114 THE TIIEISTIC IMPORT OF THE SUNG PHILOSOPHY 



ultimate ruler," he says:* While neither can be said to be 

 antecedent to the other we are told, and while neither exists 

 apart from the other, yet, if we trace them to their origin, 

 Li is antecedent to Ch'i. In other words, there is no 

 priority in the time sense and both are co-existent, but there 

 is priority in respect of origin. Elsewhere he tells us that 

 while the two are co-existent Li is the root or source,! so 

 that the priority is because the source of Ch'i is in Li. 

 In short, what the Sung philosopher teaches is an eternal 

 generation of matter by Law, and in this sense Law, is 

 ultimate. Law and Matter are co-existent and inseparable, 

 but Matter is subordinate to Law as the source from which 

 it is derived. 



It is obvious from all that has been said that the Sung 

 philosophy whatever it is, is not Materialism. There is one 

 very important respect in which it differs from Materialism, 

 at least from Materialism in certain forms. In Materialism 

 Matter is what might well be termed aggressively insub- 

 ordinate. It is true that it is absolutely obedient to laws, 

 but they are its own laws and unethical. To the Sung 

 philosopher the material is subject to the immaterial, and 

 the immaterial is the moral. Moral Law pervades all matter 

 as its ruling and directing principle. Such a conception in 

 itself is far removed from Materialism. It is in its moral 

 sanctions that Materialism, whether ancient or modern, most 

 conspicuously fails. The great merit of the Sung School is 

 that the Moral is recognized as fundamental. The material 

 universe which we see around us has an ethical basis, which 

 consists of those same ethical principles which we find 

 embedded in our own hearts. 



This ethical basis of the universe is further emphasized 

 in the Sung School's use of the term Tao, or the moral 

 order, which is the synonym of Li. De Groot, in his volume 

 on Beligion in China, bases his interpretation of the Tao 

 on what Chu Hsi would undoubtedly regard as a mistrans- 

 lation of an important passage in the Yi Ching, and which, 

 even apart from the Sung School interpretation, is, to say 

 the least, doubtful. In his chapter on "The Tao or Order 

 of the Universe" he writes: ' 'There is,' as the Appended 

 Explanations state, ' in the system of mutations (of Nature) 

 the Most Ultimate which produced the two Eegulating 

 Powers, which produce the four shapes (or seasons).' It is 

 these two powers which constitute the Tao, for the Appended 

 Explanations add explicity 'that the universal Yin and the 



*Ibid., Bk. XLIX, f. 7. 

 tlbid., XLIX, f. 1. 



