THE THEISTIC IMPOST OF THE 

 SUNG PHILOSOPHY 



J. P. BRTJCE, M.A. 



[The result of Mr. Bruce 's study of the Sung philosophers will 

 soon appear in book form. The work is being printed in London now. 

 Meanwhile it has been the Editor's good fortune to secure from Mr. 

 Bruce this article which gives some of the fruits of his studies. 

 Students will welcome this effort to expound the teaching of these 

 scholars. It is time to fix their place in the world's thought.] 



The question raised in this article is : Was Chu Hsi a 

 Materialist? If not, did his philosophy imply Theism? 

 The title of the article, however, is made broader in its 

 scope, for the simple reason that it is impossible to dissociate 

 Chu Hsi from the other philosophers of his school. Like the 

 great Sage he was a transmitter rather than a creator. He 

 was the exponent, the chief exponent indeed, of the thought 

 of his predecessors. But beyond his keen dialectic, and 

 marvellous power of exposition, without the aid of which it is 

 doubtful whether the earlier philosophers would have exerted 

 the influence they did on the intellectual life of the nation, 

 there was little that was original in his writings. His work, 

 in the main, was to correlate their teachings and pass them 

 on to succeeding generations as a coherent system. It would 

 be difficult, therefore, in any fair and adequate inquiry into 

 the import of Chu Hsi's philosophy, not to include in its 

 scope some reference to the sayings and writings of those to 

 whom he acknowledged his intellectual allegiance. 



It is widely assumed that the answer to the question we 

 have raised with regard to Materialism is in the affirmative, 

 and by some it would be asserted that Chu Hsi in fact robbed 

 the T'ien of the Classics of its richest meaning, and, while 

 he received from the Sages a religion, he handed down to 

 posterity a cold, materialistic and atheistic philosophy. That 

 the Sages were reformers while Chu Hsi was a philosopher, 

 is a distinction which it is of the greatest importance to keep 

 in mind. It may even be conceded that the effect of 

 Chu Hsi's philosophy upon the mind of the nation was to 

 lose much of the life and warmth which are to found in 

 the teachings of the Sages concerning T'ien. But the 



