the doctrine that the mind of Heaven and Earth is to produce things. In his letter to Ho Hao, he said,

I have maintained that jen is the mind of Heaven and Earth, and that man and things receive this mind as their mind. Although this idea is the product of my personal opinion of the moment, I humbly believe that it opens up precisely the point that there is no separation between Heaven and man. In this respect, the treatise seems to be refined and thorough. If one follows this matter through, one will see that in the undifferentiated unity between jen and the mind is naturally a distinction.¹⁵³

For Chu Hsi to say that he had opened up the point that there is no separation between Heaven and man seems a bold statement, but it does not mean that he was completely satisfied with the Jen-shuo. On the contrary, he himself said that only the earlier section of the treatise is satisfactory.¹⁵⁴ Probably he meant that the latter section dealing with the theories of jen as consciousness and as forming one body with all things does not clearly explain why they are not jen. Be that as it may, in Chu Hsi's Jen-shuo, the doctrine of jen reaches its highest point of development in the history of Chinese thought. As Ch’en Ch’un put it, scholars from the Han dynasty (206 b.c.-a.d. 220) on “have lost the fundamental idea of the law of the mind traditionally transmitted in the Confucian School. Wen Kung [Chu Hsi] was the first to describe jen as the character of the mind and the principle of love. For the first time the explanation of jen is to the point.”¹⁵⁵

THE DIAGRAM OF THE “JEN-SHUO”

The “Jen-shuo-t’u” (Diagram of the Treatise on Humanity) is reproduced below in chapter 18 (p. 281). The important points are given in the comment following the diagram and need not be repeated here. Suffice it to say that the diagram's general emphasis on practice and its inclusion of impartiality twice both suggest Chang Shih's influence on Chu Hsi.

CHANG SHIH'S “JEN-SHUO”

Chang Shih also wrote a “Jen-shuo,” which has sometimes been confused with Chu Hsi's treatise. Under the title of Chu Hsi's treatise there is a note which says, “The Chekiang edition erroneously considers Master Nan-hsüan's [Chang Shih's] ‘Jen-shuo’ as the Master's ‘Jen-shuo’ and considers the Master's ‘Jen-shuo’ as its preface.”¹⁵⁶ Even Chu Hsi's pupil Ch’en Ch’un thought that Chu Hsi had written both of the “Jen-shuo,” one of which had gotten into Chang Shih's literary collection by mistake.¹⁵⁷ Another pupil, Hsiung Chieh (1199 cs), took Chang's treatise to be Chu Hsi's.¹⁵⁸ In reality, each man wrote his own treatise, and there is no basis for believing that one is the preface to the other. Chang Shih's “Jen-shuo” is preserved in chapter 18 of the Nan-hsüan Hsien-sheng wen-chi (Collection of literary works of Master Chang Shih). The whole treatise consists of 477 characters, plus notes totaling 33 characters, so it is not quite half the length of Chu Hsi's Jen-shuo. It says, in brief,

In man's nature the Four Virtues of humanity, righteousness, propriety, and wisdom are present. Humanity is the principle of love, righteousness the principle of appropriateness, propriety the principle of deference, and wisdom the principle of knowledge. … In man's nature there are only these four, and they control the ten thousand goodnesses. What is called the principle of love is the mind of Heaven and Earth to produce things, from which jen is born. Thus jen is the leader of the Four Virtues and can embrace all of them. Because in man's nature there are these Four Virtues, when they are expressed in feelings the feeling of commiseration penetrates all of them. That is why nature and feeling are respectively substance and function, and the way of the mind is the master of nature and feeling. Because man is beclouded by selfish desires, he loses the principle of nature and becomes devoid of jen. … The essential point in the practice of jen lies in self-mastery. … Nothing can becloud the principle of love, which penetrates Heaven and Earth and all things like arteries and veins, and which functions everywhere. Therefore, to designate love as jen is to be blind to its substance, for jen is the principle of love, and to designate impartiality as jen is to lose its reality, for impartiality is what enables man to be jen. … Only the man of jen can extend it and be appropriate; that is what is preserved by righteousness. … This being the case, the student must consider searching for jen as essential, and in the practice of jen consider self-mastery as the way.¹⁵⁹

