Wang Chong

Dong Zhongshu was no doubt the most important philosopher of the Western Han.During the Eastern Han that followed it，his theories，especially that of the interaction between Heaven and man，were criticized and refuted by a brave scholar-Wang Chong Wangs grandfather was a merchant and his father was a peasant.Born in Shangyu ，a small town near the better-known city of Shaoxing ，Zhejiang Province he studied at a private school，where he was taught some Con fucian classics in his childhood.

As a young man he went to Luoyang ，the capital of the Eastern Han Dynasty，and stayed there for some time.He was too poor to buy books and had to go to bookstores to browse what books he could find Somehow he became a pupil of Ban Biao ，a famous scholar and the father of Ban Gu ，who edited Han Shu ，the Book ofHan.Later，Wang was given the post of a petty official in a local government.By far more learned than his superiors，he found it hard to obey their orders So he resigned and returned to his hometown，to teach students and write books for the rest of his life.Only one of the books he wrote is now extant.It is called Balanced Discussions ，on which he spent over 30 years.The book shows his remarkable scientific skepticism，and his courage in fighting the powerful influence of the ideas of Dong Zhongshu and his followers .

Wang Chong regarded Heaven and Earth as things in the universe，and their process was spontaneous and natural.No one or nothing controlled or directed the birth，growth and change of things in the universe.Heaven took no conscious or purposeful action. Man could not affect Heaven in any way, nor could Heaven and earth do so as part of nature. They were made of material force. It was material force that gave birth to mans behavior or action. Unusual natural phenomena like earthquakes occurred spontaneously; they had nothing to dowith the policies or mistakes of rulers.

There were coinci dences, which made some people think they were related. For instance, legend had it that Meng Jiangnu cried so sadly thatas a result the great Wall collapsed In fact, it was when the Great Wall was collapsing that Meng Jiangnu happened to be crying near it. The two events were not connected at all According to Dong Zhongshu, Heaven was most humane, so it gave warnings to rulers when they made mistakes wang Chong said that this view was illogical. If Heaven was hu mane, it would in the first place give the people only good rulers. It would not consider it necessary to put a bad ruler on the throne and let him do wrong things, and then give him warnings Is Heaven always making troubles for itself? This is something similar in the Christian Belief: Why God created sinful man and then tried to destroy man by the Deluge? Now that God is”Almighty why doesn’t he stop man from sin nin .

Wang Chong stressed the importance of effect in testing the correctness of a theory. He said, However elaborate and high-sounding a theory may be, it should not be believed if it is different from what things really are and cannot produce the effect it is supposed to produce. In other words, an action should be tested by its effect, and a theory should be proven by fact. a very brave idea even for Chinese nowadays He also had his he view that people of high position and wealth were all good and poor people were all evil. Whether one was rich or poor was not determined by his moral standard The rich were rich only because they robbed the poor, and officials use own ideas about human nature. He said most peo ple had to be educated to be good. He was against their power for selfish purposes.Confucius.he said.did notget the treat ment he deserved in his lifetime and Yan Hui ，a perfectly virtuous man and piety disciple of Confucius，died young because he was poor.

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