A Short History of Chinese Philosophy (49 page)

Li or Principle

In the last chapter we have examined Ch' eng Yi' s theory of Li, i.e., Principles or Laws. By Chu Hsi this theory was made still clearer. He says: "What are hsing shang or above shapes, so that they lack shapes or even shadows, are Li. What are hsing lisia or within shapes, so that they have shapes and body, are things." ( Chu-tzu Yil-lei or Classified Recorded Sayings of the Master Chu, chilan %.) A thing is a concrete instance of its Li. Unless there be such-and-such a Li, there cannot be such-and-such a thing. Chu Hsi says: When a certain affair is done, that shows there is a certain Li."

(Ibid., chilan IOI.)

For everything, whether it be natural or artificial, there is its Li. In the Recorded Sayings, one passage reads: "(Question: ) 'How can dried and withered things also possess the nature? (Answer:) They all possess Li from the first moment of their existence. Therefore it is said: In the universe 484 , NEO-CONFUCIANISM:THE SCHOOL OF PLATONIC IDEAS

there is not a single thing that is without its nature.' Walking on the steps, the Master [Chu Hsi]

continued:' For the bricks of these steps there is ihe Li of bricks. And sitting down, he said: For the bamboo chair, there is the Li of the bamboo chair. You may say that dried and withered things have no life or vitality, yet among them, too, there are none that do not have Li. ( chtian 4.)"

Another passage reads: "(Question:) 'Do things without feeling also possess Li? (Answer:) Most certainly they possess Li. For example, a ship can go only on water, while a cart can go only on land.

(Ibid.) And still another passage reads: "(Question:) 'Is there Li iii dried and withered things? (Answer:) As soon as a thing exists, the Li is inherent in it. Even in the case of a writing brush-though it is not produced by nature but by man, who takes the long and soft hairs of the hare to make it-as soon as that brush exists, Li is inherent in it. (Ibid.) The Li that is inherent in the writing brush is the nature of that brush. The same is true of all other kinds of things in the universe: each kind has its own Li, so that whenever the members of a certain kind of thing exist, the Li of that kind is inherent in them and constitutes their nature. It is this Li that makes them what they are. Thus according to the Ch'eng-Chu school, not all categories of objects possess mind, i.e., are sentient; nevertheless, all of them do possess their own particular nature, i.e., Li.

For this reason, there are the Li for things already before the concrete things themselves exist. In a letter answering Liu Shu-wen, Chu Hsi writes: "There are Li, even if there are no things. In that case there are only such-and-such Li, but not such-and-such things." (Chu Wen-hung Wen-chi or Collected Literary Writings of Chu Hsi, chiian 46.) For instance, even prior to the human invention of ships and carts, the Li of ships and carts are already present. What is called the invention of ships and carts, therefore, is nothing more than the discovery by mankind of the Li of ships and carts, and the construction of these objects accordingly. All Li are present even before the formation of the physical universe. In the Recorded Sayings one passage reads: (Question:) Before heaven and earth had yet come into existence, were all the things of later times already there? (Answer:) ' Only the Li were there.

(Chiian I.) The Li are always there; that is to say, they are eternal.

T'ai Chi or the Supreme Ultimate

For every kind of thing there is the Li, which makes it what it ought to be. The Li is the chi of that thing, i.e., it is its ultimate standard. (The word chi originally was a name for the ridge pole at the peak of the roof of a building. As used in Neo -Confucianism, it means the highest ideal prototype of things.) For the universe as a whole, there must also be an ultimate standard, which is supreme and all embracing. It embraces the multitude of Li for all

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things and is the highest summation of all of them. Therefore it is called the Supreme Ultimate or T ai Chi. As Chu Hsi says: Everything has an ultimate, which is the ultimate Li. That which unites and embraces the Li of heaven, earth, and all things is the Supreme Ultimate." (Recorded Sayings, chtian 94.) He also says: "The Supreme Ultimate is simply what is highest of all, beyond which nothing can be. It is the most high, most mystical, and most abstruse, surpassing everything. Lest anyone should imagine that the Supreme Ultimate has bodily form, Lien-hsi [i.e., Chou Tun-yi] has said of it: 'The Ultimateless, and yet also the Supreme Ultimate. That is, it is in the realm of no things that there is to be found the highest Li.' (Chu-tzu Ch' uan-shu, or Complete Works of the Master Chu, chiian 49-) From these statements we see that the position of the Supreme Ultimate in Chu Hsi s system corresponds to the Idea of the Good or to God in the systems of Plato and Aristotle respectively.

There is one point in Chu Hsi s system, however, that makes his Supreme Ultimate more mystical than Plato's Idea of the Good or Aristotle's God. This is the fact that, according to Chu Hsi, the Supreme Ultimate is not only the summation of the Li of the universe as a whole, but is at the same time immanent in the individual examples of each category of things. Every particular thing has inherent in it the Li of its particular category of things, but at the same time the Supreme Ultimate in its entirety is inherent in it too. Chu Hsi says: "With regard to heaven and earth in general, the Supreme Ultimate is in heaven and earth. And with regard to the myriad things in particular, the Supreme Ultimate is in every one of them too. (Recorded Sayings, chiian 94.)

But if this is so, does not the Supreme Ultimate lose its unily? Chu Hsi's answer is no. In the Recorded Sayings he says: There is but one Supreme Ultimate, which is received by the individuals of all things.

This one Supreme Ultimate is received by each individual in its entirety and undivided. It is like the moon shining in the heavens, ol which, though it is reflected in rivers and lakes and thus is everywhere visible, we would not therefore say that it is divided." (Ibid.) We know that in Plato s philosophy there is a difficulty in explaining the relation between the intellectual and sensible worlds, and between the one and the many. Chu Hsi, too, has this difficulty, which he meets with an illustration which is really a metaphor of constant use in Buddhism. The question as to how the Li of a whole class of things is related to the individual things within that class, and as to whether this relationship may also involve a division of the Li, is not raised. If it were, I think Chu Hsi would meet it with the same illustration.

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Ch' i or Matter

If there were nothing but Li, there could be nothing more than a world that is "above shapes. Our own concrete physical world, however, is made possible by the presence of Ch i upon which is imposed the pattern of the Li. "In the universe," says Chu Hsi, "there are Li and Ch'i. The Li is the Too that pertains to what is above shapes, and is the source from which all things are produced. The Ch i is the material Lliterally, instrumentJ that pertains to 'what is within shapes,' and is the means whereby things are produced. Hence men or things, at the moment of their production, must receive this Li in order that they may have a nature of their own. They must receive this Ch'i in order that they may have their bodily form." ("Reply to Huang Tao-fu," Collected Literary Writings, chtian 58.) Again he says: It seems to me that the Ch i depends upon the Li for its operation. Thus when there is an agglomeration of Ch'i, the Li is also present within it. It is so, because the Ch'i has the capacity to condense and thus form things; but the Li lacks volition or plan, and has no creative power....The Li constitutes only a pure, empty, and vasl world, without shapes or traces, and so incapable of producing anything. But the Ch' i has the capacity to undergo fermentation and condensation, and thus bring things into existence. And yet, whenever the Ch'i exists, the Li is present within it." {Recorded Sayings, chtian 1.) Here we see how Chu Hsi says what Chang Tsai should have said but did not. Any individual thing is a condensation of Ch'i, but it is not only an individual thing; it is at the same time a member of some category of objects. As such, it is not merely a condensation of the Ch i, but is a condensation that takes place in accordance with the Li for that category of objects as a whole. That is why, whenever there is a condensation of the Ch i, Li must always necessarily be present within it.

The question as to the relative priority of Li and Ch i is one much discussed by Chu Hsi and his disciples. On one occasion he says: "Before the instances of it exist, there is the Li. For example, before there exist any sovereign and subject, there is the Li of the relationship between sovereign and subject.

Before there exist any father and son, there is the Li of the relationship between father and son.