Readers may well be amazed at the similarity between this treatise and that of Chu Hsi. Practically all its major ideas are found in both treatises, except that Chang's treatise puts more emphasis on the ideas of self-mastery, eliminating becloudedness, and knowing what to preserve. Chang's treatise also stresses how the man of jen can preserve righteousness, propriety, and wisdom. Chu Hsi rejected Yang Shih's doctrine that forming one body with things is jen, while Chang Shih rejected impartiality, which means practically the same thing. Chu Hsi criticized Hsieh Liang-tso's theory that consciousness is jen, while Chang Shih merely said that the man of jen can be conscious and cannot be darkened. Their major difference is that Chu Hsi talked about the two aspects of the character of the mind and the principle of love, whereas Chang Shih spoke only about the principle of love.

It may be argued that Chang's treatise came first and that that is why Chu Hsi's is fuller. However, in his letter to Lü Tsu-ch’ien, Chu Hsi mentioned that Chang Shih had written him to say that Chang's own “Jen-shuo” had been revised, and in the same letter, Chu Hsi also mentioned Lü's promise to write a preface for the I-Lo yüan-yüan lu [Records of the origin of the school of the Ch’engs].¹⁶⁰ Since the Yüan-yüan lu was completed in 1173, two years after Chu Hsi's Jen-shuo, Chang Shih's “Jen-shuo” must have been written later. As to why Chang Shih chose to write a “Jen-shuo” after Chu Hsi had written one, there is a possible explanation: he accepted the concept of jen as produced by the mind of Heaven and Earth, but did not accept the idea that the mind of Heaven and Earth is to produce things. Hence Chang Shih refrained from talking about the character of the mind. Chu Hsi's Jen-shuo tends to be theoretical. Although it says that the student should eagerly search for jen, it does not prescribe any method for doing so. In contrast, Chang Shih elaborated on the ability of the man of jen to extend to the point of preserving righteousness, propriety, and wisdom. Most importantly, he emphasizes the point that to practice jen, one must master oneself.

Chu Hsi's Jen-shuo quotes the Analects on self-mastery once, but only in passing. We know that Chang Shih considered Chu Hsi's “K’echai chi” [Account of the studio of self-mastery] to be superior to Chu Hsi's Jen-shuo, thus implying that the latter was deficient on self-mastery. Chang Shih may have written his “Jen-shuo” to make up for Chu Hsi's deficiency, since for Chang Shih, self-mastery was a key virtue. This can be seen in Huang Tsung-hsi's Sung-Yüan hsüeh-an (Anthology and critical accounts of the Neo-Confucians of the Sung and Yüan dynasties), whose only quote from Chang Shih's “Jen-shuo” is the shortest sentence on self-mastery in it.¹⁶¹ Yet it is not true that Chu Hsi neglected self-mastery. In a letter to Lü Tsu-ch’ien he maintained that learning and self-mastery must be pursued equally, and added that in a letter to Chang Shih he had written one or two paragraphs on the defect of ignoring self-mastery.¹⁶² (The letter referred to is lost, so Chu Hsi must have written more than four letters to Chang Shih on the Jen-shuo.)

Chu Hsi also wrote a letter to Chang Shih specifically on the latter's “Jen-shuo,” taking exception to a number of points in Chang's draft.¹⁶³ He said that his friend “only talks about nature but not feeling, and furthermore, does not say that the mind penetrates both nature and feeling, thus seeming to oppose nature to mind.” In the final text of Chang Shih's “Jen-shuo,” there are sentences expressing the ideas that nature and feeling are mutually penetrated as substance and function, and that the mind is the master of nature and feeling—undoubtedly additions due to Chu Hsi's criticism. Chu Hsi had also objected to Chang Shih's statement that “when one is broad and extremely impartial and interpenetrates, like arteries and veins, with Heaven and Earth and things, the principle of love will be obtained internally and the function of love will be expressed externally.” To Chu Hsi, “The principle of love is native to one's nature. It prevails because of broadness and extreme impartiality, but it is not the product of broadness and extreme impartiality.” The final draft of Chang's “Jen-shuo” says, “If one is broad and extremely impartial, the principle of love originally present in nature will not be beclouded … and, like arteries and veins, will penetrate Heaven and Earth and all things and function everywhere.” This shows that Chang Shih adopted Chu Hsi's theory that the principle of love exists before forming one body with things. Moreover, Chang's statement that “to designate impartiality as jen is to lose its reality,” together with its note, which quotes Ch’eng I's saying that “one should not forthwith point to impartiality as jen,”¹⁶⁴ is obviously a revision made because of Chu Hsi's criticism.

