LUN HENG
123
He still allows, however, of a kind of pre-established harmony between the omens and the human events to which they correspond (but do not respond). In his important chapter 10, he gives several other examples of phenomena which are linked together without any true physical causation. This last theory of one organic world in which all phenomena are rhythmically linked is typically Chinese, common to the Han and Sung philosophers. In fact, many of the ideas thought original to the Sung dynasty are found, some adopted unconsciously and others consciously, in Wang Ch'ung's Lun Heng of the Han. It is a mistake to suggest, as some scholars have done, that Wang Ch'ung was outside the main stream of Chinese thought.
Wang Ch'ung is worth reading as a philosopher in his own right. Moreover, his eighty-four essays are amongst the main sources for the more orthodox Han Confucianism; even though he attacks it, we learn as much about it from the Lun Heng as from any other work of the period. Much too is learned about the Taoist religious practices of the time from his chapter 24, in which he pours scorn on their methods to achieve immortality. The Lun Heng is essential reading for the Han intellectual scene.
It is also an invaluable work for the earlier legends and historical facts. Wang Ch'ung was an iconoclast who did not take even Confucius as infallible. In his Lun Heng, we have a source of independent value for the Chou period as well as for the Han.
To give a particular example. When Ssu-ma Ch'ien in his Shih-chi (book 47) describes the life of Confucius, he relies very heavily on the Analects, which he quotes extensively. These quotations have a limited value as confirmation of the saying as existing in Ssu-ma Ch'ien's time. But there are almost no passages where the text as transmitted in the Shih-chi differs from that as transmitted in the Analects as such. We can never be sure that later editors of the Shih-chi did not alter minor discrepancies of their text to fit the almost sacred Analects of Confucius. This doubt in the independence of our source is less strong in the case of the Lun Heng. There are slight variants between the quotation in the Lun Heng and the Analects itself. Moreover, several interpretations adopted by Wang Ch'ung are quite different from the orthodox Han interpretation given in the Analects.
LUN HENG
123
He still allows however of a kind of pre-established harmony between the omens and the human events to which they correspond (but do not respond). In his important chapter 10 he gives several other examples of phenomena which are linked together without any true physical causation. This last theory of one organic world in which all phenomena are rhythmically linked is typically Chinese, common to the Han and Sung philosophers. In fact many of the ideas thought original to the Sung dynasty are found, some adopted unconsciously and others consciously, in Wang Ch'ung's Lun Heng of the Han. It is a mistake to suggest, as some scholars have done, that Wang Ch'ung was outside the main stream of Chinese thought.
Wang Ch'ung is worth reading as a philosopher in his own right. Moreover his eighty-four essays are amongst the main sources for the more orthodox Han Confucianism; even though he attacks it, we learn as much about it from the Lun Heng as from any other work of the period. Much too is learned about the Taoist religious practices of the time from his chapter 24 in which he pours scorn on their methods to achieve immortality. The Lun Heng is essential reading for the Han intellectual scene.
It is also an invaluable work for the earlier legends and historical facts. Wang Ch'ung was an iconoclast who did not take even Confucius as infallible. In his Lun Heng we have a source of independent value for the Chou period as well as for the Han.
To give a particular example. When Ssu-ma Ch'ien
in his Shih-chi ✯✯ (book 47) describes the life of Confucius, he relies very heavily on the Analects which he quotes extensively. These quotations have a limited value as confirmation of the saying as existing in Ssu-ma Ch'ien's time. But there are almost no passages where the text as transmitted in the Shih-chi differs from that as transmitted in the Analects as such. We can never be sure that later editors of the Shih-chi did not alter minor discrepancies of their text to fit the almost sacred Analects of Confucius. This doubt in the independence of our source is less strong in the case of the Lun Heng. There are slight variants between the quotation in the Lun Heng and the Analects itself. Moreover several interpretations adopted by Wang Ch'ung are quite different from the orthodox Han interpretation given in the
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