THE THEISTIC IMPORT OF THE SUNG PHILOSOPHY 125 



be left out of account in considering the term Heaven, what 

 is most prominent in his mind is not this etherial reference, 

 but the meaning attached to the expression in the ancient 

 classics. It is this which scholars of his day were eliminating 

 from the term Heaven, and which Chu Hsi maintained must 

 not be eliminated. What, then, from the standpoint of our 

 inquiry, are we to regard as the content of the word ' Em- 

 pyrean' as it is used in the classics? 



No one reading the passages in the Odes and the Shu 

 Ching where the expression most frequently occurs can 

 escape the conviction that the writers are appealing to "a 

 Power above the sky" and that they "did not rest in the 

 thought of the material heavens."" Their most striking 

 feature is the note of personality in the conception which the 

 writers have of this Power. And there can be little doubt 

 that it is this conception which is uppermost in Chu Hsi's 

 thoughts when he says : "In the present day it is maintained 

 that the term Heaven has no reference to the Empyrean, 

 whereas, in my view, this cannot be left out of account." 

 For in one of the passages referred to above, in which he 

 speaks of the Empyrean, he goes on immediately to discuss 

 this very question of a personal ruler. The whole passage 

 reads : "The Empyrean is what we term Heaven. It is that 

 which revolves in endless revolution. It is true that it is 

 wrong to say, as is said in these days, that there is a personal 

 being ( A ) in the heavens judging sin, but it is also wrong 

 to say that there is no Ruler at all."f If this statement, 

 at first sight, and taken by itself, seems to be a direct denial 

 of personality, it at least shows that the two ideas — Em- 

 pyrean and a personal Euler — are nevertheless closely asso- 

 ciated in his mind. Elsewhere, however, he makes state- 

 ments which appear to be still more explicit in a contrary 

 sense as asserting personality in the Divine Being. Re- 

 ferring to certain passages which he .quotes from the classics 

 he says : "These indicate that there is a personal being (A), 

 as it were, ruling in it all." % One of his questioners, evidently 

 with a strong leaning in the opposite direction, asked the 

 question: "When we consider the inequalities of the decree 

 does it not seem as if there really is not One who imparts 

 it to man, but rather that the two ethers in their intricate 

 complexity and inequality follow wherever they happen to 

 strike, and, knowing that these inequalities do not proceed 

 from man's own powers, people speak of them as decreed 



* Legge's Chinese, Classics, Vol. IV, pp. 112, 200. 

 f & ^ £r « , Bk. XLIX, f. 25. 

 ilbid., Bk. XLIII, f. 34. 