However, Chang Shih strongly adhered to the idea of impartiality. Therefore, in the final text there is the sentence, “Impartiality is why a person can be jen.” In the original draft, Chang Shih had said “Everything in the world is part of my humanity,” to which Chu Hsi objected, “Things are things and jen is my mind. Why do you take things to be my mind?” The original sentence does not appear in the final draft, another indication of Chang's respect for Chu Hsi's opinion. Actually, as Professor Mou Tsung-san has pointed out, Chang Shih did not equate things with the mind but merely meant that everything is penetrated by the operation of the substance of jen.¹⁶⁵ Comparing the earlier draft to the final draft, we must conclude that Chang Shih modified his “Jen-shuo” in accordance with Chu Hsi's opinions. This is further evidence that Chang Shih's “Jen-shuo” is later than Chu Hsi's.

DID CHU HSI WRITE CHANG SHIH'S “JEN-SHUO”?

At the International Conference on Chu Hsi held in Honolulu, Hawaii in 1982, Professor Satō Hitoshi presented a paper on Chu Hsi's Jen-shuo¹⁶⁶ in which he stated that both Ch’en Ch’un and Hsiung Chieh failed to realize that Chu Hsi had nothing to do with Chang Shih's Jen-shuo.In 1981, I had published an essay in Chinese on Chu Hsi's Jen-shuo, of which the material here is a translation. It was reprinted in my Chu-hsüeh lun-chi (Studies on Chu Hsi),¹⁶⁷ but appeared too late for the conference. After the conference, Dr. Liu Shu-hsien published his reflections, which read in part:

The Nan-hsüan wen-chi [Collection of literary works of Master Chang Shih] was completely compiled by Chu Hsi. He deleted all letters and essays that did not conform to his own line of thought and regarded them as Chang Shih's immature work of early years. Is it possible that Nan-hsüan never revised his early draft into the final form after it had met with Chu Hsi's criticism? After Nan-hsüan's death, Chu Hsi wrote another Jen-shuo based on his agreement with Nan-hsüan, included it in the Nan-hsüan wen-chi as Nan-hsüan's own work, and published it as such. That is why some pupils such as Ch’en Ch’un and Hsiung Chieh regarded this Jen-shuo as the work of Chu Hsi. In my understanding, unless this was the situation, it is fundamentally impossible to imagine that Chu Hsi's personal pupils got confused in such a manner. Of course, probably because of his limited ability to express himself in English, Professor Satō basically did not give any answer to the question I raised. Mr. [Wing-tsit] Chan answered for him and said that Ch’en Ch’un was not with Chu Hsi at the time and that Hsiung Chieh's understanding was greatly deficient, and that that was why such a confusion resulted. But I consider such an answer to be unsatisfactory. Ch’en Ch’un was Chu Hsi's favorite pupil in his late years and “defended the Teacher with great energy” [quote from Ch’üan Tsu-wang, 1705-1755].¹⁶⁸ Since he decidedly said that Chu Hsi wrote two versions of the “Jen-shuo,” he must have had some basis [for this]. Probably Chu Hsi wrote another Jen-shuo, accepted Nan-hsüan's criticism, put in an essay the concept of self-mastery, and adopted Nan-hsüan's sayings such as “Heaven, Earth, and the ten thousand things penetrate one another like blood and arteries.” To commemorate his deceased friend, he took this essay as Nan-hsüan's final conclusion and included it in the Nan-hsüan wen-chi. Such a scenerio is certainly not beyond the imagination.¹⁶⁹

