THE THEISTIC IMPORT OF THE SUNG PHILOSOPHY 123 



at the same point. Heaven is the First Cause, which is said 

 to be Li, infinite and perfectly pure, the component principles 

 of which are Love, Righteousness, Reverence and Wisdom, 

 These principles, pervading the universe constitute its Moral 

 Order, and are said to be the attributes of Heaven. The 

 implication of all this is significant from the point of view of 

 our inquiry. For these principles are hardly conceivable 

 apart from personality. They are the three phases of mind 

 conceived of in terms of the ethical — right willing, right 

 feeling, and right knowing — all proceeding from and summed 

 up in Love. Mind, as expounded by the Sung philosophers, 

 is the seat of unity in man's complex organism. It is the 

 organ of consciousness, and the ruler of man's entire being. 

 In other words, mind is the seat of personality. Law is 

 conscious. It does not, and cannot exist apart from mind.* 

 "The Pilot of the Universe is the Mind of the Universe, 

 in which Law is inherent. " f Js. i% ^ fiiff, jl'J ^ M Z. 'Us ifij 



When Chu Hsi was asked, among other things, if it 

 would be correct to say that Heaven is Law, the Philosopher 

 qualified his endorsement by saying; "In the present day it 

 is maintained that the term Heaven has no reference to the 

 Empyrean ( Sff :lf) , whereas in my view this cannot be left 

 out of account. "J His reference to this as one of the 

 meanings of the term Heaven as it occurs in the Classics 

 has already been cited. What, then, is the meaning of the 

 expression which in his view is necessary to a true under- 

 standing of the term Heaven? 



The term 'Empyrean' ( ^^) is literally 'Azure Azure' 

 and on the surface would naturally be interpreted as re- 

 ferring to the Azure Vault, or Visible Sky. Does Chu Hsi 

 then take back his endorsement of the statement that 

 Heaven is Law, with the statement which he himself makes 

 that Law is Heaven's substance, and look upon the material 

 sky as the Being termed Heaven by whose creative decree 

 all things exist? Did the child who, when his father pointed 

 to the Azure Vault with the words "That is Heaven," asked, 

 "What is there beyond heaven?" — did he in his maturer 

 years find intellectual rest in the thought that this material 

 dome of sky is in a fundamental sense the Heaven which he 

 regards as the source of all things ? On the contrary, accord- 

 ing to Chu Hsi, the whole cosmos, including the heavens 

 and the earth, owe their origin to the Supreme Ultimate or 

 First Cause which as already stated is the same Being as 



* 3c 3P 3r ^ , Bk. XLIV, f. 2. t Ibid., Bk. XLII, f. 22. 



% Ibid., f. 1. 