(Recorded Sayings, chtian 95) That there is a Li prior to the instances of it in our physical universe, is certainly clear from Chu Hsi' s statement. But is Li in general also prior to Ch' i in general? Chu Hsi says: "Li is never separable from Ch'i. Nevertheless, Li pertains to 'what is above shapes, whereas Ch'i pertains to what is within shapes. Hence if we speak of ' what is above shapes' and ' what is within shapes,' how can there not be priority and posteriority? (Ibid., chiian 1. ) Elsewhere there is a passage: "(Question:) 'When there is Li, there is then Ch' i. It seems that we cannot say that either one is prior to the other.' (Answer:) In reality, Li is prior. We cannot say, however, that there is Li today and Ch' i tomorrow. Yet there must be a priority of the one to the

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other'. (Complete Works, chiian 49-)From these passages we can see that what Chu Hsi has in mind is that as a matter of fact "there is no Li without Ch i and no Ch i without Li. (Recorded Sayings, chiian I.) There is no time when there is no Ch i. And since Li is eternal, it is absurd to speak about il as having a beginning. Hence the question as to whether it is Li or Ch i that comes into being first is really nonsensical. Nevertheless, to speak about the beginning of Ch i is only a factual absurdity, while to speak about the beginning of Li is a logical one. In this sense it is not incorrect, as between Li and Ch i, to say that there is priority and posteriority.

Another question is this: As between Li and Ch'i, which is it that Plato and Aristotle would have called the First Mover ? Li cannot be so, because it lacks volition or plan, and has no creative power. But though Li itself does not move, yet in the "pure, empty, and wide world" of Li there are the Li of movement and the Li of quiescence. The Li of movement does not itself move, nor does the Li of quiescence itself rest, but as soon as the Ch' i "receives" them, the latter begins to move or rest. The Ch'i that moves is called the Yang; the Ch i that rests is called the Yin. Thus, according to Chu Hsi, the dualistic elements that are the fundamentals of the universe in Chinese cosmology are produced. He says: "Whereas the Yang is in movement and the Yin in quiescence, the Supreme Ultimate is neither in movement nor in quiescence. But there are the Li of movement and of quiescence. These Li are invisible, and become manifest to us only when there are the movement of the Yang and the quiescence of the Yin.

The Li rests upon the Yin and Yang just as a man rides on a horse. (Complete Works, chiian 49.) Thus the Supreme Ultimate, like God in the philosophy of Aristotle, is not moved, yet at the same time is the mover of all.

The interaction of the Yin and Yang results in the production of the Five Elements, and from these the physical universe as we know it is produced. In his cosmological theory, Chu Hsi endorses most of the theories of Chou Tun-yi and Shao Yung.

Nature and Mind

From the above we see that, according to Chu Hsi, when an individual thing comes into existence, a certain Li is inherent in it, which makes it what it is and constitutes its nature. And a man, like other things, is a concrete particular produced in the concrete world. Hence what we call human nature is simply the Li of humanity that is inherent in the individual. The saying of Ch eng Yi that the nature is Li is endorsed and commented on by Chu Hsi in many places. The Li here spoken of is not Li in its universal form; it is simply the Li that is inherent in the individual. This explains the rather paradoxical saying of Ch eng Hao: "When something is said about the nature, it is then already not the nature. "By this he simply means that it is then the individualized Li, and not Li in its universal form.

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A man, in order to have concrete existence, must be the embodiment of Ch'i. The Li for all men is the same, and it is the Ch'i that makes them different. Chu Hsi says: Whenever there is Li, then there is Ch i.

Whenever there is Ch i there must be Li. Those who receive a Ch i that is clear, are the sages in whom the nature is like a pearl lying in clear cold water. But those who receive a Ch i, that is turbid, are the foolish and degenerate in whom the nature is like a pearl lying in muddy water." (Recorded Sayings, chilan 4-) Thus any individual, besides what he receives from Li, also has what he receives from Ch i, and this is what Chu Hsi calls the physical endowment.

Such is Chu Hsi's theory of the origin of evil. As pointed out by Plato long ago, every individual, in order to have concreteness, must be an embodiment of matter, by which, consequently, he is implicated, so that he necessarily falls short of the ideal. A concrete circle, for example, can only be relatively and not absolutely round. That is the irony of the concrete world, in which man is no exception. Chu Hsi says: "Everything depends on its physical endowment. Li, on the other hand, is nothing but good, for since it is Li, how can it be evil? What is evil lies in the physical endowment. Mencius' doctrine asserts absolutely that the nature is good. In this he apparently takes account only of the nature per se but not of the Ch'i, and thus in this respect his statement is incomplete. The Ch eng school, however, supplements this with the doctrine of the physical nature, and so in it we get a complete and all-round view of the problem." (Complete Works, chiian 43.)