Professor Liu's theory is both original and bold, but I hold to my opinion and agree with Professor Satō that Chu Hsi and Chang Shih each wrote a “Jen-shuo.” As the Ssu-k’u ch’üan-shu tsung-mu t’i-yao (Essentials of the contents of the Complete Collection of the Four Libraries) states, Hsiung Chieh “was extremely superficial and there is nothing to recommend him.”¹⁷⁰ But Ch’en Ch’un did not become a pupil of Chu Hsi until 1190. By that time, Chu Hsi's Jen-shuo had been finished for twenty years. Since several writers had written a “Jen-shuo” and each one had been copied and passed around, it was natural for Ch’en Ch’un, living in an isolated village, to believe that his Teacher had written two treatises on jen. The “Jen-shuo” issue was no longer alive, and Ch’en was not familiar with Chu Hsi's Jen-shuo. As he told a pupil, “Wen Kung has two treatises on jen. Have you seen them? One treatise got into the Nan-hsüan wen-chi by mistake, and the other recently reached me from Wen-ling.”¹⁷¹ Thus Ch’en was simply not well informed. As to putting Chang Shih's name on a treatise of his own, this would have been entirely out of character for Chu Hsi. He was never known to employ such devious means, and he could easily have commemorated his friend in a straightforward way.

Notes

1. Wen-chi, 36:7a-16b, fourth, fifth, and sixth letters in reply to Lu Tzu-ching (Lu Hsiang-shan).

2. Ibid., 30:19a-20b; 32:4a-6a, 24a-26b; 64:28b-29b, third, thirty-third, thirty-fourth, and forty-eighth letters in reply to Chang Ch’in-fu (Chang Shih), and letter to the gentlemen of Hunan.

3. Ibid., 36:19a-28b, fourth through ninth letters in reply to Ch’en T’ung-fu (Ch’en Liang).

4. Ibid., 31:4b-8a, 32:16b-24b, 35:6b (Chang Ching-fu); 33:15a-16a (Lü Po-kung); 40:29a-30e (Ho Shu-ching); 42:8a (Hu Kuang-chung); 42:17b-19b (Wu Hui-shu); 42:35a-36a (Shih Tzu-chung); 5:13a (Lin Hsi-chih); 43:28a (Lin Tse-chih); 46:26a-29a (Hu Po-feng); 47:7b-8a, 26b-28a (Lü Tzu-yüeh); 47:7b (Venerable Sir); 50:25a (Yü Chan-chih); 50:34a (Chou Shun-pi); 54:14b (Chou Shu-chin); 56:12b-13b (Fang Pin-wang); 57:2b-3a (Li Yao-ch’ing); 57:10a-11a (Ch’en An-ch’ing); 58:2b-3b (Yang Chung-ssu); 58:21a (Ch’en Ch’i-chih); and 58:28b-29b (Hsü Chu-fu).

5. Ibid., 33:15b, twenty-fourth letter in reply to Lü Po-kung (Lü Tsu-ch’ien).

6. This is from the commentary on the first hexagram, ch’ien (Heaven, male), in the Book of Changes.

7. Yün-men Wen-yen Ch’an-shih yü-lu [Recorded sayings of the Ch’an Patriarch Wen-yen of Yün-men Mountain], in the Hsü-tsang-ching [Supplementary Buddhist canon], first collection, B, Ku-tsun-su yü-lu [Recorded sayings of ancient elders], 17:189a.

8. Wen-chi, 47:26b-27a, twenty-fifth letter in reply to Lü Tzu-yüeh (Lü Tsu-chien).

9. I chuan [Commentary on the Book of Changes], 2:33a, in the Erh-Ch’eng ch’üan-shu [Complete works of the two Ch’engs] (SPPY ed.).

10. Wen-chi, 42:18a, tenth letter in reply to Wu Hui-shu (Wu I).

11. Wai-shu [Additional works], 3:1a, in the Erh-ch’eng ch’üan-shu. The Wai-shu does not specify whether this saying was uttered by Ch’eng I or Ch’eng Hao, but it is generally accepted as Ch’eng I's saying. In his Ming-tao ch’üan-shu [Complete works of Ch’eng Hao], Shen Kuei of the Ming dynasty (1368-1644) ascribed it to Ch’eng Hao.

12. These are the Four Qualities of the ch’ien hexagram in the Book of Changes.

13. Book of Mencius, 2A:6.

14. Yang Shih's doctrine may be found in the Kuei-shan wen-chi [Collection of literary writings of Yang Shih] (1590 ed.), 11:1b; 26:3a; and the Kuei-shan yü-lu [Recorded sayings of Yang Shih] (SPTK ed.), 2:10b. Hsieh Liang-tso's doctrine may be found in the Shang-ts’ai yü-lu [Recorded sayings of Hsieh Liang-tso] (Chin-shih han-chi ts’ung-k’an [Chinese works of the recent period] ed.), pt. 1, p. 2b, 13a-b; pt. 2, p. 1a.

