Great Chinese Philosopher: Zhu Xi

["Dixie" <Dixie@singnet.com.sg>]

Chu Hsi,

Pinyin ZHU XI, literary name (hao) Y\AN HUI, or CHUNG HUI, courtesy names
(tzu) HUI AN, CH'EN LANG, CHI YEN, HUI WENG, HS\N WENG, or Y\N KU LAo-JEN,
also called CHU-TZU, or CHU-FU-TZU (b. Oct. 18, 1130, Yu-hsi, Fukien
province, China--d. April 23, 1200, China), Chinese philosopher whose
synthesis of Neo-Confucian thought long dominated Chinese intellectual
life. 

Life.

Chu Hsi was the son of a local official. He was educated in the Confucian
tradition by his father and passed the highest civil service examination at
the age of 18, when the average age for such an accomplishment was 35. Chu
Hsi's first official position (1151-58) was as a registrar in T'ung-an,
Fukien. There he proceeded to reform the management of taxation and police,
improve the library and the standards of the local school, and draw up a
code of proper formal conduct and ritual, none being previously available.
Before proceeding to T'ung-an, Chu Hsi called on Li T'ung, a thinker in the
tradition of Sung Confucianism who decisively influenced his future
thinking. He visited Li again in 1158 and spent several months studying
with him in 1160. Li was one of the ablest followers of the 11th-century
Neo-Confucians who had created a new metaphysical system to compete with
Buddhist and Taoist philosophy and regain the Confucian intellectual
ascendancy lost for nearly a millennium. Under his influence, Chu's
allegiance turned definitely to Confucianism at this time. 

After his assignment at T'ung-an ended, Chu Hsi did not accept another
official appointment until 1179. He did, however, continue to express his
political views in memorandums addressed to the emperor. Though Chu Hsi
also remained involved in public affairs, his persistent refusal to accept
a substantive public office reflected his dissatisfaction with the men in
power and their policies, his spurning of factional politics, and his
preference for the life of a teacher and scholar, which was made possible
by his receipt of a series of government sinecures. 

These years were productive in thought and scholarship as indicated both by
his formal writings and by his correspondence with friends and scholars of
diverse views. In 1175, for instance, he held a famous philosophical debate
with the philosopher Lu Chiu-y|an (Lu Hsiang-shan) at which neither man was
able to prevail. In contrast to Lu's insistence on the exclusive value of
inwardness, Chu Hsi emphasized the value of inquiry and study, including
book learning. Consistent with this view was Chu Hsi's own prolific
literary output. In a number of works, including a compilation of the works
of the Ch'eng brothers and studies of Chou-Tun-i (1017-73) and Chang Tsai
(1020-77), he expressed his esteem for these four philosophers, whose ideas
he incorporated and synthesized into his own thought. According to Chu Hsi,
these thinkers had restored the transmission of the Way (Tao), a process
that had been lost after the death of Mencius. In 1175 Chu Hsi and his
friend L| Tsu-ch'ien (1137-81) compiled passages from the works of the four
to form their famous anthology, Chin-ssu Lu (Reflections on Things at
Hand). Chu Hsi's philosophical ideas also found expression during this
period in his enormously influential commentaries on the Lun Y| (Analects)
of Confucius and on Mencius, both completed in 1177. 

Chu Hsi also took a keen interest in history and directed a reworking and
condensation of Ssu-ma Kuang's history, the Tzu-chih t'ung-chien
("Comprehensive Mirror for Aid in Government"), so that it would illustrate
moral principles in government. The resulting work, known as the
T'ung-chien kang-mu ("Outline and Digest of the General Mirror"), basically
completed in 1172, was not only widely read throughout eastern Asia but
also served as the basis for the first comprehensive history of China
published in Europe, J.-A.-M. Moyriac de Mailla's Histoire ginirale de la
Chine (1777-85). 


While serving as prefect (1179-81) in Nan-k'ang, Kiangsi, Chu Hsi used the
opportunity to rehabilitate the White Deer Grotto Academy, which had been
founded in the 9th century and had flourished in the 10th century but had
later fallen to ruin. The prestige restored to it by Chu was to last
through eight centuries. Academies such as this provided an invaluable
institutional basis for the Neo-Confucian movement. 

In 1188 Chu Hsi wrote a major memorandum in which he restated his
conviction that the emperor's character was the basis for the well-being of
the realm. Ta hs|eh ("Great Learning"), a text on moral government,
asserted that by cultivating his mind the emperor set off a chain reaction
leading to the moral transformation of the entire world. In 1189 Chu Hsi
wrote an important commentary on this text, and he continued to work on Ta
hs|eh for the rest of his life. Similarly, in 1189 he wrote a commentary on
Chung yung ("Doctrine of the Mean"). It was largely because of the
influence of Chu Hsi that these two texts came to be accepted along with
the Analects and Mencius as the Four Books basic to the Confucian
educational curriculum. 

On several occasions during his later career Chu was invited to the
imperial court and seemed destined for more influential positions, but his
invariably frank and forceful opinions and his uncompromising attacks on
corruption and political expediency each time brought his dismissal or his
transfer to a new post conveniently distant from the capital. On the last
of these occasions, near the end of his life, his enemies retaliated with
virulent accusations concerning his views and conduct, and he was barred
from political activity. He was still in political disgrace when he died in
1200. Chu Hsi's reputation was rehabilitated soon after his death, however,
and posthumous honours for him followed in 1209 and 1230, culminating in
the placement of his tablet in the Confucian Temple in 1241. In later
centuries, rulers more authoritarian than those he had criticized,
discreetly forgetting his political and intellectual nonconformity, made
his philosophic system the sole orthodox creed, which it remained until the
end of the 19th century. 

Thought and influence

Chu Hsi's philosophy emphasized logic, consistency, and the conscientious
observance of classical authority, especially that of Confucius and his
follower Mencius. Chu Hsi held that the universe has two aspects: the
formless and the formed. The formless, or li, is a principle or a network
of principles that is supreme natural law and that determines the patterns
of all created things. This law combines with the material force or energy
called ch'i to produce matter, or things having form. In human beings the
li (manifested as human nature) is essentially perfect, and
defects--including vices--are introduced into the body and mind through
impurities of ch'i, or matter. Man may eliminate his mental imperfections
through study of ethical principles and metaphysics. 

In these respects Chu differed from the eminent contemporary Neo-Confucian
Lu Chiu-y|an, who saw no duality between natural law and matter and
believed in human perfectability through meditation. In contrast to Lu
Chiu-y|an's intuitionism, which focused on the discovery and understanding
of principles within oneself, Chu Hsi and his followers stressed the
"investigation of things," by which they meant primarily the study of
ethical conduct and of the revered Five Classics. The study of ethical and
metaphysical principles in turn constituted an ingredient both in building
a personal faith and in advising emperors through whose self-cultivation
order might be restored in the world. 


Though his ideas never went unchallenged, Chu Hsi's Neo-Confucianism long
dominated Chinese intellectual life and his commentaries on the Four Books
(Ssu shu) became required reading for all who hoped to pass the civil
service examinations. His intellectual influence was also paramount in
Korea, and his ideas won wide acceptance and official support in Tokugawa
Japan as well.