by Ying-shih Yü
This central thesis is well explained as follows by Kung- chuan Hsiao:
He Yan’s statement, “Heaven, Earth, and all the myriad things have the
basis of their existence in nonbeing,” is adequate to sum up the cosmology
of the Wei- Jin Daoist school. That is, wu, or “nonbeing,” is the ontological
real ity of the cosmos. In the “beginning of things and the completion of
aff airs,” it is you or “being” that is produced by it. Nonbeing produces
(generates), and is being; that concept is not necessarily in confl ict with
that of Dao ( ). . . . Xiahou Xuan
(209–245) said: “Heaven and
Earth spontaneously move in their cycles; the Sage spontaneously func-
tions. By spontaneity is meant the Dao.” To speak in terms of the sponta-
neous cycles of movement and production of Heaven and Earth and the
myriad things, Heaven and Earth do not purposely produce the myriad
things, nor do the myriad things know for what they are produced. Heaven
and Earth (according to Wang Bi), “take no purposive action with re spect
to the myriad things, and each of the myriad things adapts to its own
functioning.” 64
We can easily see from the views of He Yan, Wang Bi, and Xiahou Xuan quoted
above that the Wei- Jin Daoists defi ned the relationship of the individual to the
cosmic order in a totally new way. As we know, cosmology during the Han Period
had been both teleologically and hierarchically oriented. Under the Han cosmo-
logical system, Heaven not only produces all things, including man, with pre-
determined purposes, but also imposes a hierarchical order on them. Thus, on
the one hand, Dong Zhongshu
states, “Heaven and Earth produce the
myriad things for the purpose of nourishing man.” 65 On the other hand, he
says that Heaven is the “ great- grand father” of the common man— that the com-
mon man has access to Heaven, only through the intermediary of the emperor,
that is, the Son of Heaven.66 Now, in Neo- Daoist cosmology, teleology is wholly
rejected owing, at least partly, to the infl uence of Wang Chong.67 Heaven and
Earth no longer produce things. On the contrary, like all the myriad things,
they are also produced by nonbeing, the ontological real ity of the cosmos. Con-
sequently, the concept of Dao also underwent a fundamental change. It was
identifi ed, not with what Dong Zhongshu called “the Way of Heaven,” but with
the ontological creativity of nonbeing, which functions spontaneously. In other
150 indi v idua l is m a nd t h e ne o - daois t m ov e m e n t
words, wu, ziran, and Dao all became synonymous. From the point of view of
the individual, this new conception of the cosmos assures the ego of its inner
freedom, for in the realm of being, every individual thing comes into being by
itself, moves in its natu ral course, and “adapts to its own functioning.” Things
are not produced by a higher creator with a predetermined purpose. As Guo
Xiang says: “Throughout the realm of things, there is nothing . . . which is not
‘self- transformed.’ Hence the creating of things has no Lord; every thing pro-
duces itself and does not depend on anything else. This is the normal way of
the universe.” 68 Indeed, this is a remarkable statement concerning the self-
development and self- suffi
ciency of the individual made on a cosmic scale.
Neo- Daoist cosmology also throws light on the prob lem of order. The hierar-
chical conception of Dao in the Han Period was considerably modifi ed. Since,
as we have seen, Dao is redefi ned as nonbeing and spontaneity in Neo- Daoist
thought, neither the Son of Heaven nor the sage is in a position to claim a
mono poly on it. Every individual thing in the world, high or low, great or small,
worthy or unworthy, is immediate to Dao because nonbeing is the basis of exis-
tence for all things. This does not mean, however, that Neo- Daoists completely
did away with the idea of order in their cosmos. Order does exist, but it exists
only in the realm of being and is therefore secondary. Moreover, it is pres ent in
a way that fully accords with the princi ple of naturalness. On this point, again,
Guo Xiang is our reliable guide: “For the one whom the age takes to be worthy
becomes the ruler, while those whose talents do not correspond to the demands
of the age become servitors. It is analogous to the heavens’ being naturally high
and earth naturally low, the head being naturally on top and the feet occupying
naturally the inferior position.” 69It must be noted that Guo Xiang’s emphasis
here is placed unequivocally on the naturalness of order. As a Neo- Daoist thinker,
however, his ultimate concern was not with order but with the individual. Thus,
in the very beginning of his commentary to the Zhuangzi, he writes: “Although
the great is diff er ent from the small . . . if they all indulge themselves in the
realm of self- fulfi llment, then all things are following their own nature and
doing according to their own capacity; all are what they ought to be and equally
happy. There is no room for the distinction . . . [between] superior and infe-
rior.”70 Clearly, it was this Neo- Daoist vision of the freedom of the individual
that necessitated the emergence of a new cosmological system in which all be-
ings must be self- determining as well as self- fulfi lling.