15. Book of Mencius, 2A:2.

16. Ibid., 6A:11.

17. Yü-lei, ch. 59, sec. 155 (p. 2239).

18. Ibid., ch. 19, sec. 61 (p. 704).

19. Wen-chi, 33:12a-b. The “scholars of the Yung-chia school” refers to the historians and utilitarians active in the area of Yung-chia County in southeastern Chekiang Province.

20. Tomoeda Ryūtarō, Shushi no shisō keisei [Formation of Master Chu's thought] (Tokyo: Shunjūsha, 1979), p. 114.

21. Wen-chi, 32:16b-26b, forty-second through forty-seventh letters in reply to Chang Ch’in-fu (Chang Shih).

22. Ibid., 87:9b, funeral address for Chang Shih.

23. Yü-lei, ch. 103, sec. 41 (p. 4142).

24. Ibid.

25. Wen-chi, 32:21a, “Further Discussion on the ‘Jen-shuo.’” The “K’e-chai chi” [Account of the studio of self-mastery] is found in the Wen-chi, 77:15a-16b.

26. Mou Tsung-san, Hsin-t’i yü hsing-t’i [Substance of the mind and substance of nature] (Taipei: Cheng-chung Book Co., 1969), vol. 3, p. 229.

27. Wen-chi, 47:27a, twenty-fifth letter in reply to Lü Tzu-yüeh (Lü Tsu-chien).

28. Ibid., 36:27a, ninth letter in reply to Ch’en T’ung-fu (Ch’en Liang).

29. The Four Books are the Great Learning, the Analects, the Book of Mencius, and the Doctrine of the Mean.

30. The “Yü-shan chiang-i” [Yü-shan lecture] is found in the Wen-chi, 74:17b-22a. Yü-shan is a county in Kiangsi. See also ch. 23 below.

31. Chu Hsi, Lun-yu huo-wen [Questions and answers on the Analects] (Chin-shih han-chi ts’ung-k’an ed.), 1:12a (p. 27), comment on 1:3.

32. Chu Hsi used the phrase “the character of the mind” in comments on the Analects 1:3, 6:5, 7:29, 15:8; and on the Book of Mencius 6A:11. He used “the complete character of the mind” in comments on the Analects 7:6, 33; 8:7; 12:1 and 2. “The mind of jen is the mind to love people” occurs in a comment on the Book of Mencius 4A:1; and “the foundation of jen is love” on 4A:27. “To love people is the application of jen” is used in reference to the Analects 12:22. “The principle of love” appears in the Lun-yü huo-wen 1:7b (p. 18); “the character of the mind” is found in ibid., 6:5b (p. 260), 12:1a-b (pp. 423-424), and 18:2a (p. 625).

33. Yü-lei, ch. 19, sec. 57 (p. 703).

34. Ibid., sec. 61 (p. 704).

35. Yamazaki Bisei, Kairoku [Records of the sea], ch. 20.

36. Yamaguchi Satsujō, Jin no kenkyū [Study of jen] (Tokyo: Iwanami Book Co., 1936), pp. 370-371.

37. Quoted in ōtsuki Nobuyoshi, Chu Tzu ssu-shu chi-chu tien-chü k’ao [Investigation into the textual evidence of Master Chu's Collected Commentaries on the Four Books] (Taipei: Student Book Co., 1976), p. 5.

38. Yamaguchi, Jin no Kenkyū, pp. 376-377.

39. Nan-hsüan Hsien-sheng wen-chi [Collection of literary works of Master Chang Shih] (Chin-shih han-chi ts’ung-shu ed.), 20:12a (p. 661), thirteenth letter in reply to Chu Yüan-hui (Chu Hsi).

40. ōtsuki, Chu Tzu ssu-shu chi-chu tien-chü k’ao, p. 5.

41. Wen-chi, 30:28b, ninth letter in reply to Chang Ch’in-fu; 32:25b, forty-seventh letter.

42. Ibid., 42:19a, tenth letter in reply to Wu Hsi-shu.

43. Hu Tzu chih-yen [Master Hu's understanding of words] (Yüeh-ya-t’ang ts’ung-shu [Hall of Kwangtung elegance series] ed.), 1:1a.

44. Wen-chi, 60:18a, second letter in reply to Tseng Tse-chih.

45. I-shu [Surviving works], 18:2a, in the Erh-Ch’eng ch’üan-shu.

46. Ibid., 21B:2a.

47. Wai-shu, 3:1a.

48. I chuan, 1:2b.

49. Yü-lei, ch. 20, sec. 95 (p. 751).

50. Ibid., ch. 25, sec. 27 (p. 979).

51. Ibid., ch. 20, sec. 103 (p. 752).

52. Ibid., sec. 102 (p. 752).

53. I-ch’uan ching-shuo [Ch’eng I’s explanations of the classics], 6:2b, in the Erh-Ch’eng ch’üan-shu.

54. Yü-lei, ch. 25, sec. 21, 22 (pp. 976-977).

55. Ibid., sec. 23 (p. 977).

56. Ibid., sec. 20 (p. 976).

57. Ibid., sec. 24 (p. 978).

58. Ibid., ch. 45, sec. 19 (p. 1830).

59. Wen-chi, 41:12b, fourth letter in reply to Ch’eng Yün-fu (Ch’eng Hsün).

60. Yü-lei, ch. 25, sec. 21 (p. 976).

61. Ibid., sec. 22, (pp. 976-977).

62. Ibid., ch. 95, sec. 12 (p. 3839).

63. Chu Hsi, Lun-yü chi-chu [Collected commentaries on the Analects], comment on 7:29.

64. Wen-chi, supplementary collection, 9:1a, letter in reply to Liu Tao-chung (Liu Ping).

65. Analects, 13:19.

66. Classic of Filial Piety, ch. 14.

67. I-shu, 11:5b.

68. Analects, 7:14.

69. According to tradition, the lord of Ku-chu had wanted to transmit the throne to Shu-ch’i, his younger son. When he died, Shu-ch’i yielded to his elder brother Po-i, but Po-i declined and they both fled rather than take the throne. Later, when King Wu launched a military expedition against the Shang dynasty, out of loyalty the brothers tried to prevent it, but failed. Thereupon they retired to live on berries on a mountain and eventually starved to death.

70. Yü-lei, ch. 105, sec. 45 (p. 4186).

71. Book of Mencius, 6A:11.

72. Analects, 12:1.

73. Wen-chi, 59:8a, letter in reply to Li Yüan-han.

74. Pei-hsi tzu-i [Ch’en Ch’un's explanation of terms], sec. 59 (Hsi-yin-hsüan ts’ung-shu [Studio where time is highly valued series] ed., 1:26a-b). See my translation entitled Neo-Confucian Terms Explained (New York: Columbia University Press, 1986), pp. 75-76.

75. Yü-lei, ch. 20, sec. 87 (p. 748).

76. Wen-chi, 60:18a, second letter in reply to Tseng Tse-chih.

77. Yü-lei, ch. 20, sec. 98 (p. 751).

78. Wen-chi, 33:12a-b, eighteenth letter in reply to Lü Po-kung (Lü Tsu-ch’ien).

79. Yü-lei, ch. 20, sec. 127 (p. 767).

80. Analects, 1:2.

81. Wen-chi, 31:21b, thirtieth letter in reply to Chang Ching-fu (Chang Shih). The same idea is expressed in the Yü-lei, ch. 20, sec. 94 (p. 750).

82. Book of Mencius, 6A:11.

83. Yü-lei, ch. 59, sec. 155 (p. 2239).

84. Wen-chi, 42:8b, fifth letter in reply to Hu Kuang-chung (Hu Shih).

85. Yü-lei, ch. 6, sec. 117 (p. 191).

86. Ibid., ch. 20, sec. 90 (pp. 748-749).

87. Ibid.

88. The Five Agents (or Five Elements) are Metal, Wood, Wood, Water, Fire, and Earth.

89. In Cheng Hsüan's (127-200) commentary on the first chapter of the Doctrine of the Mean, the Five Agents are equated with the Five Constant Virtues of humanity, righteousness, propriety, wisdom, and faithfulness.

90. Lun-yü huo-wen 1:7b (p. 18), comment on 1:2.

91. In the Book of Mencius, 2A:6, the Four Beginnings are the starting points of the Four Virtues of humanity, righteousness, propriety, and wisdom.

92. Yü-lei, ch. 20, sec. 93 (p. 750).

93. Pei-hsi tzu-i, sec. 50 (pt. 1, p. 24b); Neo-Confucian Terms Explained, p. 71.

94. Yü-lei, ch. 20, sec. 124 (p. 765).

95. Ibid., sec. 97 (p. 751).

96. Pei-hsi tzu-i, sec. 73 (pt. 1, p. 32a); Neo-Confucian Terms Explained, p. 84.

97. Analects, 12:1.

98. Ibid., 13:19.

99. Book of Mencius, 7B:16.

100. Analects, 1:2.

101. Ibid., 4:2.

102. Book of Mencius, 2A:6.

103. Yü-lei, ch. 20, sec. 113 (p. 760). See also sec. 106 (p. 753).

104. I chuan, 1:2b.

105. Ibid.

106. Ibid., sec. 101 (pp. 751-752).

107. Ibid.

108. Ibid., sec. 109 (p. 755).

109. Ibid., sec. 103 (p. 752).

110. Ibid., sec. 104 (p. 750).

111. Pei-hsi tzu-i, sec. 73 (pt. 1, p. 32a); Neo-Confucian Terms Explained, p. 84.

112. Yü-lei, ch. 20, sec. 101 (p. 753).

113. Wen-chi, 51:38b, letter in reply to Wan Cheng-ch’ou (Wan Jen-chieh).

114. Yü-lei, ch. 20, sec. 103 (p. 754).

115. Ibid., sec. 111 (p. 757).

116. Ibid., sec. 111 (p. 758).

117. Ibid., ch. 6, sec. 78 (pp. 179-180).

118. Analects, 5:25.

119. Wen-chi, 57:2b-3a, letter in reply to Li Yao-ch’ing (Li T’ang-tzu).

120. Ibid., 58:29a-b, first letter in reply to Hsü Chu-fu (Hsü Yü).

121. Ibid., 50:34b, fifth letter in reply to Chou Shun-pi (Chou Mu). Also in the Yü-lei, ch. 20, sec. 111 (pp. 758-759).

122. Yü-lei, ch. 6, sec. 87 (p. 185).

123. Analects, 12:1.

124. Ibid., 13:19.

125. Ibid., 12:2.

126. Yü-lei, ch. 20, sec. 112 (pp. 759-760).

127. These are the Four Qualities of the first hexagram, ch’ien (Heaven, male), in the Book of Changes.

128. Mou Tsung-san, Hsin-t’i yü hsing-t’i, vol. 3, pp. 232, 242, 245-246.

129. Ibid., p. 243.

130. Ch’ien Mu, Chu Tzu hsin-hsüeh-an [New anthology and critical accounts of Master Chu] (Taipei: San-min Book Co., 1971), vol. 2, pp. 54-55.

131. T’ang Chün-i, Chung-kuo che-hsüeh yüan-lun: Yüan-hsing-pien [Origin and development of Chinese philosophical ideas: Volume on nature] (Hong Kong: New Asia Research Institute, 1968), pp. 390-399.

132. Mou Tsung-san, Hsin-ti yü hsing-t’i, vol. 3, pp. 249-252.

133. Ibid., pp. 234-252.

134. Wen-chi, 42:17b-19a, tenth letter in reply to Wu Hui-shu (Wu I).

135. Ibid., 32:16b-21b; Nan-hsüan Hsien-sheng wen-chi, 20:7b (p. 652), ninth letter in reply to Chu Yüan-hui (Chu Hsi); 21:5b (p. 674), twenty-first letter.

136. Ibid., 32:16a-18b, letter in reply to Chang Ching-fu (Chang Shih) on the “Jen-shuo.”

137. Nan-hsüan Hsien-sheng wen-chi, 21:5b (p. 674), twenty-first letter in reply to Chu Yüan-hui.

138. Ibid., 20:7b (p. 652), ninth letter.

139. Wen-chi, 32:17b-18a. Yüan is the first of the Four Qualities of origination, flourishing, advantage, and firmness in the process of change, according to the commentary on the first hexagram, ch’ien, in the Book of Changes.

140. Nan-hsüan Hsien-sheng wen-chi, 20:7b (p. 652), ninth letter in reply to Chu Yüan-hui.

141. Wen-chi, 32:19a-b, “Further discussion on the ‘Jen-shuo.’”

142. Nan-hsüan Hsien-sheng wen-chi, 21:5b-6a (pp. 674-675), twenty-first letter to Chu Yüan-hui.

143. Wen-chi, 32:20a-b, “Further discussion on the ‘Jen-shuo.’”

144. Nan-hsüan Hsien-sheng wen-chi, 20:7a (p. 651), ninth letter to Chu Yüan-hui.

145. Wen-chi, 32:20a-b, “Further discussion on the ‘Jen-shuo.’”

146. Mou Tsung-san, Hsin-t’i yü hsing-t’i, vol. 3, p. 280.

147. Ibid., pp. 259-281.

148. Wen-chi, 40:29a-30a, sixteenth and seventeenth letters in reply to Ho Shu-ching (Ho Hao).

149. Ibid., p. 29a.

150. Yü-lei, ch. 105, sec. 44 (p. 4186).

151. Wen-chi, 42:8a, fifth letter in reply to Hu Kuang-chung (Hu Shih).

152. Ibid., 33:15a, twenty-fourth letter in reply to Lü Po-kung (Lü Tsu-ch’ien).

153. Ibid., 40:29b, seventeenth letter in reply to Ho Shu-ching.

154. Yü-lei, ch. 105, sec. 42 (p. 4184).

155. Pei-hsi tzu-i, sec. 71 (pt. 1, 31a-32a). See my translation, Neo-Confucian Terms Explained, pp. 81-83. Also Sung-Yüan hsüeh-an [Anthology and critical accounts of the Neo-Confucians of the Sung and Yüan dynasties] (SPPY ed.), 68:2a-b.

156. Wen-chi, 67:20a, “Treatise on Jen.”

157. Pei-hsi ta-ch’üan-chi [Complete collected works of Ch’en Ch’un] (Ssu-k’u ch’üan-shu chen-pen [Precious works of the Complete Collection of the Four Libraries] ed.) 26:5b, fifth letter in reply to Ch’en Po-tsao (Ch’en I).

158. Hsiung Chieh, Hsing-li ch’ün-shu chü-chieh [Punctuation and explanation of books on nature and principle] (Chin-shih han-chi ts’ung-k’an ed.), 8:8a-10b (p. 367-372).

159. Nan-hsüan Hsien-sheng wen-chi, 18:1a-b.

160. Wen-chi, 33:18a-b, twenty-seventh letter in reply to Lü Po-kung (Lü Tsu-ch’ien). See also above, p. 155.

161. Sung-Yüan hsüeh-an [Anthology and critical accounts of the Neo-Confucians of the Sung and Yüan dynasties] (SPPY ed.), 50:11a, chapter on Chang Shih.

162. Wen-chi, 33:20a-b, thirtieth letter in reply to Lü Po-kung.

163. Ibid., 32:23a-24b, forty-seventh letter in reply to Ch’in-fu on his “Jen-shuo.”

164. I-shu, 3:3a.

165. Mou Tsung-san, Hsien-t’i yü hsing-t’i, vol. 3, p. 295.

166. Professor Satō's paper is published in Wing-tsit Chan, ed., Chu Hsi and Neo-Confucianism (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1986), pp. 212-227.

167. Wing-tsit Chan, Chu-hsüeh lun-chi [Studies on Chu Hsi] (Taipei: Student Book Co., 1982), pp. 37-68.

168. In the Sung-Yüan hsüeh-an, introduction to ch. 68 on Ch’en Ch’un.

169. Liu Shu-hsien, “Further examination of Chu Hsi's ‘Treatise on Jen,’ the concept of the Great Ultimate, and orthodox tradition of the Way—Reflections on participating at the International Conference on Chu Hsi [in Chinese],” in Shih-hsüeh p’ing-lun [Historical tribune], no. 5 (January, 1983), p. 173-188.

170. Ssu-k’u ch’üan-shu tsung-mu t’i-yao [Essentials of the contents of the Complete Collection of the Four Libraries] (Shanghai: Commercial Press, 1933), p. 1919.

171. Pei-hsi ta-ch’üan chi, 26:5b, fifth letter in reply to Ch’en Po-tsao. Wen-ling is an elegant name for Ch’üan-chou Prefecture in southern Fukien.