Of the three paired concepts of opposites, ziran (naturalness) and mingjiao
(the teaching of names) have been the most extensively discussed in modern
historical scholarship. There is therefore no need to go into all the ramifi ca-
tions of this pair in the pres ent essay. This pair shall be examined only insofar
as it sheds light on the prob lem of the individual vis- à- vis order. In a broad
sense, the scope of this pair overlaps with that of nonbeing and being on the
one hand and that of feelings and ritual on the other. In a narrower sense, how-
indi v idua l is m a nd t h e ne o - daois t m ov e m e n t 151
ever, it deals primarily with the relationship of the individual to po liti cal order,
i.e., the state. By and large, modern historians have tended to emphasize the
po liti cal implications of the controversy over naturalness and the teaching of
names. For the sake of clarity, I shall use this paired concept in its narrow sense.
In his commentary on the sentence “When there fi rst were institutions and
regulations, there were names,” Wang Bi says: “When the uncarved block was
dispersed . . . there were offi
cials and rulers. When institutions and regula-
tions, offi
cials and rulers, are initiated, it is impossible not to establish names
and statutes by which to determine superior and inferior; therefore when fi rst
there are institutions and regulations, there will be names.”71 This is Wang Bi’s
understanding of the origins of po liti cal order. Here, the “uncarved block”
( pu ), a term used in the Laozi, is a symbol of the primordial naturalness. Like
nonbeing, from which being arises, naturalness provides po liti cal order with its
existential basis. As Chen Yinke rightly points out, the term “names” in this pas-
sage is identifi able with that in the teaching of names.72 If the teac
hing of names,
i.e., po liti cal order, originates in naturalness, it then follows that, ideally, it must
model itself on the way naturalness operates, which is through “nonaction” ( wu-
wei). Nonaction, however, does not imply a total absence of po liti cal order.73 As a
matter of fact, the notion of the necessity of po liti cal order was, on the whole, not
seriously disputed by leading Neo- Daoist thinkers of the period, with the pos si ble
exception of Ruan Ji. Even the radical Xi Kang had a very clear idea of what an
ideal po liti cal order should be. As he described it:
The Sage comes as though inevitably to rule over the empire without in-
tending to do so, [and] hence takes the (mind of) all the myriad things as
his own mind. He leaves all the forms of life to themselves, and guides his
own person by means of the Dao, being therein the same as all the
world in gaining his own fulfi llment. Eff ortlessly, he takes the absence
of involvement in his work; calmly, he looks upon the empire as a
commonality.74
Thus, the po liti cal order that grows out of primordial naturalness and works
through nonaction is a minimal order. In terms of general features, if not of
concrete conditions, it is quite reminiscent of the minimal state arising from
the state of nature in the Lockean tradition. Xi Kang’s view may be fruitfully
compared to Guo Xiang’s formulation of the same thesis:
If the realm were to lack an enlightened ruler, then nothing would be
able to reach its fulfi llment. Such fulfi llment as there now is must be ac-
counted the achievement of enlightened rulers. Yet that achievement lies in
his nonaction and in turning responsibility back to the world. All the (con-
stituent parts) of the world having obtained autonomy, the consequence is
152 indi v idua l is m a nd t h e ne o - daois t m ov e m e n t
that their (individual fulfi llment) does not appear to be the achievement
of the enlightened ruler.75
Both Xi Kang and Guo Xiang are talking about the minimal po liti cal order of
nonaction. Yet there appears to be a subtle diff erence: the former, apparently
more concerned with the self- fulfi llment of the individual, sees an invisible
hand in the order of nonaction; the latter, emphasizing the function of the “en-
lightened ruler,” attributes the order to the work of a hidden hand.76 Whether
by an invisible hand or a hidden hand, however, maintaining order is hardly
ever the central issue in the Neo- Daoist po liti cal philosophy. For Neo- Daoists
such as Wang Bi, He Yan, Xi Kang, and Guo Xiang, po liti cal order was at best a
“necessary evil.”77 There can be no doubt that as far as the prob lem of the indi-
vidual vis- à- vis order was concerned, their emphasis was always on the former,
not the latter. As Guo Xiang remarked: “The value of a sage- king does not lie in
his ability to govern. It lies in the fact that through nonaction, he allows each
individual thing to undertake its own action.”78
According to this view, then, po liti cal order can be justifi ed on the sole ground
that it makes pos si ble self- fulfi llment for each and every individual. In other
words, the state exists for the sake of the individual, but not vice versa. The lan-
guage of Neo- Daoist philosophy also attests overwhelmingly to its individualis-
tic mode of thinking. Terms such as self- fulfi llment ( zide
), self- containment
( zizu
), self- transformation ( zihua
), self- control ( zizhi
), self- action
( ziwei
), self- completion ( zicheng
), self- adjustment ( zishi
), self-
complacency ( zizai
), etc., abound in Neo- Daoist texts. If language is a reli-
able index to thought, then the emergence of these new linguistic expressions
clearly indicates the direction in which Chinese intellectual history was moving
after the end of the second century.
Fi nally, we come to the last pair of our concepts of opposites, feelings versus
rituals. The bearing of this pair on the prob lem of the individual vis- à- vis order
is self- evident, and requires no elaboration. The controversy over feelings and
rituals was most immediately relevant to the social real ity of the time. As our
earlier discussion of the changing interpersonal relationships clearly shows,
the free and spontaneous fl ow of personal feelings between husband and wife
or father and son inevitably led to transgressions of the “rules of etiquette” ( li ) .
This was the most protracted of all controversies during this period; it began in
the second century and continued well into the fourth. As a matter of fact, the
controversy was even more intense in the fourth century than in the third. De-
bates about mourning rites, for instance, dominated the intellectual discourse
of the Eastern Jin Period (317–420).79 The truth is that while the prob lem of
freedom of the individual versus order had been basically resolved in the po liti-
cal domain with the founding of the Western Jin (265–316) dynasty, a regime of
“nonaction” very much catered to the interests of the elite. No modus vivendi,
however, was worked out in the social sphere until more than a century later.
indi v idua l is m a nd t h e ne o - daois t m ov e m e n t 153
Chen Yinke’s famous thesis that by the early fourth century Pure Conversation
had evolved into an intellectual game played by the elite with no reference to ac-
tualities of life is valid only on the po liti cal level.80 On the social level, especially
in family and clan relationships, the prob lem of feelings versus rituals was still
very real.
The relationship of “feelings” and “rituals” was prob ably fi rst called into
question in the late second century in connection with Dai Liang’s mourning
for his mother. Like Ruan Ji a century later, Dai Liang, while observing the
mourning period, helped himself to meat and wine and wept only when truly
overcome by grief. Someone asked him whether he was performing the right
kind of rites, to which he replied: “Yes. Rites are to keep feelings from going to
excess. If feelings are not excessive, what is the need to talk about rites?” 81 As
this case clearly shows, in the initial stages of the controversy, a high tension
between “feelings” and “rituals” already existed. The two were not yet, however,
diametrically opposed to each other. Unlike Ruan Ji’s radical antiritualism, Dai
Liang’s rejection of li was only partial and conditional.
We have reason to believe that, psychologically, the tension between human
emotions and ritual originated in the sudden release of personal feelings or
emotions that accompanied the self- discovery of the individual after the late
second century. The traditional ritual system apparently lacked suffi
cient fl exi-
bility to respond to the deluge of new feelings being allowed expression.
In the realm of ideas, this tension manifested itself essentially in two ways:
a fresh interest in the function of feelings in man and a new emphasis on the
importance of the spirit, as opposed to the letter, of rituals. As we know, with
regard to the idea
of “feelings” in Han thought, Dong Zhongshu’s view that
human nature is good but human feelings are bad had been accepted as more
or less orthodox.82 It is therefore highly signifi cant that at the end of the Han,
Xun Yue
(148–209) quoted with emphatic approval in his Shenjian
(Extended Refl ections) the heterodox view of Liu Xiang
(77–76 b.c.e.) that
“since human nature corresponds to human emotions, the one cannot be all
good and the other all bad.” As he further remarked, if one asserted that human
feelings are all bad, then he would have to say that sages like Yao and Shun
had no feelings.83
This leads us directly to Wang Bi’s infl uential theory concerning the emo-
tions of the sage:
He maintained that where the sage is vitally superior to other men is in
his spirit- like intelligence, but where he is like other men is in having the
fi ve emotions. Being superior in his spirit- like intelligence, he is able to
identify himself with the harmonious whole, so that he is imbued with
nonbeing; but being like others in his fi ve emotions, he cannot but react to
things with emotion. The emotions of the sage are such that though he re-
acts to things, he is not ensnared by them. It is a great error, consequently,
154 indi v idua l is m a nd t h e ne o - daois t m ov e m e n t
to say that because he is not ensnared by things, he therefore has no
(emotional) reactions to them.84
Two observations may be made about Wang Bi’s theory. First, it clearly indi-
cates, in conjunction with Xun Yue’s view, that during the fi rst half of the third
century, new philosophical attention was being paid to the prob lem of “feel-
ings,” though we do not know for sure that Wang Bi had access to Xun Yue’s
work. Second, the theory admirably serves as a justifi cation of the ever- growing
importance of personal feelings in the social life of the day. Evidence shows
that by the middle of the fourth century it became one of the most central phil-
osophical topics in Pure Conversation, a testimony to its great popularity.85
On the other hand, “rituals” as an idea also received critical reexamination
in the hands of phi los o phers. In his commentary on the phrase “the meaning
of rites ( li)” in the Zhuangzi, for example, Guo Xiang had this to say: