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A Comparative Study
of Platos Philosophy
and Daoism Represented
by Ge Hong
Ji Zhang
Ji Zhang
171615141312 654321
List of Figuresix
Abbreviationsxi
Introduction One and Many as an Ontological Problem xiii
vii
List of Figures
ix
x figures
xi
Introduction
Why does this book compare Ge Hong (AD 284344?) with Plato (428
347 BC)? 1 Reasons of personal intellectual history are involved. When
I encountered Platonism in the field of Christian systematic theology, I
admired its persistent search for inner coherence of truths and was deeply
impressed by its transcendentalism and its unshakable influence on two
streams of Western thought, philosophy and theology. Although I reso-
nated with its idealism, over the years it became increasingly clear to me
that this intellectual tradition imposed on me a demand that restricts the
development of my own thought rooted in Chinese tradition. In contrast,
Daoism has provided me with the free space that I was looking for in the
formation of my intellectual identity. I first encountered Ge Hong when
I attended a seminar at Harvard University in 1998. Since then I have felt
that I was coming home to something that had unconsciously shaped my
thought yet had not been properly named. Eagerness to come to terms
with Daoism and Ge Hongs religious philosophy in particular has become
the inner drive for the current study.
In an intellectual journey, to reconcile past learning and present pas-
sion is just as important as creating a future life out of life experiences.
The book is not just an academic exercise to reconcile an existential gulf
between two cultures, but is also an effort to turn inner cultural experi-
ence into insight to bridge the two. Historically Plato and Ge Hong never
met. In the modern world of pluralism, to create a dialogue between the
two represents a way through which a Western philosophy and an Eastern
religion can meet face to face. The ancient debate on the one and the
many still proves relevant in todays challenge of globalization; a com-
parative study of the two traditions will explore the underlying issues of
unity and plurality.
Those who have read Platoone of the most influential thinkers in the
xiii
xiv introduction
However, it is never framed in the logical antitheses one not many and
many not one. Presented in the form of cosmogony, Laozi famously puts
the OM argument into only thirteen characters: Dao begets one, one
begets two, two begets three, and three begets the ten thousand things
(Laozi 42).2 Ge Hong followed the early tradition and said, That which
is Dark (Xuan ) is the primordial ancestor of Nature and the Great
Forebear of the myriad different [things] (Inner Chapters 1).3 Compared
with the Greek OM debate, which mainly takes the form of logic, the Dao-
ist OM represented by Ge Hong is presented in the form of poetry. But
beyond the difference of genres, there is philosophy. The OM argument
is analogically put as a genealogical unfolding of life from one ancestor to
many progeny.
My interest in the one and the many was not directly conceived through
philosophy, but through theology. Instead of through the one becoming
many, my interest was inspired by the reverse thinkinghow many may
become one.
I first encountered the OM problem was when I worked on my masters
thesis on apocalypticism. I argued that the end is the reversal of the begin-
ning. Instead of the generation of the many, apocalypticism is the con-
summation of the many and the hope associated with the many becoming
one. Under the supervision of Mark Heim at Andover Newton Theological
School, I began to identify the Daoist nature of this reversal and to locate
my intellectual voice within the scheme of religious pluralism. Looking
into the field of comparative studies, I was both inspired and unsatisfied.
Modern intellectual males have produced many theories about the one
above the many. Postmodern goddesses wish to have plural systems of
the many without the one. Why does it have to be either/or? Why can-
not we have both-and?
In another seminar with Frederic Lawrence at Boston College, I stud-
ied the OM problem in the doctrine of the Trinity. Although patristic theo-
logians had dealt with the logical antitheses one is not three and three
are not one, the OM problem had never been resolved in dialogues with
Greek philosophies, in particular with neo-Platonism. The problem was
nailed down by a succession of church councils on doctrinal bases and
accepted by faith. Unlike the mere pluralism celebrated by postmodern-
ism, the Trinity states that unity and plurality must be both affirmed. This
both-and thought is similar to the mutuality of Dao and Nature. Nature
spontaneously unfolds out of the self-generating Dao. The unity of Dao
neither has independent reality without the plurality of Nature, nor can
the many of Nature exist without the oneness of Dao. Unity and plurality
can either be both affirmed or simultaneously denied. With this intuition I
xvi introduction
On Language
On History
Comparative Method
The book rejects the arbitrary division by showing that religion and phi-
losophy are interconnected in Ge Hong. The approach follows the recent
trend to read Daoism as an integrated whole.14 It also aims to demonstrate
that Ge Hong is not a religious thinker without philosophical insights, but
a religious philosopher. His Daoism is not a religion without philosophy,
but a philosophy within religion. 15 The key to rediscovering philosophi-
cal insights is to treat Ge Hong as a religious philosopher and to show
that he is capable of dialogue with Plato. Dialogical hermeneutics requires
historical comparisons to identify continuity and discontinuity between Ge
Hong and his predecessors as well as similarity and dissimilarity between
Ge Hong and Plato. The vertical historical study and the horizontal com-
parative study are two interpretative perspectives designed to shed light
not only on Ge Hong but also on Plato.
Comparative hermeneutics implicitly critiques another either philos-
ophy or religion approach in Sinology. Recent Sinological writings col-
lectively argue that reading Daoism should be freed from Western influ-
ences and Daoism treated as a unique religion among the worlds religious
traditions. Works of some leading scholars are revealing of the paradigm
change toward postmodern pluralism. Kristofer Schippers The Taoist Body
and Taoist Canon: A Companion to the Daozang, and Isabelle Robinets Tao-
ism: Growth of a Religion represent penetrating studies that approach Dao-
ism as a composite religion with considerable internal complexity.16 Livia
Kohn has moved away from the philosophical interests in her early work
Taoist Mystical Philosophy to the recently edited Daoist Handbook, which is
basically an encyclopedia on Daoism as a religious phenomenon.17 Ste-
phen Bokenkamps Early Daoist Scriptures demonstrates the capacity of
modern textual criticism to reconstruct and interpret the primary sources
for Daoist studies.18 John Lagerweys Taoist Ritual in Chinese Society and His-
tory exhibits the liturgical aspect of Daoist worship.19 Robert Campanys
commentary on Ge Hongs Shenxian zhuan is another attempt to recon-
struct social-religious context in its finest details.20 Companys translation
of shenxian also marks a break from the need to link Daoist immortals
with the Jewish-Christian God as exemplified in James Wares translation
of the Inner Chapters of Baopuzi published in the sixties.21
Overall the recent trend represents an exodus from the previous ten-
dency to read Daoism mainly through Western eyesfrom the intellec-
tual other shore. It seeks to read Daoism from within and to engage
its complex religious practices on their own terms. The theoretical move,
however, is basically a paradigm of negation, most noticeable in postmod-
ernism. Just as postmodernity rejects the modernist impulse to bring plu-
rality under a system of unity, the new religious-historical paradigm cel-
xxii introduction
ebrates the uniqueness of Daoism among the many religions in the world.
Whereas the problem is of the one and the many, the new paradigm rests
on another assumption that pluralism is opposed to universalismthat
no dialogue between Daoism and Western thought is necessary. This book
argues otherwise. There does not have to be a choice of either reading
Daoism through Western eyes or reading it solely from within Chinese
history. Current scholarship in the West basically posits an unnecessary
dilemma upon itselfthe many without the one. However, in the Daoist
view Dao is the motherly one humbly sustaining the many. Pluralism essen-
tially is not a rejection of unity, but an affirmation of Dao and its unfolding
becoming.
The emerging school of New Daoism (xin daoxue ) established
by Chinese scholars amounts to a call to modernize Daoism through active
engagement with the West in a movement that parallels the development
of a New Confucianism (xin rujia ) a century ago. The funda-
mental idea behind the movement is the belief that one can truly learn
about oneself through relationships with others. Compared with the dia-
logue between Confucianism and Western thought, and contrary to the
growing interest in Buddhism, comparative study with Daoism is rare and
unsystematic.
tion in China, which has had a strong impact on later studies, generally
reflects this separation by keeping alchemy, astronomy, and life sciences
apart in three separate volumes.23 But in Ge Hong they are one.
If we adopt Needhams categories, then what was historically con-
nected is divided by modern sciences. However, in Ge Hongs writings the
alchemical Qi is a unity. Alchemy, astronomy, and medicine converge in
Qi because they are different categories of knowledge that study the self-
evolving One out of which changes arise, heaven rotates, and life emerges.
The ancient attempt to build a grand unifying theory for branches of
knowledge is essentially of the one and many kind. Monist conscious-
ness has reappeared in the dreams of modern scientific minds. Physics,
especially quantum mechanics and astrophysics, has returned to cos-
mogony. In searching for the primary unity of matter and form, or the
so-called God particle, out of which plurality emerged, modern scientists
have approached the ancient OM question from new angles. Not long ago
inorganic chemistry was far removed from concerns about the origin of
the universe. Now biochemistry suggests that the origin of species could
be a single life form. The many are the evolutionary progenies of the one.
Scientific theories are now much closer to the evolutionary theory of the
alchemical Qi.
Undoubtedly, to enter into dialogue with the sciences is an important
undertaking necessary to contextualize Daoism within a modern world-
view, and the conversation has produced many fruitful works.24 But the
fundamental problem is the underlying assumption that science is the
norm for empirical truth. Science can easily carry on the pursuit of truth
without religion. This assumed science without religion has already been
under examination in the West, precisely on the issue of whether reason is
the universal can opener to unlock the world.25 The immediate disadvan-
tage of the scientific approach is that it compels us to divorce religion from
science in Ge Hong, where they are interwoven.
The science without religion approach imposes upon Ge Hong some
serious blockages, which are philosophical rather than scientific. Some
key ideas and practices have been overlooked or mishandled because they
do not directly fit scientific categorizations. The Daoist arts (fangshu
) are labeled as necromancy without seeing any need to look into the
person-world synthesis beyond the liturgical appearances. Methods to pro-
long life (yangsheng ) are misinterpreted as spirituality in a way that
negates any interest in seeing the underlying difference between Western
spiritual liberation and Daoist bodily preservation of life. Bodily alchemy
(neidan ) is said to belong solely to Daoist mysticism but without any
active dialogue between two systems of human body: the Daoist body as
xxiv introduction
Textual Studies
xxv
xxvi part one
The Inner Chapters of the Baopuzi, which adopts Ge Hongs pseudonym the
Master Embracing Simplicity, opens with the chapter on the doctrine of
Xuan Dao.
1
2 textual studies
[Conclusion]
(9) Like adding and taking water from the Yellow River and the
Wei River, neither adding will cause Xuan to overflow nor will
taking exhaust it; external things can neither increase nor
languish its honor. (10) Therefore, where Xuan is happiness
is unceasing; where it withdraws, spirits depart and substances
become fragments.1
can see is impenetrable depth. The image of the night sky also implies that
Xuan has no boundary.
But is it possible to describe the night sky? How is it possible to articulate
the attributes of something formless? The first sentence in the rhapsody of
Xuan explains the depth and the scope of Xuan. The impenetrable depth
[shen ] is called tenuous [wei ]; its distance [yuan ] is named as
marvelous [miao ] (2). Here the attributes of Xuan are captured by two
sets of words. Reading at the textual level, depth (shen ) corresponds
to the word distance (yuan ), tenuous (wei ) to marvelous (miao
). But distance does not only denote the meaning of far reaching, but
also the unbroken continuity involved in a distant journey. Tenuous does
not only mean physically small, but also formless or indeterminate in form
like wheat ground so fine that it is without shape. Here Ge Hong delib-
erately uses the ambiguity of classic Chinese in a positive way to illustrate
the mysterious nature of Xuan. Inwardly it has impenetrable depth yet
remains formless. Outwardly it reaches into the far distance with its unbro-
ken continuity, yet its humility is the most excellent of all.
To read the genealogical claim (1) in the light of this sentence brings
out additional meanings. The ancestor does not solely dwell within the
mysterious depth as a cosmogonical cause, but extends its influence
throughout the cosmos. The ancestor is the hidden and unbroken con-
tinuity of the world, just as an ancestors life is hidden and continued in
later generations. To put this in the language of OM, the One participates
in the many as the continuous unity of the discontinuity of the many. Ge
Hong further explains the universal presence of Xuan in the following
sentence: Its height towers over the nine heavens; its breadth covers eight
directions. The terms nine heavens (jiuxiao ) and eight directions
(bayu ) are meteorological and geographic respectively. The two terms
evidently come from the Shanhai jing .10 Ancient Chinese conven-
tion had it that heaven had nine layers, and earth spread out in eight
directions. According to the earlier text the Book of Changes (Zhou Yi ),
nine heavens (jiutian ) does not mean nine concentric spheres,
but overlapping layers.11 Their arrangement is rather like an umbrella
with eight directions and a center called the heavenly axis (juntian
).12 The word jun refers to the turning wheel used for pottery making.
Thus the nine heavens rotate like a spinning umbrella with its handle as
the polar axis. Overall the spatial dimension of capping nine heavens and
covering eight directions describes the breadth of Xuan as omnipresent.
Heaven and earththe totality of the nameable worldare embraced by
and dwell inside of Xuan. It is also implicitly suggested that alchemical and
cosmogonical transformation happen within Xuan.
ge hongs doctrine of xuan dao7
Why does Ge Hong use the term Xuan rather than simply adopt the
well-established concept of Dao in the Lao-Zhuang tradition? Historically
the religious Daoism of the Xianger commentary identified the his-
torical Laozi as the personification of Dao, or the incarnation of the cos-
mic principle.13 The answer I suggest is this. Prior to Ge Hong the concept
of Dao had already been used in an anthropomorphic sense. The equiva-
lent form of anthropomorphic Dao in Ge Hongs text is called those who
have possessed Xuan Dao (xuandaozhe ) (IC 2). This term desig-
nates those who have personified Xuan through their ordinary lives and
thus become immortal beingsDao personifiedby preserving the core
of cosmic creativity in them. To retain the impersonal nature of the Dao,
Ge Hong employs a concept less anthropomorphic but more universal.
But the question remains, if the concept of Dao had been used anthropo-
morphically, why did Ge Hong employ Xuan rather than something else,
such as Qi, a term widely used in Taiping jing , the Scripture of Eternal
Peace?
According to Wang Ming,
The term Xuan is derived from the Tai Xuan by Yang Xiong
of the Han period, rather from the School of Xuan of the Wei-
Jin period. Here the discussion on Xuan is centered on the ontology
of the cosmos, especially emphasizing [the attributes] of Xuan Dao.
Xuan Dao is equivalent to later Xuan Yi . The latter sentence [in
the next paragraph] explains it by saying, Attaining it enriches [the
adept] inwardly, preserving it he acts outwardly, using it he becomes
divine, and forgetting it he turns into a mere vessel. These are the key
instructions for contemplating Xuan. From this reference, it is clear
that the term Xuan in the Baopuzi really is about mystic ontology.14
Fig. 1.1. The iconography of Xuan: The concentric layers of Xuan as illustrated
in the Siku quanshu zi pu , 803810
force. The turning has an inner drive that is a part of the coming to be
of cosmic lifeQi.
As the birth of the cosmos begins, Xuan is pregnant with Qi. Then,
through a process of transformation, the Constellations are created and
made to revolve. The rotation gives the celestial reference to define time.
As Cullen has rightly argued, the most important role of the Constellations
in Chinese astronomy was not to satisfy intellectual curiosity to construct
a cosmology, but to make a functional and accurate calendar.30 Therefore,
the turning of the Constellations is closely associated with the definition
of time.
Moreover, Ge Hong uses two alchemical terms for the cosmic trans-
formation. The term fanzhu consists of two words: fandomain or
scopewhich denotes the idea of universality in the context of cosmogony,
and zhucastwhich refers to the casting of smelted metal into a mould
(like a crucible) with male and female parts. It suggests that the primor-
dial life symbolized by Qi is cast into Yin and Yang, which apparently are
opposites but actually are two sides forming the same reality. The second
term, guye , is made of two verbs: guto pump air into a furnace with
bellowsand yeto smelt base materials into an elixir or alloy in stages.
In alchemy, the turning (zhuan ) is a timekeeping activity carried out
by the regulation of fire. It must be noted that the Chinese concept of time
is not linear but cyclical, not abstract but concrete. Celestial time is associ-
ated with the rotation of the Constellations. Alchemical time is filled with
material substances that undergo cyclical transformations measured by the
number of turns.
Here we should note a highly original thought on the part of Ge Hong.
As an alchemist he envisions that cosmogonical change is somehow like
alchemical transformation. The coming to be of the myriad things happens
in stages, just as alchemists conduct reactions in stages. Compared with
philosophical Daoism, Ge Hongs originality is the alchemical perspective.
This is profoundly new. Neither Laozi nor Zhuangzi had an alchemical
view of the world, nor was alchemy involved in the philosophical debate on
how the world came to be. Just by reading the narrative of universal Qi at
the textual level, it is striking that the short passage has mentioned three
kinds transformation: the material in alchemy, the cosmic in cosmogony,
and the biological in genealogy. Beneath the poetic language, Ge Hong
seems to suggest that three schemasalchemy, cosmogony, and biology
somehow relate to each other. Apart from their encapsulation within the
concept of Qi, it remains unclear in the poetic text to what extent they
actually converge. If Ge Hong wants to argue that the one and the many is
fundamental to all three schemas, he must explain what kind of ultimate
18 textual studies
(or Xuan) can perform such drastic and universal works. This is an explicit
ontological question about the one and the many. We must wait and see
whether Ge Hongs thought can carry the philosophical distance in com-
parative studies.
The second connection is the axis of the cosmos. In instrumental
astronomy, one practical difficulty is to decide which two definable points
in heaven can be used to form the axis around which various rings of the
Spheres can be attached. But where do astronomers look for these two
points in the sky? Unlike Yang Xiongs Xuan that only occupies a theoreti-
cal center of the universe, Ge Hongs Xuan has a real astronomical loca-
tion. In the Northern Polar Region, it sinks into great peace. At the edge of
the lodestars it floats above heavens motion (4). The term the Northern
Polar Region (dayou ) comes from Shanhaijing , the Scripture of
Mountains and Seas. It literally means the most negative (jiyin ) region
in the north. The phrase the edge of the lodestars is translated from three
words: ling , denoting the far edge, and chenji , referring to one of
the lodestars.31 In the Astronomical Treatise, the northern chen (beichen
) is ranked as the most honorable of the lodestars (AT 289). In the
Inner Chapters (juan 8), Ge Hong indicates the star is immobile in the sky.32
The Northern Polar Region, especially the northern chen, represents the
primary reference point of the cardinal directions mapped on a compass.
Furthermore, the lodestars are not only the navigational stars that have
permanence in the night sky, but their being described as occupying the
most negative region signals their celestial center. Ge Hong later also says
that the OneQihas exactly the same location. The One dwells in the
Northern Polar Region and inside the great [negative] pool (IC 324).33
With the references to both Xuan and Qi, Ge Hong seems to suggest that
at the most negative region there is a cosmic womb. The mother Xuan is
in gestation with the fetus Qi at this most permanent place. Together they
define the cradle of the cosmos. In Ge Hongs own words, It is because of
its existence that heaven is named high, earth is called low (5).
Once the location of Xuan has been defined, the problem of defin-
ing the axis can be solved in instrumental astronomy. The northern chen
in the most negative region is the first point, and the earth is the second
point. This principle, which forms the axis, is still used in modern obser-
vational astronomy. So the line between two points becomes the axis upon
which various rings of the Spheres can be attached. And the model itself
becomes the representation of the cosmos. Obviously Yang Xiongs cos-
mology is merely a theoretical model, empirically unmatched to visible
celestial movements. Unlike Yang Xiongs system of Xuan, which appears
to have enclosed heavenly Dao, earthly Dao, and human Dao within the
ge hongs doctrine of xuan dao19
The epistemological issue here is how to know Nothingness. Since the cog-
nitive mind cannot operate in nothingness without dropping into bottom-
less emptiness, something must be the crucial step to reach Nothingness.
This issue holds the key to comparing Wang Bi with Ge Hong.
24 textual studies
The essence of Xuan is dark and indefinable, whereas its existence is shown
through the reality of Nature in which plurality exists. Ge Hong explains:
It is there is because of its billion existences and is there is not because
of its submerged stillness (4). Having said that, Ge Hong does not spread
more ink regarding what Xuan is. He immediately moves on to discuss
what it does. The inner reality of Xuan is not directly discussed because
of the limits of language, but it is indirectly expressed by the language of
negation, or negative philosophy.
This Daoist form of negative philosophy can be compared to the
apophatic theology argued by Christian Platonists during the Patristic
period. In modern theology, the Eastern Orthodox Church still stresses
that God cannot be known in terms of human categories, but is only
approachable through negation or denial of what can be said in the best
human language.54 To fully comprehend this negative philosophy, let us
look at three hidden claims that help us understand how Ge Hong and
Wang Bi share the ontology of nothingness and how Ge Hong takes the
School of Xuan farther than Wang Bi.
Xuan Is Formless
The attributes of Xuan are explained in the following discourse: Its bright-
ness exceeds the sun and the moon, and its speed surpasses lightning.
Sometimes it appears as a drifting scene or moves as shooting stars; some-
times it hovers over edgeless water or glides as wandering clouds (3).55
The first sentence is relatively straightforward. It illustrates Xuan with the
comparative (hu ): brighter than the brightest in day or night and faster
than lightning. The next sentence consists of four parallel phrases with
the same opening word huo , which can be glossed as sometimes and
or. The drifting scene refers to the dazzling light (shuo ) soon disap-
pearing like a fading scene of effulgence (jingshi ). The drifting also
connects to the term piaoze , which describes an object aimlessly float-
ing on a pond. But the slowness of drifting is paradoxically juxtaposed with
the metaphor of the shooting star (liuxing ) to promote the motif of
indefiniteness. The next two phrases repeat the motif by emphasizing the
ge hongs doctrine of xuan dao25
Xuan Is No -Thing
Only a particular thing can be measured against the physical qualities of
hardness and softness, against the geometrical forms square and circle, and
against the motions of coming and going. Xuan is not a particular anything;
in fact it is no-thing. Hence it is neither hard nor soft, neither square nor
circular, neither coming nor going (5). The physical world does not rest
upon the seemingly chaotic Xuan. Rather astronomical orders are created
out of it. The Twenty-Eight Constellations are made to revolve, change is
created, and orders are activated (7). The myriad things depend upon
the very existence of Xuan. Where Xuan is, happiness is unceasing; where
it withdraws, spirits depart and substances become fragments (10). The
physical characteristics of hard/soft, square/circle, and coming/going are
not logical opposites, but two sides of the same reality, similar to day and
night, which complete the circle of changing time.
All physical qualities hinge upon the imperceptible unity, similar to
the four cardinal directions that connect to the center of a compass. The
change of four rotating seasons is breathed to life and born out of the
formless harmony. Heaven and the earth are called high and low respec-
tively (5) not just because they pull open the spatial tension in which physi-
cal things exist, but also because they derive from the same origin at which
heaven and the earth were not two existential categories. In the beginning
26 textual studies
of reality, there was no-thing, but things were born out of itincluding
time and space.
Compared with Wang Bis Nothingness, Ge Hongs Xuan contains the
meaning of ultimate nothing, because the schema from nothing into
being has already presupposed that primordiality is the state of indefinite
formlessness. But Ge Hong has made a point clear: Xuan changes ontolog-
ically. Creation by definition is change from a universal to many phenom-
ena. Although the idea of change is implied in Wang Bis Nothingness, it
is comparatively secondary because the logical sequence of a priori and a
posteriori is primary.
Like Wang Bi, Ge Hong also speaks of Xuan upon Xuan. Quoting
from the first chapter of the Laozi,56 Ge Hong does not treat the phrase as a
causal connection. A causal connection also implies an infinite regression
because there is no end to the trace of the ultimate. Ge Hongs discussion
appears in the context in which he interprets the Book of Changes, especially
on the subject that change is the basic truth of the world. Furthermore his
thought moves from something to nothing, from external works to inner
being. To reach the core of Xuan, philosophy cannot just simply say noth-
ing. It has to pursue the course of something in order to arrive at the form-
less unity in which all things share the same a priori. Wang Bi would not
deny language as a means to arrive at the end. Ge Hongs poetic writings
perform the function of passing from language to meaning. Therefore, an
ontological a priori worked out of logical deduction still requires a practi-
cal path to attain the end. It is simply because the ultimate is not a cogni-
tive concept, but a state of enlightenment. Enlightenment cannot be just
an idea about the ultimate cause, but must be the realization of the world
in which the plurality of things converge spontaneouslywithout cause.
If we read Wang Bis commentary closely, it suggests that Xuan upon
Xuan actually contains two kinds of Xuan. The one that comes first
is called the beginning; the one that comes later is called the mother.
Wang Bis notion of the mother causes confusion. It is not the original
idea of the cosmogonical mother in Laozi but is created out of Nothing-
ness as the mother of something. If the beginning and the mother
have different names, then their identities cannot be collapsed into each
other and called one single Xuan. If they are not collapsible, then the
mother has an important role to play in Wang Bis thought. Thus the
term the ontology of Nothingness widely used in Daoist scholarship is
misleading.57
For Wang Bi, the something-ness of the mother remains as the epis-
temological path leading into Nothingness. In this respect, both Ge Hong
and Wang Bi have interpreted the epistemology of Laozi, but differently.
ge hongs doctrine of xuan dao27
Having known the son, one begins to preserve the mother (Laozi 52).
Through the knowledge of the son, the mother is indirectly known.
This is the direction from the many to the one and from something to
nothing. But Wang Bi tends to forget the son after having found the
mother, whereas Ge Hong praises the mother by loving the son.
In epistemology, when it comes to knowing Xuan, there is no differ-
ence between an ontological prior and a cosmogonical prior. Lets test the
theory in cosmogonical terms. The world is not a homogeneity in which
many are reducible to a same cause called Nothingness. It has many dif-
ferent parts (all something) and is heterogeneous. If Nothingness stands
at the deductive end of reality, this reality still has to be a derivative one.
It must act to transform itself from nothing into something so it can be
accountable for the many as the mother of all things. How does the change
from Nothingness to the myriad things happen? The School of Xuan (as
understood by Chinese scholarship) has not escaped the cosmogonical
OM question at all. The OM relation that it faced is the same dilemma that
cosmogony hopes to address.
Xuan Is Being-less
Following Laozis dialectical philosophy, Ge Hong argues that nothing and
something are defined neither in terms of logical opposites, as in Greek
thought, nor of causal connection as in Wang Bi. They are relational.
It is there is because of billion existences and is there is not because
of its submerged stillness (4). The notion of submerged stillness trans-
lates qianji . The word qian means to be submerged, whereas ji
refers to silence. By joining the two words together Ge Hong creates a
motif in which Xuan is submerged into primordiality, which is silent. And
he claims the primordiality as Nothingnesswu .
Ge Hongs wu is neither a Platonic immaterial idea beyond things nor
a phenomenological concept referring to the absence of existence. In the
context of the birth of cosmos, it is the generative first cause. Yet its essence
still sinks into its formlessness. Thus the best English translation for wu is
nothingness in the cosmogonical sense, prior to the coming to be of some-
thing. Although nothingness in English can mean nonexistence, here
it is necessary to use the translation nothingness in order to provoke
the distinction between Daoist ontological nothing and Parmenidean-
Platonic something, and leave the nonexistence ambiguity to be dealt
with separately.
Ge Hongs idea of the nothingness of Xuan is equivalent to Laozis
nameless Dao. Dao neither takes physical shape (wuxing ) nor bonds
to a metaphysical form (wuxiang ) (Laozi 14). It rests in the primordial
28 textual studies
Laozi has personified the spontaneous Nature. He was born out of the
Primordial Nothingness [taiwu ] and emerged into being without
cause. He experienced the beginning and the ending of the cosmos
without seeking an honorable title. He was the [personified] end of
Nothing without the end, the infinite Nothing without scope, and the
eternal Nothing without beginning. Therefore, he is the Endless [wuji
]. . . . The title Laozi (the Old Child) refers to his birth out of the
mysterious Xuan , which preexists the formation of the universe.59
Summary
The study of Plato has many starting points. I start from the book of Par-
menides because of its obvious discussion of the one and the many. Having
said this, one cannot ignore the current Plato scholarship on the subject.
Yet reading Plato and reading someone elses readings of Plato create two
different issues. The former is the historical issue that Greek antiquity is
far distant from the modern world. The latter is a methodological problem
in that the analytical tradition of the Plato scholarship is very remote from
the Daoists, who do not think cognitively through the mind but contem-
plate empirically through the body.
To begin with Parmenides, we must know the complicity involved in
reading and interpreting the book. The Parmenides in the book Par-
menides is not the historical Parmenides, but Platos spokesperson for his
own thought. Yet under Platos creative writing, the figure still resembles
the distinctive train of thought of the historical Parmenides. Among all
of Platos dialogues, the book is traditionally regarded as one of the most
difficult books for two main reasons: Platos employment of the Parmeni-
dean logic, which is mind stretching even for analytical philosophy, and
Platos hidden intention in writing the book, which has been interpreted
so diversely from being a masterpiece of metaphysics to a humbling self-
criticism. Against this complex background, therefore, the starting point is
to understand Parmenides in the pre-Socratic debate of the One and the
many, and his influence on Plato that led to the book Parmenides.
The Milesian school began with Thales of Miletus (625545? BC),1 who
lived about half a century before Confucius (551479 BC). They were the
contemporaries of the early Daoism of the period when one of the earli-
est versions of Laozi was circulated.2 Thales was the first thinker to argue
32
platos answer to the pre-socratic debate33
for natural evolution based on material change. The world derived from
a single stuff called water, and the meteorological changes of the one pro-
duced the many (11B3).3
Almost all the Presocratic philosophies have been passed down as frag-
ments. They are preserved as quotations in subsequent ancient authors,
from Plato to Simplicius over a period of ten centuries. Scholars generally
agree that Plato is relatively less faithful to his sources and often mixes
paraphrase and exegesis when he recalls the works of previous thinkers.
Aristotle, on the contrary, did valuable surveys of his predecessors argu-
ments. Although his interpretations were often distorted by his view of the
past, many Presocratic ideas are preserved in his Physics, Metaphysics, and
De Caelo.
On Thales Aristotle called the change one of moist things and applied
his categorization to label meteorological change a natural principle
(Metaphysics 983b1727). When water evaporated, moist air emerged.
When it solidified, stone formed. Because of the material nature of water,
Aristotle interprets it as the material cause. However, Aristotles recollec-
tion of Thales involves his interpretation, which secretly transforms cos-
mogonical matter into one of immaterial principles of cause. The single
stuff was meant to be unlimited in a cosmogonical sense,4 rather than the
limited cause in a material sense. Aristotle explored the ambiguity and
placed it in his own philosophical categories, turning water from a general
One into a particular many, such as water as the cause of steam.
The idea of unlimited stuff was later made clear by Anaximander (610
540 BC?), a successor and pupil of Thales. On the one and many, he fol-
lowed naturalism and argued the indefinite and limitless as the primal
stuff, and fragments of the original thought were preserved in the early
Christian records The Refutation of All Heresies (12B2).5 The limitless stuff
was not Thales material monism, but contained plural elements, which
were not four traditional elemental stuffs (earth, water, fire, and air), but
rather more like principles (Physics 203b430). Anaximander was a pio-
neer in geometry, discovered the equinox and the solstice, and perfected
the sundial. He also argued the biological theory that from water and
earth animals arose under the heated condition.6 The combination of
the limitless stuff and the biological theory makes his OM view more com-
parable to Ge Hongs argument than Thales.7 However, Ge Hongs one
and many is far more complex and Anaximanders biology has little surviv-
ing evidences to pursue a meaningful comparison.
Anaximanders pupil Anaximenes further argued that the basic sub-
stance was air. Compared with Daoist Qi, air was evolutionary. But con-
trary to Qis biological change from one to many forms of life, air was
34 textual studies
out beginning and ending.11 Within the circle, fire vivifies the changing
logos. The changing fire becomes the substance exactly opposite to the
Parmenidean resting One. For Heraclitus the truth of change was creative,
as he said, from all things one, from one all things (22B10). This creative
change was actually the answer to the uncreative One of Parmenides.
If the fire and the flux can be mingled as the cosmogonical One, this
is the closest concept to Qi among pre-Socratic monism. But the difficul-
ties in establishing the comparison come down to one issue. On change,
Heraclitus says, cold things become hot, hot cold, wet dry, and parched
moist (22B126). Thus he relied on metrological change first proposed by
Thales to explain the creative change from all things one, from one all
things. But metrological change is physical change. On cosmogony, he
says, the world, the same for all, neither any god nor any man made; but
it was always and is and will be, fire ever-living, kindling in measures and
being extinguished in measures (22B30). This natural evolution of fire
seems to point toward an alchemical understanding of change similar to
Ge Hongs alchemical fire that kindles and regulates changes in a crucible.
However, no further evidence can be found to establish that the fire shares
the same material and alchemical nature as Qi. It is possible that alchemy
was foreign not only to Heraclitus, but also to the whole Greek tradition
from the pre-Socratics to Plato and Aristotle.
Parmenides stood for monist idealism but against Heraclitus ontologi-
cal change. Parmenides had a mystical vision that was revealed to him by
the goddess. The revelation recorded in his poem was a journey toward
enlightenment from the Way of Opinion to the Way of Truth. In the
poem, the One is defined as ungenerated and indestructible, whole, of
one kind and unwavering, and complete (28B8, 14). Under the condi-
tion that change was mainly understood as physical variation among the
early materialists, Parmenides unchangeable One had a radical element.
For instance, if water is the One, through evaporation it becomes steam, or
through condensation it turns into ice. Because steam and ice are varied
forms of water, they share the same being as water. Therefore there is no
change but variation of the same water.
This concept of change as homogonous variation is arguably the
most profound and most problematic for Plato. It comes down to the
question how to address the issue of change ontologically. Parmenides
unchangeable ontology had an unshakable impact on Plato. Platos Forms
are unchanging ideas. Each idea determined many homogonous varia-
tions of the idea, yet physical things associated with change are system-
atically treated as unreality. This type of unchanging ontology is a direct
result Parmenides seemly convincing argument. Parmenides One is the
36 textual studies
only Being, and the Being cannot change. Parmenides says, That it is and
that it cannot not be (28B2, 16). Put in the language of being, it means
Being without not-being.
This argument rests upon the logic of exclusion. That is, within the
most fundamental being, there cannot be two things in opposition; oth-
erwise it is not one but two. For instance, good and evil cannot form the
same idea, simply because they are logically exclusive. This is a powerful
weapon invented by Parmenides. It is also arguably one of most endur-
ing ideas in Western metaphysics. Plato later systematically developed and
turned it into the doctrine of Forms. We will come back to this point in
greater detail, but we leave Parmenides now as there are two more groups
to be introduced.
the building blocks to create the material world, ordering them by assem-
bling geometric structures with mathematical principles. Is this Pythago-
rean treatment an advance over Empedocles elements and atomism, or
retrogression toward natural philosophy? We shall see below.
menidean way of knowledge. The terms the visible and the actual
designate perceptible things that in totality cannot exist without ideal
Forms. Empirical knowledge of the visible only produces low-class belief,
which echoes the Parmenidean way of opinion. Just as Parmenides
insists, What can be thought is only Being, 17 Plato also develops the idea
that true knowledge is only possible through knowing primary beings.
For instance, to know chairs essentially is to know what the chair-ness
is about. Because the ontology of chair-ness determinates any concrete
knowledge of chairs, to know chairs can be reduced to the knowledge of
the Form. Just as Parmenides way of truth corresponds with the metaphys-
ical reality of Being, for Plato coming to knowledge is not about empirical
study, but a cognitive exercise that elevates the mind from perception of
physical things to engage in a dialogue with Forms.
The doctrine of Forms is Platos indirect criticism of Heraclitus flux
theory and his systematic answer in agreement with Parmenides separa-
tion of being and change. Parmenides critiqued the view that the universe
derived from a changing origin held by the pre-Socratic monists, who
asserted that the world of plurality derived from a primordial unity. This
criticism in itself sets forth the anthesis of being and change, or being
against change. Plato also critiqued Heraclitus flux theory with the same
argument. The flux theory implied that the one and the many could not
be understood apart. It should not be thought of as logical confusion that
many are one and one is also many; as Plato puts it reality is both many
and one (Sophist 242d). Rather the one is the underlying unity of oppo-
sites.18 The mingling of one and many results in nothing ever possessing a
certain being; rather everything is becoming.
Having become preoccupied with the Parmenidean instinct of seeking
fixed truth, Plato accused Heraclitus of promoting a philosophy in which
everything moves and nothing rests (Cratylus 402A). Platos view went
hand in hand with the contemporary Heraclitus school, which mistakenly
interpreted flux in the negative sense. But there is a logos in flux according
to Heraclituschange is that logos. Plato took flux as the greatest warning
against materialism, rather than as wisdom on the changing logos. Perhaps
even if Plato had seen the wisdom, he would still choose the Parmenidean
path for logical clarity and reject the moral confusion of good and bad
are one via Socratic ethics.
Platos rejection of Heraclitus ontological change sets his ontology
in agreement with Parmenides. More precisely, he rejected Heraclitus
because of his acceptance of Parmenides. The result is predictable. Plato
disassociates change from beingFormswhile at the same time ascrib-
ing change to physical thingssensibles (to use the technical term). The
platos answer to the pre-socratic debate39
menides and his pupil Zeno. Then Plato placed Parmenides in charge of
the conversation and put the theory of Forms under various objections, to
which Platos usual spokesmanSocrateshad failed to reply. The elderly
Parmenides then pointed out a meaningful path for the young man, indi-
cating that he needed more rigorous training in logic.
The puzzling point is this: why does Plato make his doctrine of Forms
subject to serious criticism? In particular why does he make himself vulner-
able before two major attacksthe separation of Forms from sensibles and
the indefinite regress of the Third Man Argument?
The second part and longer dialogue (136a166c) consists of various
antinomies if purely examined by logic. When Plato applied the Parmeni-
dean unity theory that all things are one to various hypothetical situa-
tions, Plato showed there to be an underlying paradox that unity and plu-
rality could either both be affirmed or both be denied. Plato suggested
that any denial of Forms as universals would inevitably lead to the denial of
each forms determined pluralitythe predicator of its being; the affirma-
tion of unity was simultaneously the affirmation of plurality. Why did the
discussion of beings lead to the inclusive relation between one and many?
The inclusiveness in itself was the antithesis that the Parmenidean logic
neither permitted nor was able to solve. Plato ended the book with this
greatest puzzle overshadowing all subsidiary puzzles.
The precise nature of the book has been a philosophical obscurity, and
distinctive views have been held regarding its purpose. In the past century,
the second part of the book has been interpreted in various ways: from a
joke to a great metaphysical exercise. Burnet, followed by Taylor, presented
the theory that the second part was a philosophical joke. In the exhaustive
dialogue Plato played the game of abstract formal logic against Eleatic
philosophers who used their corrupt logic against certain aspects of Pla-
tos Forms. In return Plato aimed to show their reasoning actually yielded
various absurd consequences.19 In the commentary by Cornford, the joke
theory was rejected on the basis that the second part contained definite
philosophical content aimed at exploring and critiquing the ambiguous
nature of Parmenides One.20 Gilbert Ryle also rejected the joke theory and
argued that the arguments of the dialogue were either valid, or else plau-
sible enough for their author to have taken them to be so. 21 Furthermore,
he suggested a self-critical element in the dialogue. Contrary to Cornfords
Plato, who was in total control when criticizing Parmenides, Ryle thought
(in line with Aristotle) that Plato did not realize the inevitable antinomies
of Forms until he had constructed the logical apparatus. 22
This self-critical theory raised the central question of why Plato did not
modify the doctrine of Forms after he had exposed some fundamental
platos answer to the pre-socratic debate41
errors in his thought. Runciman argued the reflection theory, saying that
the dialogue reflected Platos own comments on his own theory.23 The
complexity of Forms was not precisely definable for the trained (Ele-
atic) philosophers.24 The dialogue appeared to be metaphysically serious
in the light of Parmenidean logic but actually was never serious enough
for Plato to abandon Forms. Hence Plato continued to hold to his belief
about Forms in various passages written after the Parmenides.25 Robinson
also argued that Plato regarded the objection to Formsthe Dilemma of
Participationto be serious but not fatal.26
What kind of problem could be serious but not fatal? With the apo-
retic theory Allen interpreted the dialogue as aporetic and akin to the
Beta of Aristotles Metaphysics.27 Contrary to a mere objection to a proposi-
tion, what Plato demonstrated in the dialogue were puzzles; each puzzle
involved a paradox of disproving both a proposition and its denial. Thus
the dialogue could be read as a great metaphysical exercise that explored
the aporetic nature of Forms.
As the above survey shows, the precise nature of the second part is
a matter of dispute. But many scholars have been convinced, even with
differing interpretations, that Plato demonstrated an underlying paradox.
Similar to the Daoist relational ontology of essence and existence, unity
and plurality can only be either both affirmed or both denied. A closer
look at the dialogue reveals the paradox. The investigation that follows
is inspired by the recent work by Samuel Scolnicov, which treats the Par-
menides primarily as a dramatic narrative.28 However, it differs from Scol-
nicovs work on the content of the drama because the dialogue partner
is a Daoist.
It becomes the unity transcending all others. The transcending unity can-
not be a Parmenidean One either because for Parmenides the world is one
42 textual studies
(c)If unity is both one and many (157b159b), unity gets a share of
becoming and becomes many.
Since unity cannot come to be or cease to be, unity as one is denied. Since
many cannot be one (Zenos denial of plurality), unity as many is denied.
Thus unity is neither one nor many.
(d)If unity is one apart from many (159b160b), plurality has no unity,
as pluralists assert.
In order to affirm unity, it must transcend plurality. Yet one must be abso-
lutely apart from many; it has nothing to unify. Just as the first hypothesis,
unity is one without many, yields the result that unity is a self-subsistent
entity, neither a unity of many nor one of the many, a self-subsistent entity
can be neither one nor many.
These hypotheses (with the exception of the second) demonstrate an
underlying paradox. Deriving from the same affirmative statement if one
is, by Parmenidean logical deduction they actually produce the negation
of the propositionunity is not one. The denial of unity simultaneously is
the denial of plurality; unity is neither one nor many. Unity and plural-
ity can only both be rejected. The second hypothesis is an OVM situation
declared in the doctrine of Forms. It implies a simultaneous affirmation of
unity and plurality.
In the negative arguments Plato considers Parmenides not-being in
the following hypotheses on if one is not.
platos answer to the pre-socratic debate43
If unity does not exist, the absence of one makes many undetermined
(both becoming and not becoming) and chaotic, just as the primordial
chaos in the Timaeus. Thus to deny the existence of unity is also to deny
the existence of pluralitythe myriad things.
If unity is nonparticular, many will also be denied, since if many exist, unity
could be in them as one of many. Without many, unity can be nowhere.
The hypotheses rest on the negative form of the verbal noun to be,
namely, to be not. I will discuss the issue of verbal nouns in a separate
chapter in conjunction with Daoist concepts of nothing and something.
Here I concentrate on a core issue: with the negation arguments, Plato has
closed all roads for Eleatic logic to have any positive contribution toward
understanding the OM problem. What Plato has shown in eight hypoth-
eses is essentially one central argument. One and many are paradoxically
related; Eleatic logic cannot simply solve the problem by applying the logic
of exclusion to keep one and many apart.
The paradox is basically the fundamental weakness of Parmenidean
logic. Once the OM problem has been discussed in the context of Forms,
it cannot be simply explained as a set of logical antitheses, which would
yield a series of absurd results, as Plato has demonstrated. But Plato has not
taken an important step forward. If one and many can be both affirmed
or denied, it implies that they are coupled. Then, the question is this: is
it a relational problem? Ge Hongs relational ontology asserts that Dao is
paradoxically both one and many, both transcendent beyond the world
and immanent in Nature. Ge Hong understands that the ontological life
of Dao must be transcendent beyond apparent change in the world as the
44 textual studies
grand ancestor of all, yet it also must be immanent in the many in order
for the myriad things to be the diversification of ancestral life. Dao and the
myriad things (one and many) are relational.
Like Ge Hong, Plato also realizes that unity and plurality are inclusive
concepts. And he did conceive a relational ontology as Ge Hong did in the
biological model. However, he ended the dialogue without further com-
ment about his realization of the inclusiveness that had been produced
by formal logic that presupposes exclusiveness. This is because to a large
degree Plato has accepted Eleatic logic as a philosophical tool, and that
very acceptance impels him to be committed to the validity of the result.
The result is true because it confirms what the doctrine of Forms implies.
The world consists of Forms and sensibles, a combination of unity and
plurality. On the one hand, each Form has a structure of one over many
by predicating a class of sensibles sharing the same name. Even though
the many cannot contribute ontological value to the being of the one,
without the many one is a mere empty name, and has nothing to predi-
cate. On the other hand, each Form is also one among many in the sys-
tem of Forms. Without the plurality of Forms the world of many could be
reduced to Parmenidean homogeneity if the one and many were treated
solely in logical terms. Therefore the doctrine of Forms does imply that
one and many are relational. But as to what exactly the relation means for
the system of Forms, a unity containing multiple Forms, I would like to
postpone the discussion and to keep our thought trained on the critique
of Parmenides.
Plato believes the world is a system of harmony because the system of
unchanging Forms transcends the world of changing phenomena. Hav-
ing invented the doctrine of Forms, Plato cannot go back to the Parmeni-
dean homogeneous world without plurality, nor will he leave the atomists
Parmenidean miniaturesatomsfloating in being-less spaces without a
unity. However, the challenge is how to maintain that Forms are both onto-
logically separate (or transcendent) from sensibles and phenomenologi-
cally present (immanent) in them. The challenge is again Parmenidean
in kind. The ontological divide of Being/Becoming, which secures the
separation, also seriously limits the participation that is required for each
Form to be empirically traceable in sensibles as well as the intelligibility
of the universals to be conceived through physical objects. This problem
of separation/participation is exactly what Eleatic spokesman Parmenides
(and Aristotle also) rejects in the first part of Platos book.
Why did Plato choose to make the doctrine of Forms vulnerable to
attack? I would argue that it is simply because the central motif of the book
is against Parmenides, not for the Eleatic school. Plato chooses to put
platos answer to the pre-socratic debate45
forward the theory under objections precisely because the problem of sep-
aration is an inherited problem from the Parmenidean dualism of Being
and Becoming. Plato exhibits the criticisms before people influenced by
Eleaticism within the Academy. With his intellectual openness and creative
writing, he invites someone wisethe founder of the schoolto join the
discussion. In another dialogue on ontological matterthe SophistPlato
also invites an Eleatic stranger who turns out to be a well-trained logician
from the school. Here the hidden agenda of exposing problems concern-
ing Forms is actually to reassess the problem of separation against the
background of Being-Becoming.
For some well-trained philosophers, this premise that derived from the
historical Parmenides is accountable for the fundamental issue of Forms.
The fact that Plato did not make major modifications after having com-
pleted the book to a large degree is because Plato can turn against Par-
menides in the dialogue but cannot really run away from his tradition of
being. Among Platos predecessors, no one had produced a premise that
was nearly powerful as the Parmenidean One to lay the foundation upon
which Platos own rational philosophy could be constructed in the midst
of Heraclitean flux. Plato had no intention to leave the tradition of being.
Subsequently he neither abandoned his doctrine of Forms nor conducted
major modification in later dialogues such as the Timaeus. His arguments
against and for Parmenides were an intellectual device similar to what
Marx did with Hegel.
(a)If thing are many, they must be both like and unlike.
(b)Like things cannot be unlike nor unlike things, like.
(c)Therefore there cannot be many things. Plurality is impossible.
tem of moral and mathematical Forms. But the answer leaves the problem
of content wide open: how many Forms are there? More important, how
can it be decided what is a Form and what is not? When the doctrine of
Forms has been applied to the world containing nonethical and nonmath-
ematical objects, Platonic metaphysics seemingly cannot address the full
contents of the physical world. The doctrine of Forms is a selective system
through the filters of Socratic ethics and Pythagorean mathematics. But
the admission of those trivial objects will equally lead the young Socrates
into a bottomless pit of nonsense (130d).
Based on the problem of separation, Parmenides further raises the
dilemma of participation. He reasons that insofar as the problem of sepa-
ration exists, it also prevents Forms from full participation in sensibles. If
one Form is separated from many sensibles, then how can it participate
in them? The concept of participation requires the one to partake in the
many (131a). For participation to happen, the numerical one must sepa-
rate from itself in order to partake in many; for participation will violate
the principle of separation. Yet still, if the one partakes in the many, one
Form has to be partly or fully present in sensibles. The one needs to be
in many places at once. As a result, just as a large sail covers many people
(131b), because it is placed above people, it only covers each person with
a portion of the large sail but not the whole. In other words, for the one to
partake in the many, it has to be divided.
Then if the divided one consists of parts (131c), it is a unity containing
pluralityboth one and many. It will no longer be a numerical one. Fur-
thermore, according to the principle of divisibility (131cd), any part of
divided Largeness is smaller than Largeness, and any part of divided Small-
ness is smaller than Smallness; then Largeness will contain the character
of the small, and Smallness will be larger than its parts. If this reasoning
were correct (it is actually false), then Parmenides questions: How are
the other things going to partake of your Forms, if they can partake of
them neither in part nor as wholes? (131e). The question implies that the
smaller parts of Largeness, which are small, not large, cannot partake in
the Form of Largeness. Likewise the smaller parts of Smallness, which are
smaller than Smallness, cannot partake in the Form of Smallness because
Smallness is larger than divided parts.
Parmenides reasoning is wrong on various grounds. First of all, the
reasoning is based on the false assumption, as Cornford rightly points out,
that Largeness and Smallness are material things that are divisible.29 To
carry this insight further, in the analogy of a large sail covering many
people, the same assumption is used to treat Forms as materially divis-
ible. The young Socrates did not recognize this premise as contrary to
48 textual studies
his understanding of Forms. But Plato is absolutely clear that Forms are
immaterial and indivisible beings.
The young Socrates did not realize that the criticism can be easily
refuted by another analogy. If immaterial and indivisible sky instead of
the material sail covers many people in different parts of the world, then
each person does not have a divided sky above them, but the same and
whole sky. The one over many premise stays. The point at which Socrates
has become bogged down even to the point of having no reply is his own
ambiguous distinction of like/unlike. In the early passage, Socrates
declares like/unlike to be logical antithesis (129b), thus failing to recog-
nize that they are relational contrariesone cannot be meaningful with-
out the other. If a Form cannot contain the polarized like/unlike, the
Parmenidean logic of division impels him to accept that Largeness cannot
compose the Form of Large (or like), and the smaller parts of divided
large (or unlike) at the same time.
To be sure, the whole notion of unlike parts is based on the assump-
tion of material divisible being. This is a twist made by contemporary
thought, when the logic of division is applied to Forms. But the historical
Parmenides did not hold such a view. He regarded the One as an indivis-
ible material unity. The young Socrates somehow surrenders to the idea of
divisible being, which the doctrine of Forms rejects, without a fight. So
he accepts the dilemma of participation as not an easy matter to deter-
mine in the way that Parmenides has framed it for him.
Second, Parmenides permits only two kinds of participation: one in
many by presence and many in one by partaking. In the notions of pres-
ence and partaking there is a hidden problem. Parmenides employs
these concepts to explore the dilemma of participation. To keep Forms
separate from sensibles Plato wants to maintain the transcendence of
Forms. If Forms slip into a state of total immanence, for Plato the damage
is that rational Formsthe objects of knowledgebecome entangled with
irrational becoming in the physical world. In the Parmenides the separa-
tion has been stated as a symmetry that Forms are separate from sensibles
and sensibles from Forms. In Metaphysics (XIII) Aristotle also recognizes
that, according to Plato, Forms are separate from sensibles and capable
of existing apart, and points out that the separation is responsible for all
the problems with the Forms (1086a). Aristotle is correct to critique the
separation; Parmenides is not wrong to name the symmetry of separation.
However, what is wrong about Parmenides reasoning is that he attributes
a symmetrical relation to participation also.
Proclus rightly identified this asymmetrical relation long ago.30 For
instance, sons resemble their fathers characters. It is all right to say the
platos answer to the pre-socratic debate49
fathers character participates in the sons but not correct to imagine that
the characters of the sons participate in the father. Similarly, modeling
Forms (as in the Timaeus) participate in sensibles by creating physical
things as copies of the models, but the reverse is false. The causal relation
between Forms and sensibles or the models and their copies is irreversible.
The separation between the cause and the caused must be maintained,
just as the Demiurge must be self-differentiated from his creatures.
Ge Hongs relational ontology, the one and many, contains this asym-
metrical participation. One creates the myriad things, but the myriad
things do not create One. The creative order from one to many cannot
be reversed. However, what is reversible is the potency of ancestral life
the immanence within many, which has manifested in individual lives. That
is to say, the One can be understood in and through the many. Using the
same example, the resembled characters in the sons are traceable to the
father. By understanding inherited characters in the sons, some aspects
of the fathers life can be traced as the origin. Nonetheless, the father is
always ontologically independent of the sons; the sons are neither identi-
cal with the father nor with each other. There exist discontinuity and conti-
nuity between the father and the sons. This is how Ge Hong maintains that
the One is both transcendent and immanent in individuality.
For Plato the separation has secured the transcendental status of Forms:
being itself. A Form requires no external contribution and is indivisible.
But this is only the discontinuity between one and many. The discontinuity
between cause and caused, however, must be sustained by a causal continu-
ity. In reality an OVM Form has already stated this causal continuity. The
problem is that the continuity is greatly overshadowed by the discontinu-
ity because Plato has committed to the Parmenidean suggestion to divide
being from becoming. Consequently, what is lacking is the immanence of
Forms. This absent immanence is the other side of the problem of separa-
tion generated out of the same premise of being separated from becom-
ing. It is what the Platonic Parmenides attacks.
Third, the separation of Forms from sensibles is the by-product of the
double-world view of Being/Becoming. This worldview is originally Par-
menides vision that Plato inherits and never abandons. Is Platos two
worlds theory identical to Parmenides? The answer is a double standard.
In Platos theory of ethical Forms the division is not as great as in his
theory of mathematical Forms. But he never sorted out the ambiguity of
why he affirms two versions of Forms: transcendent mathematical Forms
and relatively immanent ethical Forms. The doctrine of souls affirms that
humans exist in the realm of Becoming, but the rational part of soul has
independent existence in the realm of Being. In the doctrine of creation,
50 textual studies
the World Soul intermediates two realms; the Soul is created as a copy of
the eternal model (the system of Forms) and is the rational identity of the
physical world. But here in the Parmenides, the point of dispute is shifted
from ethical Forms (130c), which Plato argues in the Phaedo and Meno, to
the transcendental Forms (132b133a), which is mathematically in kind as
in the Republic and Timaeus. The whole idea of intermediation is evidently
absent in the Parmenides.
For Parmenides, Being and Becoming derive from his famous argu-
ment that within Being there is nothing of not-Being. 31 To support this
argument, Parmenides reasons that the human mind can only think about
something, about Being, and no one can possibly think about nothing,
about not-Being.32 Sensible objects in the realm of Becoming contain both
coming to be and passing away; they are mere names without substan-
tial and definable essence that reason could positively affirm.33 Being and
Becoming are logical opposites conditioned by the ontological anthe-
sis that within Being there is nothing of not-Being. There is nothing
between two worlds. Plato employs this polarized theory in the Parmenides.
In the passages where the young Socrates tries to salvage his theory
by presenting Forms as thoughts (132bc) and paradigms (132c133a),
Plato makes Socrates further postulate the two worlds theory. Parmenides
subsequently rejects both arguments and further charges the greatest dif-
ficulty, namely, that Forms are unknowable (133a134e). Traditionally this
part of the dialogue is read as the elder Parmenides training of the young
Socrates. But an alternative reading can be interpreted through the train
of thought against Parmenides.
The dialogue could be Platos way of training students in the Acad-
emy to recognize some of the problems associated with the Parmenidean
antithesis of Being/not-being and the reduction of plurality to homogene-
ity. By making the young Socrates open-mouthed at the end of the dia-
logue, Plato actually takes the criticisms upon himself. He neither rejects
the problem of separation (because it is the problem) nor affirms the
Eleatic criticism to be true (because it is false). But the passive ending of
the first part opens the door for Platos offensive move in the second part.
If a good student could distinguish the difference between two kinds of
double-world theory, he should recognize that Parmenides one without
many argument, which reduces the heterogeneous world to the homoge-
neous One, is exactly what the doctrine of Forms rejects.
The reasoning follows that Forms in the world of Being are inacces-
sible to humans living in the world of Becoming. Parmenides concludes:
Forms are unknowable to us (134c).
This conclusion is only valid when Being/Becoming is defined by the
Parmenidean ontology. But the conclusion is false, because (a) and (b) do
not produce (c). For instance, a chair is not related to a man, but a chair
can still be known by the person. The unrelated identities (of a chair and a
man) do not entail no relation at all between them. Parmenides argument
rests on the nonrelational division of Being/Becoming. But there must be
something fundamental between Being and Becoming. This something
could be an experience, for example, a person feels the support of a chair
on which he is sitting. Unfortunately, Plato rejects experience as a reliable
source of knowledge but is committed to the epistemology of knowing
Forms through Forms alone. Consequently the OVM causation has made
experiencea connection between many and oneontologically inferior
and epistemologically unreliable.
To reject Parmenidean reasoning, Plato has a separate discourse. Inso-
far as he is concerned, epistemology is also Pythagorean. Following the
Pythagorean theology of the immortal soul, Plato in the Phaedrus (245c
d) argues that rational part of the soul has inborn intelligence to access
the world of Being. In the Phaedo (72e77d), Plato presents the theory of
knowledge as recollection. Between the intelligible world of Forms and
human souls, there exists a divine logos running in both directions. Thus
true knowledge of Forms seems to be inborn rather acquired. These argu-
ments would require extra space to discuss. Here the point is this: they
all support the ultimate aim of knowing transcendental Forms, which is
developed from the Parmenidean epistemology of knowing being in and
through being.
The puzzling question emerges: if true knowledge is of nothing but
Forms, again why is it is necessary to give intermediate status to sensibles/
belief and human souls. For Plato the intermediate status does not just
represent a sandwiched category between intelligible beings and unintel-
ligible and shadowing images, but speaks for a real condition of the soul
52 textual studies
and physical objects. They are the existential ground of human reality and
the epistemological point of departure to which Plato must hold on. With-
out these anchoring points, there will neither be the starting point of the
souls search for rational beings nor the ascending journey to intellectual
enlightenment. But with these anchoring points, human life will always be
a struggle to control irrational passions and desires within human nature,
and the making of the philosophical mind will always involve a painful
process to remove perceptions in order to gaze at beings beyond sensibles.
In the Parmenides Plato has shown nothing about how accessible this
path from many to one is. Having turned the problem of unknowable
Forms back to the Parmenidean tradition, the first part of the dialogue
ends with a perplexing situation. Without Forms, one will not even have
anything to which to turn his mind. . . . And so he will utterly destroy the
power and significance of thought and discourse (135c). Having followed
Parmenides tradition of being in his intellectual formation thus far, he
clearly knows his predecessor and the problems. The doctrine of Forms
overall is an important step in the Parmenidean tradition of being and
aims to solve problems by redefining ontology through Forms.
Summary
Cultivating Life
53
54 textual studies
Xuan. Just as a mother extends her life force to the fetus through the
umbilical cord, Xuan extends the immanent life to the primordial Qi. The
underlying issue between nothing and something is the continuation of
life. In cosmic terms, the gestation of Qi bespeaks the formation of the
universe within the empty space of Xuan. Contrary to the modern idea of
space, which can be traced to the characterless space of pre-Socratic atom-
ismwithout any ontological significancehere the empty space is full of
potency. The cosmic womb is a biological vessel similar to the alchemical
vessel that creates an environment to enable and contain change.
One problem, common in classical Chinese, is that the chosen phrase
does not indicate a particular tense. Is the gestation a prehistoric moment
or a constant process of making? Unlike modern linear thinking in the
West, ancient Daoism does not hold the premise that the creation was a
once-and-for-all event at the very beginning of time. The act of creation is
completed so that nothing more can be added. On the contrary, Daoist
creation is internally a biological transformation of life like a fetus and
externally a natural process like a growing genealogical tree. The core of
this change is called Indeterminate Action (wuwei ); the manifestation
of the change is called Nature (ziran ).
Here there is also a translation problem. Laozi originally said, Dao
does not act (wuwei ), but nothing is left undone (Laozi 48).4 Ge
Hong also specifically used the term wuwei eleven times in the Inner Chap-
ters.5 In two instances, Ge Hong says, The method of immortality requires
quiet, solitude, and wuwei (IC 17) and Heavens wuwei, therefore, is
clear (IC 138).6 Often misleadingly, wuwei is translated as nonaction, to
act without acting, and doing nothing.7 These translations have failed to
demonstrate the meaning of being indeterminate.
Indeterminate refers to action that is open-ended and exploratory, not
confined to goal-directed action. The translation also makes an important
philosophical contrast. To be indeterminate is the chief virtue of the Dao.
The activity of the indeterminate Dao is Indeterminate Action. Regarding
the translation of wuwei two interconnected issues need to be clarified:
spontaneity and humility. Laozi asks, why is the ocean the greatest? He
then answers, It is because it has the virtue of humility. By taking the
lowliest position it draws all streams of living water into it (Laozi 66). The
greatest virtue of Dao rests in its indeterminateness in the likeness of soft
water (Laozi 78). The ocean does not act, but the indeterminate space
creates the environment from which diverse forms of life spontaneously
emerge from water. Like Laozis ocean and water, Ge Hongs cosmic womb
is also an indeterminate environment for the gestation of life.
Another key connection with Laozi is the concept of sheng. Like Laozi,
ge hongs preservation of the one55
Ge Hong uses sheng as the verb to give birth, not the noun life. Citing
the classic texts Zhou Yi and Zuozhuan, he says, The greatest virtue in the
universe is to give birth. And to give birth is to cherish things (IC 252).8
Interestingly the original context of the verb sheng in Zhou Yi is discussed in
the context of universal change (bian ). Because Yang and Yin are push-
ing each other, change emerges from their midst. . . . To give birth means
to be active. 9 The reference indicates something crucial in Ge Hongs
reference to cosmic pregnancy that has not been mentioned. To give birth
is closely associated with the concept of change, and change in Zhou Yi is
not just a universal phenomenon, but also a permanent reality. Therefore
the permanent realityDao, which consists of the relational ontology of
Xuan and Qiis expressed in the cosmogonical context with the motif of
the cosmic pregnancy.
Unlike Parmenides unchanged One, Ge Hongs cosmogonical one is
ontologically a changing one. Unlike Zenos logic exclusion of like and
unlike, Xuan and Qi are relational, and their relationship is defined as
life. From here onwards, we should use Ge Hongs own concept Xuan Dao
to express this relational ontology and give the abbreviation of Dao to this
self-generating first cause.
Since change is the perpetual principle of Nature, this self-generating
Dao transcends time rather remaining a prehistoric moment at the begin-
ning of time. Since change is expressed through the central theme to
give birth to life, the change that manifests through the act of giving birth
must happen in every moment of time.10 Therefore, the underlying reality
of the world of changing phenomena is not a fixed logos, but a changing
Dao. The interactive Xuan-Qi together form the concept Dao, or the most
fundamental reality of all things. Out of the water in the womb, out of the
environment of letting life freely develop, the first material life (Qi) took
potency from the mother and began to evolve into more and more com-
plex life with plural parts. Creation was not the result of one single deter-
minative act, like building a chair according to a design, but a sequence
of biological diversification. Out of this cosmic womb, Yin and Yang came
to being. The world was breathed into life. And billions of substances took
form within the organic life of the cosmos. The process is called ziran,
being itself and following ones own accord.
Is Daoist creation comparable with the Judeo-Christian seven days
creation? The simple answer is no, if it is presented as a dialogue with Pla-
tonism. For Daoism, the diversification process is an internal gestation
process within the creator. In Genesis, the seven days of divine creation
are expressed as an external work of God. More complex answers relate
to the coinciding issues of what the creator is and what the creator does.
56 textual studies
These issues in Christian theology are called the being and works of God.
To borrow the concepts, the works of Dao center on Indeterminate Action.
Out of the indeterminate Dao, the creation unfolds in sequence: first, the
primordial Qi; second, the two energies of Yin and Yang; third, the embodi-
ment of life as Qi breathed into Nature; fourth, the actuality of substances
taking concrete physical forms. For Ge Hong, this sequential evolution
of life does not only take place inside the cosmic wombXuanbut the
creator like a mother also converts nothing into something. The change
from nothing into being is intrinsically an internal conversion. The creator
internally changes timelessly, more like Heraclitus perpetual change than
the Platonic unchangeable Demiurge, which has an unshakable impact
on the interpretation of the Creator in Genesis. Contrary to the determi-
nate God, Dao is indeterminate. Laozis mother Dao is the self-humbling
ocean that withdraws its power by harboring life inside its infinite space.
Ge Hongs pre-cosmos is spontaneous change inside of the infinite dark-
ness of Xuan.
After this brief comparison, it is necessary to deny any sweeping claim
that Dao and God are interchangeable. Religious pluralism cannot give
way to the idealism of one supreme deity over all religions. James R. Ware
in his translation of the Inner Chapters has persistently translated Xuan Dao
as God. 11 Ware failed to recognize the complex nature of intercultural
dialogue. Just to mention a few important distinctions, God is personal,
whereas Dao is impersonal. God is identified and worshiped by the cho-
sen people. Dao is nameless. Even Laozi humbly acknowledges that who
and what Dao is, he does not really know. To make this distinction does
not mean the God-Dao comparison is inconceivable. For example, what
Christian negative theology says about God is similar to Ge Hongs reverse
thinking from something to nothing. Yet unless this comparative ground is
thoroughly discussed, Wares sweeping claim is troubling.
It is true that the creation ex nihilo is what Judeo-Christian theogony
and Daoist cosmogony share. The modern commentator Chen Feilong
has interpreted Ge Hongs opening chapter as creationism.12 But
creationism as expressed in Genesis operates in a linear teleological frame-
work, whereas Daoist creation is a cyclical and ongoing process.
Unlike medieval theology, represented by Aquinas, the Hegelian Chris-
tian theology of the modern age tends to view creationism teleologically.
Creation, Incarnation, and Consummation are three paradigms of history.
History is a determinative course or salvation history to the climax when
God becomes the All and in all. The teleological end was already built in
at the beginning of time, namely, the will of God. The divine will becomes
the very purpose for the creation in history. And the purpose is yet to be
ge hongs preservation of the one57
fulfilled at the end of history. Contrary to this concept of God, Dao neither
performed a once-and-for-all single creation nor possesses a built in telos
for eschatological fulfillment. The making of the world is understood as
a never-ceasing process because the creativity of Dao is always in the mak-
ing. The distinction between intelligent design and evolutionary change
cannot be collapsed.
Qi and Empiricism
Based on the relational ontology of Xuan and Qi, Ge Hong argues that
knowledge is empirical. To engage the knowledge path also means to
understand what life is for the individual or universally what Qi is. Humans
exist within the [universal] Qi, Qi dwells within the human body. From the
heavens and earth to the myriad things, there is nothing that does not
require Qi to be born (IC 114).13 Unlike Platos distinction of transcen-
dental Forms and material objects, Ge Hongs creative Qi is immanent
within the world. Heaven attaining the One becomes clear, the earth
attaining the One remains peaceful, humans attaining the One gain life,
and gods attaining the One become efficacious (IC 323).14 The concept
of the One is not only concealed in the cosmogonical beginning, but also
runs the continual course that sustains it in each of the creatures.
Xuan Dao the One (Qi) the immanent Qi in the myriad things
rialism was argued by two earlier texts. In the Scripture on Eternal Peace, as
mentioned earlier, Qi was defined as the irreducible substance of the mate-
rial world. In the Master of Huainan (Huainanzi ), written by various
sages under the aegis of Liu An (180123 BC), the cause of all material
things dwells within ten thousand things (HNZ 14, 734).16 Although Qi
was prior to material existences, it was still immanent within the world by
transforming itself from one to the many.
The remarkable aspect of Wang Chongs materialism, which evidently
influenced Ge Hong, was the corresponding empiricism. Many [specula-
tive] thinkers have turned away from reality without seeking effective tests
[for their theories]. Though they have fine and elaborate theories, peo-
ple still do not believe them. . . . Thoughts must be verified against what
things demonstrably do (LH 26, 1086).17 Wang Chongs empiricism gave
priority to reality over theory and argued reality as the criterion of truth.
In the Outer Chapters, Ge Hong spoke highly of Wang Chong and praised
him as the pioneering thinker at the time when Han scholasticism was
immersed in bottomless speculation. From the end of Han, none can
match Wang Chongs brilliance (OC 43, 423).18 In Ge Hongs cultivation
and instrumental alchemy, he also maintained the principle that from
small experiments, one is able to know great truth (IC 140).19
Ge Hongs theory of knowledge is both for and against Wang Chong.
He accepts Qi is material and empirical but rejects the antireligious senti-
ment of Wang Chongs materialism. Ge Hongs religious philosophy rests
upon the doctrine of soteriology. For those who hope to attain longevity,
the preservation of the One is to be taken as a clear [priority] (IC 323).20
Human life is not inevitably a degenerative process of aging, but ought to
be able to attain the longevity in the likeness of eternal Qi.
The general method is called the Preservation of the One (shouyi
). Against the background of from the one to the many, Ge Hong
argues reverse thinking once more. Comparable with the continuation
of life between ancestor and progeny, this continuity of life beyond the
discontinuity between the creator and the created allows humans to seek
paths back to the point of cosmic origin and to participate in the creative
core of the cosmos. Obtain it on the inside, and preserve it on the out-
side. Whoever uses it becomes an immortal; whoever forgets it becomes a
vessel (IC 2).21 Xuan Dao can be inwardly discerned to enrich life from
within. And the preserved creativity can be manifested externally. Who-
ever participates in the One becomes divine, and whoever neglects it will
become a mere vessel. As Ge Hong scholar Hu Fuchen rightly points out,
Ge Hong reinvented Qi as an empirical philosophy based on the cultiva-
tion of the Dao. 22
ge hongs preservation of the one59
Soteriology
tion requires careful reconstruction. Until the language has been demy-
thologized, it is very difficult to grasp what the instructions are. Third,
Daoist cultivation methods are not descriptive, but rather invitational.
Unless a reader is willing to be drawn into the text, it is impossible to gain
an understanding of the process they refer to.
Fig. 3.1. A female adept practicing the Dao of Dividing Forms. Illustrations
from The Journey of the Goddess of Mount Tai on Her Way to Immortality in
Portraits of Immortals. (Reproduced by permission of the Chinese Daoist Asso-
ciation from Zhongguo Daojiao Xiehui, ed., Daojiao shenxian huaji, Collectors
edition [Beijing: Huaxia chubanshe, 1995], 115)
also arts for exorcism. Modern Daoists still recite the principle without
shu Dao is not agile (dao wu shu bu ling ).
Daoist shu does not refer narrowly to magical prescriptions, but des-
ignates empirical methods to put the Dao into praxis. Contrary to the
main tendency of Confucian intellectualism and moral philosophy, it rep-
62 textual studies
breadth. What does this wandering really signify? Compare this passage
with another passage from the Zhuangzi.
When three days passed, he was able to put the world outside himself
[wai tianxia ]. After leaving the world, he went on with the pres-
ervation. When seven days passed, he could move beyond forms [waiwu
]. After leaving forms, he again went on with the preservation.
When nine days passed, he could move beyond his life [waisheng
]. After leaving life behind, his mind became pure and fresh as dawn
[zhaoche ]. With this mind he could see what stands alone [jiandu
]. After he had seen the singularity face to face, he was able to
obscure the distinction of the past and the present [wu gujin ].
After he had done so, he could go beyond the distinction between life
and death. Dao begets life and receives life, but it was never born and
it will never die. Something exists as the matter in everything. There is
nothing it does not send off and nothing it does not welcome; there
is nothing it does not destroy and nothing it does not complete. The
name of something is called tumultuous tranquillity [yingning ].
Whoever attains [this paradoxical state of] tumultuous tranquillity is
disturbed [by the Dao] then accomplishes [it]. (Zhuangzi 6)
deepest tranquillity, the adept will always be ready to change but will rest
forever in peace. By succeeding in this paradoxical state, enlightenment
is attained. Zhuangzi calls the enlightened man a realized man (zhenren
).
In Ge Hongs passage, the end of preservation is called True Knowl-
edge of Sufficiency (zhenzhizu ). Through the wandering of drift-
ing into the cosmos, the adept has achieved the state of potency in the
likeness of Qi and rests his being inside Xuan like a fetus. Yet he becomes
a free being without desire, without change, who tastes the purest
and preserves the simplest and drifts spontaneously and mingles with
[Xuan] and seeks equality to its Nature (IC 3).31 Preserving the Xuan-
One, although it appears as a spiritual exercise call Self-Seeing (zijian
), essentially is not about the self, but about the other. The adept views
the totality of his personhood within the context of the cosmos by dissolv-
ing his body into the body of the universe. Once his being is a part of the
world, he will see himself for the first time as a free being. He wanders
through the zenith and enters into nadir, moves freely in the realm of
formlessness, and travels above the sphere of singularity. He gulps down
beauty and breathes the breaths of the cosmos, just as the fetus of Qi
evolves from the womb of the cosmos.
Finally he wonders about his capacity to walk through the land of no
form and no trace, and to fly across the boundary of the perceivable and
the unseeable. Dao manifests life in three primary categories of existence.
Dao gives rise to Qi, and Qi is transformed into the Forms of heaven,
earth, and humanity, so the three are one (IC 323).32 In the likeness of
cosmic creativity, the adept also becomes creative and expresses his cre-
ativity by showing his personhood in three different places at the same
time. This anthropomorphic feature is repeatedly seen in Ge Hongs writ-
ing. Here the enlightened adept is the personified Dao, whose multiple
appearances are anthropomorphic expressions of Daos creativity. Three
different appearances collectively give expression to his inner being. Look-
ing inwardly, the art of revealing the self is no longer a magic play, but
an enlightened state of personhood, through which the invisible creativ-
ity of the One becomes visibly apprehensible to humans. And the One is
the self-generating continuity between its oneness and the plurality of the
myriad things.
I have heard from my master: the One can be found in the North-
ern Pole [beiji ] and the great pool [taiyuan ] [the upper and
lower cinnabar fields]. Before it there is the bright hall [mingtang ]
[between eyebrows one cun deep], behind it is the crimson palace
[jianggong : heart]. Nearby there stands the flowery canopy [huagai
: lungs], and the golden tower [jinlou ] with a chamber inside
[the throat]. On the left and the right are the hanging lodestars [gang-
kui : left and right kidneys]. Around it there are also rushing waves
[jibo : urinary system] reaching the sky.
Dark fungus [xuanzhi : blood vessels in the thorax] cover the
cliff, exuberant red grass [zhucao ] surrounds the area [blood ves-
sels in the thorax], white jade [baiyu ] [the teeth] towers up, and
the sun and the moon [riyue : eyes] shine from above. Having expe-
rienced the fire [huo : primordial Qi] and crossed the waters [shui
: Qi in the kidneys], experienced the mysterious Xuan [alchemi-
cal body], and traveled through the yellow earth [huang : physical
body], you shall arrive at the interleaving walls and palaces [chengque
: abdominal cavity and thorax] of the city. You shall see beauti-
ful tents and curtains [weizhang : forms of internal organs] all in
close sight. Dragons and tigers [longhu : Yin-Yang energies] are the
guards; divine persons [shenren : internal gods] stand on two sides.
Neither action nor effort is required, the One is always in harmony
with the surroundings; neither too fast nor too slow, the One gently
occupies the room. Be peaceful and cheerful, the One will not leave.
Preserving the One [yi ] and discerning the Real [zhen ], you
should communicate with the divine. Control your desires and moder-
ate your diet, then the One will stay. Even with a sword at your neck,
discerning the One you should live.
To know the One is not difficult, the difficulty is being persistent.
Preserving but not losing it, you will experience the unlimited abun-
dance of the One. It keeps you safe from wild beasts on the ground and
dragons in the water, and keeps you away from poisonous insects or
snakes. Ghosts will not come near you, and weapons will not harm you.
This is the brief description of the Real-One (IC 324325).
Inner
Alchemy Chinese Physical Documen- Daozang
Term Term Location Translation tation Reference
Inner
Alchemy Chinese Physical Documen- Daozang
Term Term Location Translation tation Reference
uring the Western Jin period in his bibliographical chapter (IC 334); this
d
may not be identical to the text that has come down to us. In this pas-
sage Ge Hong directly adopts the idea of the correspondence between
the inner and outer environments (neiwai jing tongyi ) in the
Huangting jing. More particularly, he illustrates the benefits of cultivation
in the form of an outward journey from the body into the celestial world.
With reference to this text, two ontological arguments that evolved around
the inner and outer correspondence require detailed investigation.
with its surroundings. The One works as a web of organic life that makes
various parts intact. Just like astronomical harmony, which comes into exis-
tence spontaneously, bodily harmony is also a natural quality evolved out
of the conception brought by the energies of motherly Yin and fatherly
Yang. Just as the essence of celestial phenomena sinks deep into the end-
less dark sky, bodily phenomena also drift around the scene of the heav-
enly city. But the continuity between the two is the same harmonious One
that wanders freely between heaven and human bodies.
emptied body, comparable to the spatial heaven. The yellow yolk has
the same shape as a bean-size elixir. The bodily elixir does not refer to the
three elixir fields mentioned in the text but to the fetus as new life. This is
because the enlightened body becomes a hypostasis of the Daodan. This
bodily dan is contained within the bodily vessel, just as heaven contains the
earth in the cosmic egg. Thus the shift from the word huang to the idea of
the bodily dan is unnoticeable. However, the transformation underlying
the free exchange between the micro body and the macrocosm constitutes
bodily enlightenment. These two symbolic words are even better pictured
(see Figure 3.3) in internal alchemy texts belonging to later periods. The
word Xuan is directly pictured as an emptied body. The word dan is in
the likeness of the alchemical fetus.
Fig. 3.3. Xuan and dan : two imitative characters, Xuan in the shape of a
crucible (left), dan in the form of a person (right) as illustrated in the Huanzhen
ji (Reprinted from Daozang 24, 98)
ge hongs preservation of the one73
To attain the One requires no artificial effort; it only requires the principal
indeterminate action (wuwei ). Note that spontaneity is the central
quality of the Real-One. To join the divine community is not to elevate
ones social and moral status. Rather, the adept needs to free himself from
desires, self-imprisonment, and bodily environment. So the body becomes
an uncontaminated vessel and assumes a lowly position. It is ready to
receive the influx of life from the external environment. Having preserved
74 textual studies
the One, the adept is also infused into the world and among the natural
gods through the fusion between the One and the many. The only way
to preserve the One beyond the initial point of realization, as Ge Hong
points out, is to be peaceful and cheerful so the vigor of the One can
shine through bodily happiness.
The above three discourses can be summarized with three characters
used by Ge Hong: Real (zhen ), One (yi ), and spirit (shen ). The
Real means the stage of cultivating the true self. The reality of the human
body is neither physiological nor psychological but the unity of both attri-
butes. During the inward journey to encounter the One, the distinction
between the body and the spirit gradually fades away. It is realized that the
whole alchemical body is in the likeness of the changing cosmos, in which
Qi fills the emptied body and is spontaneously in the making. This is the
stage of One, or Qi. In order to transform the body into an alchemical
vessel to smelt inborn Qi, the adept learns to regulate the breath pattern
the method to regulate bodily fire. This inborn Qi refers to the vitality of
the body, not the primordial Qi.
The preservation of the primordial Qi occurs in the stage of commu-
nicating with the divine. Having realized what connects the body and the
cosmos, the adept flows with Qi and moves beyond his body into the celes-
tial environment. Neither are there natural gods that could exist without
their dwelling placescelestial bodiesnor is there true bodily vigor that
could exist without the bodily vessel. This is the principle of mutuality
between the body and the spirit (xingshen xiangwei ) (IC 244).
Compared with the stage of Qi in which the adept is happily lost in Qi,
the stage of immortals requires the adept to commune with the commu-
nity of immortals. When the cultivating body has diffused into the cosmos,
the mind completely loses its grip on any cognitive control, as in Zhuang-
zis method of letting go of all things. This is the stage of communicating
with immortals. At this stage, the One emerges out of inexhaustible peace.
It dwells in harmony with the surrounding parts of the body and turns the
body inside out. The communication with the natural gods then becomes
a natural process because the adept is already a member of the community
like others who have personified Dao with their celestial bodies. He travels
freely between two environments and across the distance between the One
and the many.
The cultivation method is undoubtedly described in a mystical genre.
But the mysticism is by no means philosophically unintentional. The tex-
tual study essentially tries to recover the idea that the cosmos, the body,
and the crucible are intrinsically alike. They are vessels different in scale,
yet the core reality resting in these vessels is alchemically the same. What is
ge hongs preservation of the one75
the underlying reality of this core? Ge Hong says, Change is the principle
of Nature.
Change is the basic sign of life; life evolves in the context of change.
Celestial movements, inner bodily activities, and alchemical transforma-
tion share the same principles of change. Change is not subordinated
to another even higher and unchangeable reality. Contrary to the Par-
menidean division of Being and Becoming and the Platonic separation
of unchanging Forms and changing objects, change is the reality of life at
its most primal form. This change is internally self-caused and externally
self-causing. It is not governed by random chance, but by the accord of
following its own course. Laozi describes the principle of spontaneity as
Dao follows its own accord (daofa ziran ) (Laozi 25). Zhuangzi
argues that the spontaneous accord of the Dao is knowable through the
method of forgetting the self (zuowang ). By leaving his desiring
body behind, by leaving his controlling mind behind, by leaving forms and
assumed knowledge of them behind, the sage becomes a part of the reality
in which all things are inwardly connected. This is what forgetting the self
while sitting means (Zhuangzi 6).40 Ge Hong defines spontaneity as the
principle of Nature. It springs out of the relational ontology of Xuan-Qi.
In cultivation, the change is presented in the image in which Qi forms all
changing things into a living harmony.
The synthesis of inner and outer environments stands in contrast to the
Parmenidean antithesis of being and becoming. Parmenides ontological
gap between metaphysical and physical is, in Ge Hongs method, merely
an illusion created in the human mind rather than a permanent reality in
the natural world. In cultivation, the first step to be taken is to remove this
intellectual illusion. The adept then can be free his assumption about the
world. To understand this core reality is not to engage in a mental exercise
involving step-by-step reasoning bound to the criterion of logic, but rather
to have an existential experience. The bodily engagement with the Dao
the universal ordertakes the form of a wandering journey to enter into
the life of Dao in Qi. Until the adept has fully infused himself in this core
reality, he can only speculate on something or being (you ) but cannot
see nothing or not-being (wu ). Until the adept has wandered in the
city of Qi, he cannot shift his gazing eyes from bright stars to the infinite
dark space that holds them together. Until the adept has experienced the
spontaneous One, he cannot realize that the changing of the four seasons
actually is one single rhythm that is constantly turning and in the making.
Until the adept has preserved the One, occupying its space effortlessly, he
cannot realize that to live with Nature requires no control but only fol-
lowing. Until the adept has wandered into the core of Nature, he cannot
76 textual studies
Summary
Joseph Needham once famously argued that Daoism propelled the devel-
opment of Chinese sciences.41 Ge Hong is an important figure in that tra-
dition. His writings have provided us with enough information to puzzle
together his grand vision. Both forms of cultivation that he describes
seek a path exactly opposite to the ontological flow of Dao. Cosmogony
unfolds from the one to the many in the mode of separation. Soteriology
returns from the many to the one in the mode of unification. The former
articulates the self-awakening Dao in the process of creation. The latter
practices those methods that yield hidden paths to the core of all reali-
ties. The unfolding separation and the refolding unification form a wheel
of change. They are an empirical interpretation of the two central con-
cepts in the Daodejing: the Dao and its Virtue. The cosmic wheel is not an
ge hongs preservation of the one77
enclosed and self-repeating circle, but a turning wheel (Figure 3.4). As the
wheel turns, spontaneous continuity rolls out a course over the discontinu-
ity of ten thousand things.
Compared with Plato, who believes reason is innate in the rational part
of the soul, Ge Hong believes Qi is the inborn reality of human life. Con-
trary to Platonic intellectual wisdom, Ge Hongs preserved Qi is more than
a cognitive state of mind; it is an existential life. The One can be preserved
in human life, so the body becomes a vessel to harbor cosmic potency.
Thus, the body is a micro recipient of the macrocosmic essence because Qi
is a reality to be experienced both inside and outside of the human body,
rather than an idea to be grasped. Influenced by Wang Chongs reality as
the criterion of truth, Ge Hongs view holds that the knowledge of Dao
must be evaluated against the soteriological criterion of whether knowl-
edge is life giving.
Compared with Platos rational philosophy, which is psychological,
immaterial, and ideal, the Preservation of the One is biological, empirical,
and existential. Both philosophies are soteriological, but their contents
are different. Ge Hong aims to preserve the bond between the human
Fig. 3.4. Inner and Outer Alchemy and the wheel of change
78 textual studies
79
80 textual studies
dental Forms and keeps perfect Forms and imperfect physical objects
ontologically apart.2 Recent scholarship tends to read the disjunction to
be not as great as typically thought and attempts to reconcile the inconsis-
tency.3 Among the emerging new views, Gail Fines arguments appear to
be the most provocative. In two essays Separation 4 and Immanence, 5
the central argument not only has turned against the traditional inter-
pretation, but has gone to the other extreme to argue immanence as the
central feature of Forms.
However, the Fine view also meets serious criticisms. Vlastos states that
the same claim on separation may be expressed by either (P) or (Q):
two parallel rails that take philosophers to encounter the truth defined
by Forms. Ontology and epistemology are inseparable. The dynamics of
Platos ontological-epistemological parallelism can be presented in the fol-
lowing diagram, which is a summary of the Divided Line passage in the
Republic (509d511e).8 The diagram will be referred to frequently later to
give a visual perspective of Platos abstract and sophisticated arguments.
Infallible Knowledge
tiful rose primarily because of its mixture of being beautiful and not-being
beautiful. Anything that is both being and not-being is not genuinely a
Form; it is a self-contradictory entity.13 To conceptualize what beauty is,
one must look beyond the fluctuating state of being/not-being and inquire
into the essential nature of beauty itself (476b). This beauty itself is a
noncontradictory identity of what beauty is. Therefore, the ontology of
being-itself (nothing but beauty itself) produces true knowledge of beauty,
which is also freed from the dual presence of the opposites of what beauty
is and what beauty is not.
The core of the argument is the Parmenidean Being without not-
being. By the ontological exclusion of not-being, Plato argues that phi-
losophers are able to seek beyond self-contradictory entities in temporal
instances and reach noncontradictory Forms. Forms are single realities
that exemplify the ontological uniqueness of beauty-in-itself, goodness-
in-itself, and justice-in-itself (507b). They are self-generating and casual
beings that neither require external contribution to be what really is, nor
are they affected by change and decay (485b). They are eternal realities
according to which physical realities have been organized. Plato believes
the knowledge of noncontradictory Forms cannot be acquired from the
composite sensibles.
Why cannot we acquire the one from the many? What prevents the
composition of being and not-being from being the empirical point of
departure for true intelligence? It is the problem of not-being. Plato con-
tends in the Parmenidean fashion that, on the one hand, we can only think
of something in some sense of being and, on the other hand, not-being is
unknowable (476e477a).
The argument has two problems one of which leads to the other. First,
nothing is what is not in (c) is wrong; not-being does not equate to noth-
ing.14 To equate not-being with nothing is a Parmenidean fallacy. If
the Form of beauty is something, then its logical negation is not-beauty.
Not-beauty does not necessary entail ugliness but can mean anything other
than beauty. For instance, a not-beautiful person can appear to be a nor-
86 textual studies
mal looking person. Normal appearance is not nothing at all but some-
thing. Thus nothing is what is not in (c) is false. It is a problem of subject
negation when the not directly negates the subject beauty.
Second, not-being is not unknowable. A person cannot know what is
not in (d) relies on the assumption that what is not equals nothing.
Parmenides in his epistemology argues that we can only think about some-
thing, but we cannot possibly think about nothing. Here Plato follows the
same unthinkable nothingness.
However, if not-beautiful can refer either to what is ugly or to what-
ever is neither ugly nor beautiful, then there is a problem of collapsing
the distinction between opposition and negation. Ugly is the opposite of
beautiful. Neither beautiful nor uglynormal lookingis what the logi-
cal negation of beauty entails. If not-beauty can mean normal looking (or
ugly), then it is only something other than being beautiful. Why is nor-
mal totally unknowable? In fact, normal is not nothing but something.
According to the second statement (b), which accepts a person can only
know something, normala possibility of something other than beauti-
fulmust be knowable. So the conclusion (e) is false.
The analysis reveals that the argument is crippled. The argument relies
on two double equations.
The first is a positive argument on the theory of Forms that Plato argues
elsewhere. But here Plato supports the argument that we cannot acquire
the one from the many with the second double equation. Sensibles are
unreliable for true knowledge not only because they are composite enti-
ties, but also because the element of not-being is unknowable. As the
above analysis shows, it turns out that not-being= nothing is false, and the
conclusion not-being= unknowable is also wrong. Therefore, the whole
argument has lost the support of the negative equation.
Is this a cardinal mistake? Yes, because the argument originally relies
on the negative equation to support the position equation. Once one leg
of the argument is false, it brings down the other. What is dragged down
is the proposition that the knowledge of Forms is only possible in and
through Forms. The analysis has shown that the knowledge of Beauty can
be possible through not-beauty as in the case of normal looking. This
is the epistemological path from the many to the one, which Parmenides
denied and Plato rejects. In a Daoist sense, this path can mean experience
by cultivating the immanent presence of Dao in a person and empiri-
platos doctrine of forms87
not-being from having any ontological property. Second, the false equa-
tion of not-being= nothing reduces not-being to non-existence. Third,
the charge of unthinkable nothingness reduces knowing not-being to epis-
temological nonsense and mental ignorance.
Even though the negative argument turns out to be unprovennot-
beingnothingunknowablePlato still uses the noncontradiction prin-
ciple as a filtration device to separate not-being from the pure realm of
being. What has been excluded, as not-being nothing unknowable
shows, does not stand for the opposite of truth, namely, falsehood. Platos
positive argument on Forms has neither proven nor disproved the episte-
mological status of not-being. It has simply excluded it all together.
If philosophy has its chief interest in beings, then knowledge of Forms
has a limited scope. Rational philosophy aims to understand beings; not-
being(s) falls outside of its scope entirely. What Plato has done in the
schema of Forms/knowledge is simply to disassociate being from not-
being and to prioritize knowledge with respect to other understandings
that are not entangled with not-being, which is defined by the problematic
subject negation.
Independent Beings
If Forms are non-immanent, how could the human mind know them?
This question, which the old Parmenides asks the young Socrates in the
Parmenides, does not go away despite the fact that Parmenides arguments
remain unwarranted. Knowledge requires a pathan immanent path
from many to onefor humans to reach beyond sensibles to Forms. If
the path is not there, it is probable that the objects are not knowable but
rather remain as presupposed ideas subsistent on their own.
Summary
In leaving this chapter, it is necessary to point out where the above discus-
sion leads. It leads to the study of the paradoxical dilemma of continu-
ity and discontinuity within ontological unity and the relationship among
multiple unities. This dilemma can be named differently, such as the para-
dox of transcendence and immanence, heterogeneity and homogeneity,
difference and sameness. But the central issue of what these pairs repre-
sent is the noncollapsible tension between one and many. The core of the
one and the many is not the apparent antithesis of transcendence and
immanence, even though philosophies of Greek origin have treated one
and many as a logical problem. Rather it is the issue of how elementary
reality (or realities) has been presupposed in the first place.
The OM problem is the problem of being. Plato rejects pre-Socratic
theories on the basis that many of them promote ontological change.
His doctrine of Forms eliminates the element of not-being in ontology
by making unchanging Forms independent of change. As a result Plato
also creates the independence of being-itself, and each Form is a unity
of commonality within the one over many structure. But the creation of
Forms also creates a problem, the problem of unity over the plural Forms.
Is there another Super Form over all Forms? Here we turn to Platos idea
of the Good.
chapter 5
At the end of the Simile of the Sun, Plato says: What gives the objects of
knowledge their truth and the knowers mind the power of knowing is the
form of the good (508e). . . . The good therefore may be said to be the
source not only of the intelligibility of the objects of knowledge, but also
of their being and reality; yet it is not itself that reality, but beyond it, and
superior to it in dignity and power (509b).
The Form of Good has occupied the supreme position within the doctrine
of Forms. For Plato Forms are related to the supreme Good, on the one
hand, and the Good provides an umbrella over the multiple Forms, on
the other. Discussion on Forms and the Good can be found in various
dialogues: Symposium (205e206a), Phaedo (99c), Republic (509b), Phaedrus
(245e), Philebus (133, 15a), and Timaeus (29e). The scope of the Good is
comprehensive. If Platonic Forms are the objects of knowledge that enable
human minds to be connected with ethical universals and arithmetic theo-
rems and geometric pattens, then Platos Good is the visionary unity of
ethics, mathematics, epistemology, and ontology. If reason follows the
road of knowledge and arrives at transcendental Forms, then Plato envi-
sions at the intellectual summit there stands the Good as the grand unity
of all ends of philosophical wisdom.
Although the idea of the Good occupies a significant position in Platos
thought, Plato has not presented a systematic theory about it. In fact it is
mystical. One could think along lines that attribute new meanings to the
Good: it is a creatorlike god comparable with the Jewish-Christian God or
a grand unifying theory for all cosmological principles. The concept opens
itself to interpretation not simply because of its ambiguity, but because of
its visionary unity rooted in Western consciousness. Historically the Pla-
tonic Good-itself has been a puzzling and thought-provoking concept for
both Neoplatonists and early Christian theologians.1 In recent Platonic
studies, many scholars have reinvestigated the concept, which represents
one of the main puzzles in Platonism.2 It occupies the central position in
91
92 textual studies
Platos Eleatic dialogues, 3 and it is closely associated with the One in the
Parmenides.4 With diverse interpretations, scholars frequently return to
the key set of texts in the Republic where Platos discussion of the Good
is spread through the Simile of the Sun and the Divided Line, the Cur-
riculum for educating philosophers, and the Cave. 5 From these passages,
the collective understanding of the Good can be brought into focus. The
Good is both a vision of wholeness and its harmony.
The following study, however, is not designed to summarize recent
scholarship. It aims to identity key aspects of the Good to prepare for the
comparison of two different forms of the ultimate good in Plato and Ge
Hong.
The Claims
In the passage quoted above, Plato makes three remarkable claims. The
Good is (a) the source of Forms, (b) the power of knowing truth, and
(c) not reality but beyond it on the other side of reality. If the Good
is the beginning of ontological realities and the end of ethical and math-
ematical knowledge, then this ultimate reality itself becomes the alpha of
realities and the omega of intellectual enlightenment. Such a supreme
oneness, which links reality and knowledge, is comparable with Ge Hongs
concept of One, within which ontology and epistemology come to face to
face with each other. For Plato a dialogue with the Good is the intellectual
enlightenment transforming a thinker into a true philosopher. The ques-
tion is how to attain the enlightenment.
In the Simile of the Sun, Plato begins by linking the Good to the sun.
The sun is the source of light that gives visibility to sensible objects (507c);
without light the faculty of sight is unable to see objects. The sun is not
itself sight but the cause of vision (508b). Similarly the Good is the
source of intelligibility to thought that gives the enlightening power to the
faculty of knowledge (509b); without the Good the mind cannot be fixed
on Forms illuminated by truth (508d). The sun causes the processes of
generation, growth, and nourishment without itself being such a process
(509b). Likewise, the Good is not only the source of the intelligibility of
Forms, but their being and existence also come from it (509b).
To understand the simile, we must pay attention to Platos comparison
between the sun/sensibles and the Good/Forms. Both the sun and the
Good transcend sensibles and Forms. Without the sun the sensible world
is imperceptible; without the Good Forms would be unilluminated and
unintelligible. Just as the sun is neither sight nor sensibles, the Good is
neither knowledge nor objects of knowledge (Forms). But they are tran-
scendental causes with the one over many determination that penetrate
two forms of enlightenment93
what has been caused. Without the sun, generation, growth, and nourish-
ment of sensibles will not be possible. Without the Good, the existence of
Forms will not be possible.
If we examine Platos three claims in conjunction with the one over
many structure, the Good is (a) the ontological cause of Forms, (b) the
epistemological cause for Forms to be intelligible, and (c) the connection
between reality and mind. Putting these claims in the language of one over
many, (a) the One Good predicates many Formsunity over plurality,
(b) the one enlightens the mind to see many Forms, and (c) the Good
is the one over many connection between Forms and minds.
These three points can be visualized as follows.
The Good
In this diagram, the first claim (a) seems self-explanatory. It claims that
the Good predicates Forms, just as the sun shines on sensibles. The predi-
cation is a determinative cause over many Forms. The second claim (b)
indicates that the mind must be enlightened by the Good; otherwise even
if Forms are illuminated and self-evident the mind cannot see them. If
these two one over many relations are relatively straightforward, the third
one (c)the Good as the connection between Forms and mindsis not.
But the third is crucial because if the connection is not there, then Forms
will not be accessible to the mind.
Intellectual Mountaintop
In the seventh book of the Republic, Plato has designed a curriculum of two
stages to train philosophers. The first stage includes five mathematical dis-
ciplines: arithmetic, plane and solid geometry, astronomy, and harmonics.
The second stage involves the procedures of dialectic. The mathematical
studies ultimately pave the path to the pure philosophy of dialectic. To
two forms of enlightenment95
Plato, the capacity for knowledge is innate in each persons mind (518c).
Although this faculty of knowing is an inborn capacity of humanity, Plato
makes it clear that it is not a natural habit for humans to look beyond
transitory phenomena. The mind must be turned away from the world of
change until its eye can bear to look straight at reality. And ultimately it
has to gaze at the brightest of all realitiesthe Good (518d). Although
reasons location in the human soul is identical to the logos within the
World Soul, humans must connect and conduct a dialogue with the for-
mal cause of knowledge. Education for philosophers, therefore, should
achieve two objectives: turning away from the actual world of change to
the ideal world of Form and turning toward the Good. The first objective
aims to bridge the distance between the mind and the rational models of
the world through reason. The second objective should create a fusion
between the soul and the Good through dialectic.
To achieve the first objective of reasoning, Plato presents the first of
the five disciplines, arithmetic, to train abstract thinking beyond the pre-
liminary stage of character building, which involves physical and musical
training. Plato argues that arithmetic represents a situation of one and
many. Each number is a unity; the whole of numbers forms an unlimited
plurality (525a). Like the Pythagoreans, Plato believes the study of num-
bers is extraordinarily effective for envisioning the world, which consists
of abstract unities similar to numbers. Arithmetic trains the mind for cal-
culative reasoning and right value judgment, and converts thinking from
the world of becoming to that of [mathematical] reality and truth (525c).
Plane and solid geometries are the disciplines that train the mind to
engage with the basic structure of the world. Unlike physical shapes, geo-
metric Forms are not liable to change and decay (527b). They demon-
strate the interconnectedness of lines, angles, circles, and surfaces. Within
geometric structures basic principles, such as the Pythagorean theorem,
can be rationally formulated. For Plato all principles are intrinsically good;
hence the reasoning mind must further apprehend the common good-
ness in mathematical studies. Plato later explains in the Timaeus that the
goodness in the Republic actually is the divine purpose. Collectively those
patterns express the harmony of the Good. With this cosmic vision, Plato
argues that the study of geometry has the practical end of making it easier
to see the form of the good (526e).
Based on the hypothesis that astronomy is mathematical (530b), Plato
insists that celestial movements have a mathematical nature. Astronomy is
a form of celestial geometry. It explains the visible heavens by the reduc-
tion of phenomena to invisible geometric patterns. To be sure, this is the
astronomical amplification of the doctrine of Forms. Finally it is the disci-
96 textual studies
levels of knowledge in the Line. This aborts the whole drama at the most
exciting stage. Instead, Plato treats the Good as one of Forms and repeats
what has been said earlier. Through his rhetoric he restates the original
proposal that dialectic is the only way to know what the good in itself is
(534c). Such a detour leaves readers with little to go on in order to answer
the question of how the mind makes the final step to dialogue with the
Good. It makes them question what Plato said earlier: So when one tries
to get at what each thing is in itself by the exercise of dialectic, relying on
reason without any aid from the senses, and refuses to give up until one
has grasped by pure thought what the good is in itself, one is at the summit
of the intellectual realm (532a, b).
If we do not interpret the saying too literally, it should make the same
claim made earlier that the Good is the epistemological cause. But this is a
proposition, not a conclusion. How is the mind grasped by the Good? Or
does Plato suggest that the causation of knowledge produced by the Good
is entirely unexplainable? What can be said about the causation refers
to the minds intuitive pursuit to capture the Good by which it has been
captured.
Returning to the earlier question, has Plato shown us the path of
enlightenment? The answer is simply no. When we read Platos Curricu-
lum as a whole, it is evident that Platos intellectual ascent involves two dis-
courses, one on the training of mathematical reasoning through five dis-
ciplines, the other on the critical procedure that moves the mind beyond
assumptions. Dialectic does not only ensure the coherence of knowledge,
but also attains communication with the Good. Although Plato has not
demonstrated how mathematics, astronomy, and harmonics converge into
a synthesis, it is his conviction that the world is a created harmony princi-
pally animating the Good. So mathematical principles are related through
the one over many determination and become structures of the cosmos.
Platos hypothesis of a mathematical universe is undoubtedly one of
the most brilliant and enduring ideas in intellectual history. However,
within Platos grand unity, there is an unbridged gap between the Good
and those disciplines. The second discourse is supposed to close the gap,
but the dialectic ends with another gap between dialectic and the Good.
This later gap further confirms that the earlier gap in the first discourse is
actually situated at the higher end of the Divided Linebetween knowl-
edge and its cause.
If we return to the diagram, what remains to be explained is how the
Good and dialectic form a fusion between the cause of knowledge and wis-
dom. This fusion is essential. Without this fusion the mind cannot reach
the Forms that the Good has produced. But it is evident that the road from
98 textual studies
ray of the Good warms the hearts of those who gaze at it. To communi-
cate with the Good is actually a passive act of receiving rather than a pur-
poseful act of apprehending. The Good would create a top-down flow
from the Good to human minds on the condition that the mind had been
instructed by the dialectic to be cognitively lowly positioned to receive
whatever the Good would flow into it. The final stage of dialectic is not
a two-way dialogue between the mind and the Good at all. Rather it is a
single-directional flow, which Christian theology calls revelation.
If the Good is the self-revealing and self-active cause for the mind to
recognize truth, then another disturbing question emerges. Is there really
the need to insist, Dialectic in fact is the only procedure . . . to the very
first principle of everything (533b)? No. The dialectic is not the only way,
but one of many methods.
What really happens to a dialectician at the summit of the intellectual
realm remains a mystery. Plato is confident that the procedure of dialectic
leads the mind to encounter the vision of the best among realities (532c)
and that intellectual vision later assists the procedure to determine first
principles (533b). Why does Plato here change the prefix of the Good
from Form (which speaks in various passages) to vision? As a Form,
the Good must have absolute clarity like any other Form, whereas vision is
equivocal. We can only gather hints from the Simile of the Sun. The anal-
ogy of the sun/Good depicts the Good to be more of an intuitive impres-
sion than a rational definition, more of what the Good analogically is than
of what the Good absolutely is. The sun is the brightest reality of the visible
realm; the Good is comparatively the brightest reality in the invisible
realm. But in the Simile we get no explanation of why it is the vision, not
the Form, of the Good that inspires a dialectician to attain the highest
point of his wisdom.
For Ge Hong it makes sense to treat the Good as an intuitive vision
rather than conforming to a particular Form. The moment of enlight-
enment is nothing other than the process of breaking down the barrier
between the mind and the world. Ge Hong would agree with Plato on
the point that the vision of Good over Forms is essentially about the relat-
edness of Forms in and through the Good. That is Platos cosmological
point. But for Ge Hong the unity cannot be a numerical oneness that the
Form of the Good denotes. It has to be a unity of relatedness in which
there is room for plural Forms to relate to each other. They are related
not because the determination of the Good penetrates through every one
of them, but because within the unity there exists the infinite land of
no form and no trace. All perceivable boundaries between plural things
become unseeable.
100 textual studies
Summary
The investigation of Platos one over many begins with his answer to the
pre-Socratic OM debate. The textual study in this chapter has looked at
two forms of enlightenment103
During the Western Han (202 BCAD 9), a dynasty before Ge Hong, there
was a widespread belief in the existence of immortals. Archaeological evi-
dence discovered over the last few decades has revealed a belief in immor-
tality expressed in art and iconography with strong cosmological symbol-
ism in pre-Buddhist China.1 The hope for immortality was mainly focused
on the subjects of death, burial ceremonies, and the theology of postmor-
tal existence. Contrary to the belief in life after death, one of Ge Hongs
obscure arguments is his life without death doctrine. His Shenxian zhuan
represents a different way to express the belief in the existence of
immortals and resembles the biographical genre of the Liexian zhuan
by Liu Xiang (77 BCAD 6?).
The Inner Chapters contains Ge Hongs attempt to systematize these
beliefs in immortality, to defend them against their detractors, and to insist
on their core value for his tradition. In the second chapter, On Immortal-
ity (lunxian ), he argues that physical immortality is possible. In two
alchemical chapters, Golden Elixirs (jindan ) and Yellow White
(huangbai ), he reveals his unshaken faith that physical immortal-
ity can be attained through the practice of instrumental alchemy. In the
eighteenth chapter, Earthly Truth (dizhen ), he builds his ethics and
political philosophy on the basis of these beliefs. These writings formulate
Ge Hongs doctrine of immortal beings. On the one hand, it insists that
suffering and death can be avoided. On the other hand, it forms an ethical
platform upon which he presents his religious ethics by defining what life
is and how it ought to be lived.
104
ge hongs doctrine of immortal beings105
Hermeneutical Difficulties
To say that the doctrine of immortals is central to Daoism does not entail
that it is problem-free. Given the perception of finite life as defined by
modern biology, people reject the belief of immortality. In a world influ-
enced by postenlightenment rationalism, Ge Hongs physical immortal-
ity, Platos psychological immortality, and Christs resurrection belong
to ancient dreams mythologized by religions. Immortality is a biological,
medical, and ethical problem.
The problem is not new. If life has a beginning, it should also have an
end (IC 12). Ge Hong understood and addressed this criticism. Although
he did not solve the problem of finite existence, the basis of modern biol-
ogy, his arguments remain inspirational. Compared with Daoist physical
immortality, it is easier for modern people to take the Platonic position
ge hongs doctrine of immortal beings107
The first premise (a) is false. Sleeping and awakening are two opposites
based on the continuation of being alive. But it is false to say death and
life are opposites. In a Daoist view, living and being dead are not opposites
because there is no continuity between them. Death is the discontinuation
of life, and there is no continuity from death to life. In Ge Hongs writing,
there is no mention of rebirth and reincarnation. Plato relies on the doc-
trine of rebirth to assume that there is a continuation between death and
life. But it is an assumption. Then Plato uses the continuity in (b) to justify
the assumption. The second premise (b) is conditional. A cup of hot water
can get cold. But hot and cold are varied temperatures of water. Cold does
not generate hot, nor does death generate life. The conclusion (d) has
only repeated the proposition on circular rebirth, which is an assumption
to be proven, not a conclusion to be reached. Therefore, the argument is
circular, and the conclusion is unjustified.
Plato has not proven the immortality of the soul in the argument. Even
in the Phaedo he is unsure as to whether he has produced proof or not.
The idea of immortality, however, remains as a central motif in Platos psy-
chology of ethics. Plato often signals that approximations and myths are
the best we can hope for in these matters. Nevertheless, the souls home-
coming to Reason is the overtone played out in various dialogues, such
as the Crito, Gorgias, Meno, Phaedo, Republic, and Timaeus. It is Platos con-
viction that life is more than physical existence. The conviction is ampli-
fied in the story of Socrates death. Although Socrates accepted death,
he refused to let his life be defined by the approach of death. Instead he
envisioned that within human life there is something intrinsically divine
and imperishable.
This something is the soul, and it plays the same role as Daoist Qi.
It carries the continuity between now and then, between the essence of
human life and eternal Reason. Death can interrupt bodily life, but the
continuity of Qi cannot be broken by it. The argument of the imperish-
able soul also implies that philosophers do not have a monopoly on this
continuity; rather, the rational part of the soul is inborn in everyone. As
an enlightened philosopher, Socrates fully activated reason in his mind
and discovered its continuity with the cosmic logos. In comparison, ordi-
nary people are not yet aware of this natural endowment and still seek
happiness in appetitive desire, sexual passion, and ambition for power. As
Socrates departed from his life, he was convinced that his earthly depar-
ture was also a homecoming to the realm of reason, the place of his souls
true yearning and happiness. True happiness, like the Form of the Good,
is not physical but immaterial, not worldly but otherworldly (79d).
ge hongs doctrine of immortal beings111
At this point, if his opponent accepts C3, the original criticism has no
basis. This is the point that Ge Hong aims to establish. As he puts it, It is
not possible from short-sighted mundane perceptions to deduce the far-
reaching purpose of immortals (IC 49).20
Are the above arguments sufficient to answer Wang Chongs criticism?
No, at least not directly. But the arguments service the apologetic purpose.
ge hongs doctrine of immortal beings113
existence. (2) If the Confucian consensus cannot grasp immortal life, then
a new ethics needs to be introduced. Therefore, the main argument is quite
straightforward. These two points have pushed the boundary of ethics.
Primordial Gods
Only three primordial gods are mentioned in Ge Hongs writings. The
Book inside the Pillow (Zhenzhong shu ) says, The Heavenly Lord of
the Primordial Beginning already existed as the vigor of the
precosmos. 34 The text indicates that Ge Hong had the highest deity in
118 textual studies
Natural Gods
Daoists believe that gods dwell in the midst of the myriad things. Contrary
to the primordial gods who existed prior to creation, natural gods came
to existence together with the created world. Natural gods often refer to
celestial gods who are generated to maintain the celestial order. The sun,
the moon, the Twenty-Eight Constellations, and the five planets are the
bodies of those natural gods. For instance, among fifteen polar stars in the
Purple Palace (zigong ), the first one, where the son of heaven per-
manently dwells, is called ziwei (AT 290). Even time is turned by sixty
natural gods. Each god represents a defining point in a sixty-year cycle (see
Figures 6.2, 6.3).
Similar to the gods of Greek mythology, Daoist natural gods all have
anthropomorphic representations. But unlike Greek gods, who do not
necessarily possess physical form, each Daoist natural god takes a unique
celestial body and occupies a permanent time-space location. And the
body (astral, planetary, and human) is closely associated with this time-
space location. Here is another issue with great philosophical significance.
Time is not an independent concept, but relates to space as well. Without
spatial characteristics, the gods of the Twenty-Eight Constellations cannot
define four sections of celestial time. I will come back to this point in the
study of Ge Hongs alchemical universe.
In Ge Hongs doctrine of immortals, natural gods are less frequently
mentioned in celestial context, but they do appear in internal cultivation.
The Preservation of the One involves an inward journey to meet inter-
nal gods. The aim of the cultivation is to realize that the internal gods in
the physiological environment are beings consubstantial with those of the
celestial world. As we have seen already, this distinctive feature of inner-
outer correspondence derived from the medical tradition represented
by the Huangting jing . The free movements of the gods between
two environments create a river to channel the flow of Qi, hence closing
the distance between the body, on the one hand, and the cosmos and its
energies, on the other. Having attained this level of realization, the adept
empties his body and adopts the cosmos as his body, so his bodily transfor-
mation actually ensures that the body and the spirit can form an unbreak-
able bond.
This permanent unity is celestial, since the natural gods never leave
their celestial bodies behind. Likewise, the adept will always flow with the
course of Nature, just as natural gods will always rely on Qi to empower
their activities and to ensure that the myriad things can have the natural
environment to exist. Natural gods all have their created beginning but no
120 textual studies
teleological ending. If the adept can join this community, there is immor-
tality. To attain non-ageing status means to abide in the natural flow that
always changes.
Another group of natural gods is the earthly ones. Mountains regard-
less of whether they are large or small have indwelling gods (IC 299).37
Mountain gods can cause both good and evil, just as water can either float
a ship or sink it. To conduct alchemical practice in a selected mountain
site, alchemists usually bring various talismans to protect themselves from
demonic influences and to seek guidance from mountain gods.
Ge Hong has recorded various talismans derived from two inherited
texts: the Scripture of Numinous Treasure (Lingbao jing ) and the True
Forms of the Five Marchmounts (Wuyue zhenxing tu ) (IC 302314).
Some talismans perform a function similar to a modern map with contour
lines to give directions and guidance to hikers. In the Ge Hong context,
these talismans represent the pulses of living mountains to indicate the flow
ge hongs doctrine of immortal beings121
of natural forces, similar to pulses in the human body that Chinese doctors
use to diagnose internal conditions. They are the means to communicate
with mountain gods and to seek secure paths in a dangerous environment
(see Figure 6.4). Similar to celestial gods, mountain gods on earth repre-
sent fundamental forces of Nature. Alchemists always sought ways to go
with Nature rather against it. Before conducting instrumental alchemy, the
preparation also involves a ritual to invoke mountain gods and local earth
gods to bless and participate in the alchemical practice (IC 74).
Immortal Humans
Most of the immortals in Ge Hongs Biographies belong to the category
of immortal humans. Unlike natural gods who take celestial and earthly
entities as their bodily forms, immortals are born in human form. Almost
all immortals in the Biographies were historical figures. They include Laozi
and the Master of the Upper Stream , the early commentator on the
122 textual studies
Fig. 6.2 (above and facing page). The natural gods of the Twenty-Eight
Constellations. (Reproduced by permission of the Chinese Daoist Association
from Zhongguo Daojiao Xiehui, ed., Daojiao shenxian huaji [Beijing: Huaxia
chubanshe, 1995], 60)
Laozi. Some immortals lived several centuries earlier than Ge Hong: the
founder of the Daoist movement (Zhang Daoling ), the prince of
Liu An , the Mohist Master (Mozi ). Some belonged to the tradi-
tion of alchemy, such as the pioneer of theoretical alchemy Wei Boyang
, and three alchemists of Ge Hongs family tradition.
These adepts were born in ordinary human form but lived extraordi-
nary lives. They did not only contribute their wisdom to the great knowl-
edge of Dao, but also practiced the Dao and lived out the Way through
their lives. The living stories of historical persons in the genre of hagiog-
raphy represents a strong sense of the incarnation of Dao in human lives.
Later artists also carried the persistent humanism and portrayed them in
primarily human form (see Figure 6.5). Their immortal attributes were
ge hongs doctrine of immortal beings123
Fig. 6.3. The Sixty Primordial Asterisms. Before adopting the Western calendar,
the ancient Chinese used a sixty-year calendar cycle. These male and female
immortals are believed to be responsible for the turning of cyclical time. (Repro-
duced by permission of the Chinese Daoist Association from Zhongguo Daojiao
Xiehui, ed., Daojiao shenxian huaji [Beijing: Huaxia chubanshe, 1995], 70)
Fig. 6.4. Two groups of talismans. In the chapter Climbing and Wading
Ge Hong unveils the sacred inscriptions that are used to enter into unfamiliar
mountain routes. (Rewritten in calligraphy by the author from the original in
the Inner Chapters 309, 11)
historical adepts and to preserve the creative Qi in their bodily lives so that
they too may become living examples of Dao. The liberation of the spirit
and the prolongation of the body together form the collective story of the
reality of the One, in which no distinction of the body and the spirit can be
drawn at the primordial level.
Another remarkable feature of immortal humans is that of socially
immanent beings. Ge Hong makes the point vividly in the hagiography of
the Master of Whitestone (Biographies, chapter 2, 1). The immor-
tal appeared to be in no hurry to make his ascension. Others asked him
why. He replied, How can one assume that heaven is a happier place than
the realm of humans? Social immanency is expressed through parables
of miracles with which the immortals are associated. Ge Hong recalled
the story of Zhang Daoling of the Eastern Han period. Zhang was
the founder of organized Daoist movement known as the Religion of Five
Measures of Rice (wudoumi dao ). Zhang had over ten thousand
followers who all contributed personal possessions, including five mea-
sures of rice, to be used to build bridges and roads. But what really made
people flock to him was his knowledge of how to heal the sick, and the
arts of longevity (Biographies, chapter 4, 3).
With respect to the five female immortals mentioned in chapter 7, Ge
A B C
D E F
Fig. 6.5. Some of the immortals portrayed in Ming dynasty woodcuts by Wang
Shizhen (15261593), selected to illustrate the persistent humanism in
Ge Hongs hagiographical tradition. The names of the adepts are a, Laozi
; b, the Ancestor Peng ; c, the Master of Accomplishments ; d, the
Lady Xuan ; e, the Master of Whitestone ; f, the prince of Liu An
; g, Wei Boyang and Yu Sheng ; h, Zhang Daoling ; i, Fei
Changsheng and the Pot Master ; j, Ma Gu , Wang Yuan
and Cai Jing ; and k, Ge Xuan . The images are modern reproductions
of the Ming versions in Youxiang liexian quanzhuan (1783).
(Courtesy of Hebei Meishu Chubanshe; reprinted from Wang Shizhen, Liexian
quanzhuan [Shijiazhuang: Hebei meishu chubanshe, 1996], 1, 20, 9, 44, 54, 61,
83, 84, 100, 99, 104)
ge hongs doctrine of immortal beings127
G H I
J K
Long-Lived Humans
Those who have attained long life are only beginners on the soteriological
journey. But they can still die. Ge Hong calls them those who have entered
the path of Dao (rudaozhe ). In the hagiography of Master Peng,
a distinction between immortal humans and long-lived humans is drawn.
Immortal humans are those who ingest primordial Qi for nourishment
and have transformed their original identity by the means of preserving
the changing Qi. On the contrary, longevity refers to those humans who
eat pure food, dress in simple clothes, communicate with Yin-Yang, and
are involved in social governance. Every one has the inborn Qi, but this
group, although they do not know Daoist arts, have lived appropriately.
So it is not unusual to see people of one hundred twenty years of age.
Having said this, Ge Hong points out that they cannot attain immortality
(chapter 1, 4).
The distinction between the two is basically the difference between
immortality and longevity. They are not equal, but overlapping. Longev-
ity still has a limited end conditioned by death. Immortality is the exten-
sion of longevity with no definite ending. The central difference between
the two rests in the transformation of the original body. Immortals have
turned the body inside out by preserving life permanently within, whereas
long-lived humans have not changed the natural process of aging during
which the bond of the body and inborn Qi is increasingly loosened. The
two kinds of body also require different food. Immortals can practice the
way of living without grain foods. The practice of abstaining from grains
is traditionally called bigu .38 As natural gods draw energy from the
universal Qi, immortals draw nourishment directly from Nature literally by
eating Qi. On the contrary, humans do not know the arts of preservation
and still rely on ordinary food to sustain the body.
For Ge Hong, longevity is the best that humans can achieve within a
normal course of life. It can be managed by medicine. Ge Hongs medi-
cal approach includes physical exercise, dietary regulation, emotional self-
care, sexual arts, controlled release of reproductive energy, and prevention
of illness. Immortality, however, can only be obtained through alchemical
means. Among the four degrees of soteriology, it is clear that the state
of longevity ranked as the lowest. Within mainstream Daoist traditions,
however, the adepts never seek any shortcut to bypass longevity in order
to arrive at immortality. Immortality is a religious life that begins with
daily living, and longevity is a style that builds upon those habits. Manag-
ge hongs doctrine of immortal beings129
ing the body and nourishing life requires extreme attention to the finest
details. One cannot neglect small exercises because they bring out small
benefits, nor can one forget illness prevention because small sicknesses
do not bring great harm immediately (IC 240).39 Because the body-spirit
bond requires both the house and its occupant, daily nourishment to
the body is a necessary way of life to produce the health that becomes the
physical foundation upon which the inside-out transformation might pos-
sibly be constructed.
One may ask what these movements really are in less metaphysical
language. The answer is time. The arrows are the material form of time.
Unlike modern linear time, time is cyclical in Daoism. Unlike modern
abstract time, the Daoist concept of time is concrete. And time is filled
with material things, not transcendent and abstract ideas. Both material
time and cyclic time become central in Ge Hongs instrumental alchemy.
Here we encounter the genealogical feature of time. Time is measured
by recorded generations with real names and historical circumstances,
including Ge Hongs hagiographical tradition. Chinese genealogy is not
just a record of ancestry, but also a process of generation and transforma-
tion of that ancestry, an unfolding time with nameable individuals.
This time is also bidirectional. Life comes out of formlessness, and this
is also the point of eternal return. Ordinary life and immortal life are not
two different kinds of life, yet there is only one bodily life. Within human-
ity, there is the natural endowment of Qi that makes the continuation pos-
sible. Qi is capable of being evoked. Within the cosmos, there is also the
same cosmic potency that unites natural gods into one life beyond their
plural and irreducible existences. The more thought-provoking question
is this: what is the continuity that penetrates the discontinuity of humans
and Nature? For Ge Hong, it is the ontological life that springs out of the
inner being of Xuan-One and actualizes itself into the genealogical tree
the plurality of the worldwith the single evolutionary life. This life is
ontologically immortal.
ge hongs doctrine of immortal beings131
Among the three parts of the soul, only the rational part is fully depen-
dent on the Good. The mingling of the soul and the Good, therefore,
speaks for the homecoming of the soul to the cause of Forms and the
world. It is an ethical model of the many becoming the one. The hierarchy
of the three can also be schematized in terms of degrees of closeness to
the one.
the rational the most good the one immaterial World Soul
the emotional the less good
the appetitive the least good the many material World Body
132 textual studies
The connection between the essence of life and the essence of the
world is comparable with Ge Hongs doctrine of immortals. However, two
questions set the two apart. What is the ultimate good? For Plato, it is the
rational soul in unity with the immaterial logos. For Ge Hong, it is the
body-spirit bond that surpasses human finitude and is absorbed into the
ongoing process of change in Nature. Change is good because the primor-
dial state of change is creative and enduring. For Plato, change is bad. The
reward of the most good-dependent is a disembodied existence, similar to
Buddhist enlightenment. The enlightened are not reincarnated (as in the
Phaedo)they live as disembodied souls. Only those who are contaminated
by matter are reincarnated. In the Republic, as the scene of reincarnation
of souls appears before Er, what catches his attention is the central struggle
for the souls to choose a better fate for the next life. The soul struggles not
because it has few options, but because there are too many attractive ones
(618d619a). The moral lesson beyond the myth is that one should know
earlier (before death) the knowledge and ability to tell a good life from a
bad one (618c). Like Buddhist reincarnation, the current ethical life has
direct consequences in next life. The freedom of choice of what is most
appropriate in the next life depends upon the ethical knowledge to distin-
guish good from bad that has been learned in the previous life.
For Plato, the essence of life is the soul. Only the rational part of the
soul has continued existence beyond death in a disembodied state. For Ge
Hong, it is Qi preserved by the body. The doctrine of immortals persistently
argues the body-spirit bond as the true identity of human existence. Platos
doctrine of the soul, on the contrary, separates the soul from the body with
the antithesis of rational/irrational, immaterial/material in the hierarchy
of the Good. Plato even says that death is the liberation of the soul from
the body. The historical Socrates was brought to trial for corrupting youth.
He was found guilty and was ordered to drink poison. We have already
encountered the story in Platos Phaedo, but here is another comparative
perspective. It would be a shocking idea for Ge Hong that Socratesthe
spokesman of Platoturns the death penalty into a voluntary suicide
with his conviction that death is not the end. In the last hours of his life,
Socrates told his friends, as if he had always been waiting for this moment,
that whoever practices philosophy in the proper manner is practicing for
dying and death and that, as if his departure was for the greater good
after death, a true philosopher is to be of good cheer in the face of death
and to be very hopeful that after death he will attain the greatest blessings
yonder (63e64a). Then he went on to prove the immortality of the soul
as the true happiness waiting for all philosophers.
Second, if death is the end of the body, why is it not the end of the soul?
ge hongs doctrine of immortal beings133
For Ge Hong, the body without the soul is a corpse, and the soul with-
out the body is a mere ghost. Neither a corpse nor a ghost has ontology
because to be an ontological entity requires the living relation of a body
and a soul. H
owever, Platos doctrine of the soul rests upon the assumption
that the soul has ontological independence from the body. The immortal-
ity of the soul goes hand in hand with the eternity of Forms. Even if all
chairs in the world had been destroyed, the ideal Chair would still exist.
Even if the body was gone, the soul would still exist. The premise death
is the separation of the body and the soul reaffirms the assumption and
leads to the belief that death is the liberation of the soul from the body.
From the Daoist point of view, Platos intellectual enlightenment, which
involves body-spirit separation, entails misery. Ghosts and demonic spirits
are never happy. They always try to abduct someone elses body to become
a functional reality (IC 299). It is troubling to accept the immortality of the
soul on both grounds that the soul has independent ontology, on the one
hand, and death is the liberation for the essence of life, on the other. Why
should one place all hope on postmortal existence?
vigor of his blood [xueqi ]. After all this, the Real-One shall be pre-
served, three spirits and seven gods will be internally kept, hundreds of
diseases can be kept away, and life is extended. (IC 326327)
Knowledge is only possessed by a small class of wise rulers. They are the
legislators of laws, and the laws reflect the metaphysical order of the world
(428c, 429e430b). Also in the Laws 12, philosophers use these meta-
physical and transcendental principles to frame consistent rules of moral
action (967de). The Platonic law has a function similar to Confucian
moral codes. Ethics provide moral guidance to individuals, whereas peo-
ple should exercise self-control and follow social rituals defined according
to the principle of heaven. Confucius states, To limit the self and to obey
the ritual is called benevolence. 44 This virtue of benevolence is first of all
an inner quality belonging to the sage. Similarly Platos idea of the just
person is fundamentally a psychological condition. Each part of the soul
does its job in the one over many hierarchy. Rationality rules emotion and
controls appetite (442ab).
Fig. 6.6. The just soul and the just state in Platos
hierarchy of One over many
ge hongs doctrine of immortal beings137
Three Similarities?
The parallelism of the just soul and state shows some similarities with Ge
Hongs correlation of the body-state. The two thinkers agree on the cen-
tral idea that morality is the foundation of politics. But they stand by two
distinct doctrines: the immortal soul and immortal life. Apart from the
central idea, they agree on three principles.
Only those who have preserved the vigor of life can possibly preserve the
vigor of the country. Looking after Qi and looking after the people are
one and same method. For Plato the model of the just state is the just
soul and vice versa. In fact the investigation of justice in the individual is
placed in the context of seeking true justice in the state. Ge Hongs medi-
cal approach emphasizes movement from the inner to the outer. Appar-
ently the medical approach and psychological modeling set these political
philosophies apart. But the idea of inner virtue enabling outer ruling
underlies the shared principle that morality is the core of politics.
If the king errs, will the top-down structure cause immeasurable suffer-
ing to the ordinary people below?
loving the people, just as the emperor loves his own life, his oneness will
be preserved by the many. This principle of cultivating Qi and loving the
people (yangqi aimin ) turns the social hierarchy upside down.
In the hierarchy, ordinary people are inferior and therefore suppressed.
Like the historical Confucius, who lobbied feudal lords to take ordinary
citizens seriously during the war-torn Spring and Autumn period (722481
BC), Ge Hong says, When people are scattered, the state will fall; when
Qi is exhausted, life comes to an end. Having been a government official
for almost ten years, Ge Hong clearly sees what can cause a dynasty to
fall. Water can carry a ship but can also sink it. When the peoples well-
being is sacrificed for the unity of the state, various forms of social unrest
emerge. As the passage clearly explains, People are difficult to administer
but easy to endanger; Qi is difficult to make lucid but easy to make turbid.
Whoever turns against Nature will be punished by it. Whoever governs a
state by running against the people will be overrun. Therefore, to love the
people is not a gratuitous act of charity, but a moral obligation.
For Ge Hong, loving the people signifies much more than a personal
virtue since the virtue has a cosmogonical origin. Just as love is a natural
expression of parents toward their children, the genealogical unfolding
of the Dao is an act of love to empty oneself into the many; in so doing,
life truly finds its continuation. If the emperor can empty himself into the
many, he will ride on the harmonious flow of social Qi in the likeness of
immortals who glide on the cosmic potency. Thus he becomes a free man.
One becomes many so that many may become one.
This one under many model has a radical implication. It is not just for
the emperor, but also for every citizen. In a society where people passively
accepted predestination, Ge Hong urged the people to look inwardly and
listen to the inner flow of life and to contemplate nothingness as if the
emptied body has no heart rate (IC 17).47 Instead of seeking endless pos-
sessions and building luxurious tombs, people should break to free from
self-imprisonment and realize that deep inside the body something is con-
stantly flowing. Just as with the Preservation of the One, Ge Hong argues
that knowing immortal existence is a matter of openness. When a person
opens the body to be a receptacle of Qi, the experience of the embodied
Dao will set the people free from individual self-centredness to cosmic per-
sonhood. Human destiny can be changed if one returns to the core of life.
For Ge Hong openness toward the Dao holds the key to a renewed life.
This is a common virtue of all immortals, and everyone can possess this
virtue. To learn the way of immortals, one must empty himself, let go of
voracious desires, take an inward journey, and cultivate nothingness and
peace (IC 17).
ge hongs doctrine of immortal beings141
For the body to attain longevity, each single organism must be a healthy
part with complete wholeness. A forest cannot have continued existence
without individual trees flourishing. For the state to turn into a dynasty,
each single citizen must be able to live a life with full potential. That means
that each single one of the many should be one, ideally a cosmic being
who lives to the full potential of the created nature. An ocean cannot be
timeless unless each species can be sustained. For the state to be a web of
social Qi, each citizen ought to be a being free to personify the Dao in his
or her social location. To achieve this natural status, the emperor must act
like Nature. That is to be indeterminate. By humbling himself to the lowest
position, by emptying his identity into the many, he is no longer a ruler. He
is an open ocean into which streams of living water flow. Within this open
and confident being, individuals evolve in accordance with whatever kind
of body-spirit Nature has given to them. What he can do despite his humil-
ity, however, is to create a healthy condition of the body in which each part
of the body forms a relational unity. People can then form a harmonious
unity inwardly connected by Qi. He can achieve this most complex aspect
of politics with the simplest virtue. Love is that one empties oneself into
the many.
When the ruler can translate virtue into praxis, he becomes the living
example for the people to follow. Each one becomes life-giving to others,
just as different organisms in a healthy body share a single life by support-
ing each other. Having in mind the ancient Yellow Emperor who ruled the
country out of the synthesis of wisdom and immortality, Ge Hong argues
that the perfect model of a statesman ought to resemble the virtue of
mingling wisdom and health (IC 148). By cultivating the body, the body
can be prolonged, and by governing the state, the state will attain eternal
peace (IC 148).48 Politics, then, becomes the extension of the soteriologi-
cal pursuit to enhance and sustain the life of humanity. Ruling is like heal-
ing. Once health is restored, then visionary policies for the prolongation
of the state can be effective. When each citizen becomes a cosmic being,
a personified Dao, society becomes a harmonious community in the like-
ness of the four modes of immortals portrayed in the Biographies. What
interweaves individuals together is not power but life. The genealogical
unfolding Dao carries the many, supports individuals health, and unifies
them into a relational whole. This is the model of humanity. Not only are
the body and the state isomeric, but the state and Nature are too.
If many illnesses exist, it is impossible to attain longevity. If hundreds
of social illnesses exist, no longevity is foreseeable for a dynasty. To attain
bodily longevity requires daily care of the body and the right methods to
preserve the One. To achieve social longevity, one needs compassion for
142 textual studies
the people and the right policies to restore their well-being. And impor-
tantly, the emperor cannot do it alone. The wisest people are required
to assist the emperor to implement this medical-political program, espe-
cially Daoists. But a Daoist emperor should not exclude Confucianism alto-
gether. What the principle of cultivating Qi and loving people hopes to
achieve is a goal shared by Daoists and New-Text Confucian ethics. But
where New-Text Confucianism sees the emperor as the cosmic being, Dao-
ist ethics wishes to transform every person into a miniature of the Dao.
In Daoist soteriology, the door to immortal life is closed to the wealthy
who are burdened by their possessions. But it is open to the poor whose
simplicity is the primary asset in transforming themselves into empty yet
open vessels.
Summary
The One becomes the many so that the many may be one. These two pro-
cesses can be summarized with two Chinese words: diversification (fen )
and unification (he ). The doctrine of immortal beings professes that by
preserving the One, the continuity of ontological life, humans are capable
of embarking on the journey of return from the many to the One. In the
overall scheme of Ge Hongs one and many, the doctrine contains a bio-
logical model of the one and many discussion. If the doctrine of Xuan Dao
presents the one and many discussion in a cosmological framework and
the many are dealt with in terms of genealogical oneness, then immortals
are incarnations of the One, and the One is dealt with in the framework
the many.
The ethical implication of the one and many shares a common interest
with Platos doctrine of the soul, that is, to seek conformity with the worlds
origin. Although both Ge Hongs soteriological ethics and Platos psycho-
logical ethics aim to establish an ontological base for human life, the very
idea of the One sets the two apart. For Ge Hong, the One within many
is the continuity of Qi into which humans ought to abide. For Plato, Rea-
son is the one over many logos toward which souls ought to transcend.
Qi spontaneously changes, whereas Reason never changes. Thus Daoist
immortal beings are presented in the genre of a religious anthropology
in which transformation of the body becomes a central theme. Platonic
immortal souls are presented in the context of intellectual ascent toward
the realm of eternal Forms where change is absent. Daoist immortals cher-
ish spontaneous and bodily life, whereas philosophical souls celebrate
rationality and disembodied enlightenment. The political philosophies of
both thinkers also diverge according to these core ontological differences.
Pa r t T w o
Comparative Ontology
Why is not-being denied ontological properties? And why is being the start-
ing point of ontology? The following three chapters on comparative ontol-
ogy proceed from such basic questions.
Key issues in comparative ontology shall be investigated by looking at
how the concepts of being and not-being are categorized in Platos dia-
logues and how Daoist not-being (wu ) and being (you ) are used in Ge
Hongs writings. Chapter 7, titled Nothing, is intended to address these
questions in three parts. First, it identifies subject negation: not-being is
treated as the absence of beingthe wholly unreal are thus excluded
from ontology. Second, it investigates the OM problem embedded in the
rejection of not-being from ontology. Finally, it offers Daoist cosmogony,
moving from nothing into being, as an evolutionary solution to Platos
problem of change from being to becoming. This final idea is systemati-
cally developed in the next two chapters by creating a dialogue between
Daoist cosmogony and Platos theogony, between creation by evolution
and creation by intelligent design. Chapter 8, under the name The One,
investigates the unity of the world in astronomical contexts: the continuity
and discontinuity between cosmogony and cosmology, and comparison of
the biological model of Qi and the mathematical model of the World Soul.
Chapter 9, The Many, investigates the plurality of the world in the con-
text of Ge Hongs alchemical Nature and Platos mathematical universe.
Comparative study by nature takes both Plato and Ge Hong beyond
their written works. Platonic and Daoist scholarship usually would not
transgress the norm of textual fidelity. Textual fidelity and intercultural
comparison do not only conflict, but they also create a methodological
problem. How far can we take propositions beyond their original inten-
tions? How far can we interpret core concepts without distortion? These
questions will be directly and indirectly addressed individually within the
comparative contexts.
A set of methods has already emerged in the textual studies to this
143
144 part two
Nothing
In our study of Platos idea of the Good thus far, we have encountered a
basic problem: it is difficult for the Form of the Good to attain a unity for
multiple Forms. It is not because the Good is not superior to them, nor
is its logos noncontinuous in the many, but it is because the discontinuity
represented by Forms is irreducible to the single Form of the Good. The
root problem is the premise of being without not-being, which derives
from Platos inheritance of Parmenides denial of not-being. Within the
determinate being there is no room for indeterminateness to harbor plu-
rality. Let us see how this is so.
In the situation of the Good over Forms, the Good is said to be the caus-
ing unity over multiple caused Forms. According to the doctrine of Forms,
each Form is a determinate being predicated on a group of items sharing
the same name. The first difficulty is to create a unity of commonality over
independent Forms. If the Form of Good is determinate, then its deter-
mination requires Forms to share the Good as the common cause. Conse-
quently the Good demands a commonality among plural Forms. Let us say
145
146 comparative ontology
they are all good. However, also according to the doctrine, each Form must
be unique. The principle of uniqueness entails that Forms must be differ-
ent from each other. Let us say tree, water, and volcano must not share the
same character of good; otherwise they are not unique. Therefore, com-
monality and uniqueness are exclusive in terms of sameness and difference.
Platos answer is implied in his discussion of the ethical Forms, where
the Good is the one over many Forms of Beauty, Justice, Love, and so on.
It seems to be all right to think all ethical Forms must be good. But the
world surely is not created by the ethical Forms alone. Once Plato takes
other realities into consideration, such as drought, insects, and floods, it
is difficult to explain that they are caused by the Good. The problem goes
deeper than that. Suppose Forms all share one quality. Standing at the
level of Forms, to single out a sameness in them would suggest that there is
at least one sameness that they all share. How is this possible?
There are three ways to think about the idea of sameness in the schema
of one over many (OVM). The first way is to think of a Form of geometry
over a triangle and a sphere. This is fine in geometry but problematic in
practice. Shipbuilding, for example, is not an exercise to cause material
objects by a single Form of shipness, but a realization of a design that
consists of many disciples or ideas. If the Form is limited to be numerically
one, this presents a fundamental difficulty for Plato: how is it possible for
a single cause to bring the many under the umbrella of the one? A design
must be internally plural, not numerically one. I shall come back to the
problem in detail.
The second way is to think in terms of one cause and many effects. An
oven at 220 degrees affects steel, paper, and a roast differently. It seems
the heat is an OVM cause affecting three objects. But the argument is
false. The cause and effects are not just physical, that is, to generate heat,
but fundamentally chemical. These items have different responses to the
heat: steel withstands the heat, paper is burnt, and a roast is cooked. Burnt
paper is a chemical change of substance, as is turning a roast from raw to
cooked. But Plato did not understand chemical change, nor did he have
access to Ge Hongs alchemy on the interchangeability of things. There-
fore, Forms stand for unchangeable truth in any circumstances.
When we apply this OVM example to the Form of the Good, a problem
emerges. If the Good is the OVM temperature, and any three Forms are
like steel, paper, and a roast, then Forms must also respond to the temper-
ature differently, to be the same, burnt, or cooked. It implies Forms must
be capable of change and must be changed like the items in the oven. Can
Forms change? No. The doctrine of Forms forbids this. Therefore, the
Good cannot be the cause of different effects.
nothing147
If the first one stands, then the Good cannot truly be the cause of them.
This is because causality must meet two requirements.1 First, between the
Good and Forms there must be a discontinuity to maintain the causing/
caused difference. Second, among Forms there must be a continuity that
runs across them horizontally as their sameness and executes the causal
connection vertically. Since Forms are self-subsistent universals, then the
continuity of them is not possible. If the second requirement stands, then
the noncomposite and numerical oneness of the Good rejects the very pos-
sibility of togetherness. In order to be the cause, the Good must swallow
the plurality that multiple Forms strongly protect. The very acceptance of
plurality alters the unity from being singly determinate to being multi-
determinate. Hence the Good becomes an indeterminate cause. It is no
longer a causal Form.
Using the same analogy of emperor and feudal lords, the problem is
acute. These feudal lords are too powerful and self-subsistent. The prob-
lem is concealed beneath the claim that Forms are irreducible universals.
It is the issue of being. Platonic Forms have been bred out of the Par-
menidean noncomposite being without not-being. The idea was origi-
nally designed to eliminate change from ontology. Plato adopts the idea to
nothing149
of life to penetrate their manyness through and through. This is the onto-
logical paradox of continuity and discontinuity. The one and the many are
intrinsically relational.
In the second part of the Parmenides, Plato has already arrived at this
paradox. All hypotheses lead to the principle that unity and plurality can
be either both affirmed or simultaneously denied. But Plato did not real-
ize that this paradoxical principle is actually the most powerful weapon
against the twisted logic among his contemporaries. What it does is to
reject Parmenides logic of mutual exclusion between the One and the
many. Plato ought to accept the validity of the paradox produced by logic,
yet he neither affirms the logical antinomy nor rejects it. The book con-
cludes with an inconclusive ending. Plato arrived at the door of enlighten-
ment, but he did not push it open.
Could the harmony of the Good be ultimately indeterminate yet its
determinateness be manifested in and through the determinate Forms
created by it? In the Republic, the narratives on the Form of Good may
be suggesting that this is a possible understanding of the OM relation.
But Plato remains equivocal about the central paradox. For Ge Hong,
however, political harmony among the Forms is possible if the ethical
indeterminateness has been appropriated as the chief virtue of the One.
If the emperor opens himself to embrace heaven and earth, so his self-
emptied being, indeed self-confidence, will harbor truths between heaven
and earth within the breadth of his indeterminateness. To translate the
ethical idea to ontology, it requires the Good to hold humility as its chief
identity and the Forms to disarm their insecure uniqueness.
This ethical move alters Platonic ontology radically. This is simply
because the move is the very acceptance of not-being into ontology. In
the Parmenides, Plato did not make the young Socrates wrestle with the
old Parmenides when the separation of Forms was exposed, nor did he
respond to the Third Man Argument, which Aristotle later used to attack
the advocates of Forms in the Academy. Perhaps for Plato these problems
were not fatal. Would the admission of not-being into ontology be fatal to
his ontology?
(a) (b)
(The myriad things or Forms) Determinate beings
In the diagram (a) describes the general schema whereby the Dao
begets the myriad things or the Good creates multiple Forms. It expresses
the OM relation. Column (b) explains that the basic attribute of the One
is indeterminate not-being and that the many are determinate beings. This
diagram represents the aspects of the doctrine of creation from nothing
into being. The world derives from the same not-being; derivative realities
are different beings of not-being.
In the previous section, two ontological principles were mentioned.
For current purposes we can turn them into OM language.
In the case of the Dao and the myriad things, the unity of harmony con-
tains both principles. On the one hand, the Dao manifests itself as the
ontological continuity of the world. Dao moves out of itself and extends
its presence into something other than itself. The one must be determi-
nate in this sense. The determination is carried out by the continuity (or
homogeneity) between Dao and the myriad things. Plato has also clearly
expressed the continuity between a Form and its physical instances in
the cause/caused relationship. On the other hand, the myriad things are
never the same as the creating Dao but always different from it. The dif-
ference is maintained by discontinuity (or heterogeneity). In other words,
the myriad things can be the vessels into which the Dao actualizes itself,
but they are not the Dao itself. Plato also distinguishes ideal from actual to
emphasize the discontinuity.
However, the doctrine of Forms ignores any horizontal difference
152 comparative ontology
over many people must meet the dilemma of self-differentiation. The dif-
ferentiation is not maintained by the external separation of Forms from
sensibles with the Parmenidean division of Being and Becoming. Rather,
it is an internal reality.
Ge Hongs vision of the best emperor is of one who empties himself
into the many and by this virtue draws people into his act of ruling. In
ontology, the role of being is not just to act as a cause outwardly, but also
to move inwardly. Its inward movement creates space to accommodate the
plurality that the many represent. To be indeterminate is to change. It is
a way to cope with the backflow of the discontinuity of the many upon the
one.
However, Socrates has predefined unity in a different fashion, so he
is unable to stand outside the defined norm that commits unity to be an
unchangeable being without self-differentiation. The admission of inde-
terminateness on the top of determinate beings makes a Form a paradox-
ical union of both determinateness and indeterminateness at the same
time. And the Parmenidean mutual exclusion being without not-being
fundamentally prohibits such a union. Plato never ventured beyond this
marked-out ontological territory. Hence the very possibility that unity must
be both being and not-beinga position of pre-Socratic monismnever
occurred to Plato as an ontological synthesis.
The same paradox also exists in the Good. As in the OVM cause, the
Good would have to be both determinate and indeterminate, both being-
itself and not-being-itself. How is possible to solve the logical antinomy?
By positing being without not-being, Plato hopes to exclude not-being
from ontology altogether. In reality, the method of exclusion does not
expel it. We have viewed the problem of separation of Forms and sensibles
from various angles. A simpler example should capture the essence of the
problem.
(a)If the ideal bed (F) is the design of ordinary beds (A) and sofa beds
(not-A), then F causes both A and not-A.
(b)Since F is A and F is not-A are both true, then the identity of F
must include the opposites of being A and being not-A.
(c)Then not-being does not only exist, but exists as the partner of being
within the Form.
Apart from the Parmenides, the Sophist presents the most concentrated
discussion of the subject. In both dialogues the keynote speakers come
from the same school: the founder Parmenides in the Parmenides and the
Eleatic stranger in the Sophist. As a distinguished logician visiting Athens,
the stranger in the Sophist points out: Then weve now given a complete
statement of our confusion. Because both that which is and that which is not
are involved in equal confusion. That is, insofar as one of them is clarified,
either brightly or dimly, the other will be too (250e251a).
Owen argues in his essay Plato on Not-Being that this passage holds
the key to understanding that, while Plato is mainly interested in being, he
never denies not-being. Plato regards not-being as a puzzle and moots that
not-being and being could be twin brothers of ontologyor, at least, the
Sophist points toward that direction.2
Owens argument is mainly a critique of Cornfords theory that Platos
intention in the Sophist is about Forms rather than not-being. Cornfords
theory is not limited to the Sophist. In his commentary on Parmenides, he
illustrates that Plato actually is not the criticized, but the criticizer, in total
control of the dialogue to explore problems of contemporary Eleatic
156 comparative ontology
Plato in the Republic declares that beauty and ugliness are two things,
and the same logical negation exists between good and evil, and justice
and injustice (476a, b). Clearly beauty, good, and justice are ethical Forms;
on the contrary evil, injustice, and ugliness refer to the impoverished state
nothing157
Justice. His ignorance does not mean his act of killing has no justice at all for
the chicken and others in the hennery. In these instances, the not-beings
of beautiful, goodness, justice are not equal to ugliness, evil, and injustice.
What happens in the examples is that the negation of the subjects yields
objects. The objects, such as average appearance, dislike of vegetables, and
killing a sick chicken, are not independent subjects. The impoverished
subjects become objects that are still under the domain of the subjects.
Not-being is not the unconditional negation of subject-being without any
objects. Rather, not-being is a conditional object of subject-being. The pov-
erty of being still exists as the realities of Socrates, the child, and the farmer.
The negation does not produce a single concept of not-being, such as ugli-
ness, evil, and injustice. Rather, it gives rise to the whole realm of becom-
ing that consists of being and not-being. It is the realm of moral ambiguity.
Plato is partially right when he labels being and not-being as two single
entities. But not-being cannot be reduced from being by the method of
negation. To accept the irreducibility and to affirm the existence of not-
being require the move to presuppose not-being as an irreducible cause,
similar to Necessity in opposition to Reason in the Timaeus.
Properly speaking, that which is not must be called not one thing but
nothing (478b). The sentence repeats a Parmenidean fallacy that Plato
has inherited. However, ugliness, evil, and injustice certainly do exist as
vices in individuals and unethical social conditions. They are existentially
real but ontologically unreal. These vices do not have separate being, nor
are they capable of forming another ontology of not-being. They are always
viewed against the background of being. Whenever the ethical Forms are
discussed, they are equally mentioned and criticized.
On physical objects Plato says, Most things are subject to their own
specific form of evil or disease (609a). For example:
eyes : ophthalmia
the body : disease
grain : mildew
timber : rot
bronze and iron : rust
These objects and their specific evil are given to support the definition
that anything that harms and destroys a thing is evil, and anything that
preserves and benefits it is good (608e).
nothing159
Good+evil=physical objects
Being+not-being=becoming
Plato has attributed moral good and evil to physical objects. But the real
problem is that evil and not-being have interchanging meanings. Since all
Forms are created by the Good, they must be good beings. Being is good,
not-being is (or becomes) evil. If we continue to follow the logic of nega-
tion, the problem of evil is amplified in the doctrine of creation.
If the world contains evil and the creator-Good has created the world,
then the Good must have created evil also. If evil is the privation of the
Good, then in the created world there is a timeless antithesis of good and
evil. If the self-negation of the Good produces evil, then evil must be a part
of Good prior to the creation. In the Timaeus Plato polarizes the prob-
lem by naming Reasonthe cause of orderand Necessitythe cause of
disorder. In so doing, the conflict of good and evil is made not only an
existential reality, but also a primordial one. Evil was, is, and will be, and is
coeternal with the Good. It is not a realityless shadow, but an apocalyptic
beast. It grows a collective army in physical objects to thwart the purpose
of Good in the world. It has no being yet uses physical things to exercise
the power of very real evils, such as disease, mildew, rot, and rust. It is sup-
posed to be ontologically nothing, as Parmenides declares, but is capable
of disintegrating life by turning life against itselfin fact inside outas
Plato suggests a things specific evil or flaw is therefore what destroys it;
nothing else will do so.
160 comparative ontology
At first glance, the inner reality of the Dao is an antithesis in logical terms.
Xuan basically is nothing, or not-being, whereas Qi is the primordial life,
an undistinguished matter-energy, or the first being. Ge Hong would not
dispute the logical antithesis between not-being and being. Certainly the
partnership is a logical problem that inheres even within the Dao. To
establish a unity of two opposites requires a continuity to establish the
complementary nature for the discontinuity of the opposites. If the antith-
esis is unreconciled, then the disharmony will be passed on to the world
of plurality through creation. The world becomes the manifestation of the
antithesis.
From Parmenides to Plato, the ontology of being without not-being is
the filtering device to single out unchanging universal(s) from Becoming.
But the ontology of being does not really aim to solve the problem of the
antithesis, but only to isolate beings from not-being. The system of Being,
therefore it could be said, deliberately bypasses the antithesis of not-being
and being. For Daoism, the antithesis is not an apparent reality of the
manyof Becomingbut the essential reality within Being. Behind the
antithesis there exists a hidden synthesis, and being and not-being are not
primarily a logical contrary but a creative tension held by two complemen-
tary parties.
Ge Hongs imagery of cosmic pregnancy provides a metaphorical
answer, which needs some analytical explanation. The mother Dao and
the fetus Qi, not-being and being, are a relational whole. The partnership
of not-being and being can be explained simply as the mothers womb
and the fetus. To fully articulate the logical aspect of this cosmic womb is
difficult at this stage. It is basically the inner core of the cosmogonical one
and many, or how the world came to be. But we can simplify the discus-
162 comparative ontology
The chart demonstrates the flow from nothing into being. The continu-
ity over the course of generation is intrinsically indeterminate. We can
advance this argument one step further. Can this indeterminate genera-
tion take the Platonic place of determinate causation and answer Platos
difficulty of forming a harmonious unity?
Let us presuppose that the chief identity of each Form is not-being.
Surely Form as not-being will have radically altered Platos premise of
Form as being. We should investigate whether such a radical shift would
upset the world of ideas.
In the instance of the ideal/actual bed, if the identity of the ideal bed
is not-being, then the universal design of all beds must be indeterminate.
164 comparative ontology
the sound [of flowing Qi] [neishi fanting ] (IC 2). The adept
takes the inward journey to discover his true existence. The discovered
inner environment is nothing other than the self-emptied space. Ge Hong
depicts this fundamental reality anthropomorphically. The inner liberty of
immortals moves them freely between heaven and earth. What this inner
liberty does, however, is not just to awaken the adept to what it is be a free
person, but also to harbor plurality inside his empty yet open being.
To translate Ge Hongs thought into Platonic language speaks to two
important issues. (a) The indeterminateness speaks for the inner capacity
to be the other. It is the principle of self-differentiation. (b) The inner
space of not-being can truly contain multiplaced determinations. It is the
principle of indeterminate continuity. What do they mean in more practi-
cal terms?
To be the unity of plural beds, the design must hold together within
itself the multiplicity of whatever many beds collectively stand for. The
Form of bed-ness must be responsible for the variations among different
beds. If the Form causes ordinary beds A and sofa beds not A, the one
over many Form must be F is A and F is not A. Since nothing can be
creative other than the Form, the Form must be solely responsible for the
difference A and not-A as their shared cause. The cause, therefore,
must either accommodate within itself the multiplaced determination or
change the design to meet the variation of A and not A. Since the
principle of the unchanging universal rules out the possibility of internal
change, the only option is to manage multiplaced determinations within
the unchanging being. If this happens, the import of being A and being
not A impels the ideal to be indeterminate.
We can use Platos own example to set the logic. In the Parmenides
(131e132b) Plato records the Largeness Regress argument, or the Third
Man Argument labeled by Aristotle (Metaphysics, book Alpha 9, 990b).
According to the OVM theory, there exists the Form of bed-ness over ordi-
nary beds and sofa beds. If another kind of bed is present beside the Form,
for instance, a waterbed (B), it is necessary to assign a superior Form (F2)
on the top of the unity covering the difference of A and not A. This new
Form constructs a larger one over many structure as F2= F1+B (F1=A+not-
A; B =waterbed). If another kind of bed (C), for instance, a Chinese kang
(a heated brick bed), has been introduced beside the super unity, there
must an even higher unity (F3) to cover the previous unity (F2) plus C
(F3=F2+C). In so doing, Plato will fall into a bottomless pit.
The Third Man Argument pinpoints the problem that the continuity
represented by F is crippled by the discontinuity among many (A, B, C).
The many drag the all-determinate one into multiplaced determinations.
166 comparative ontology
All that one can do is to busy oneself to invent a new universal to bring
the subordinated discontinuity under control, which means that at the
same time the one over many is also controlled by the many. Thus being
becomes indeterminate.
Instead of accusing Plato of falling into logical absurdity as Aristotle
does, Zhuangzi would say that Plato actually is at the doorstep of enlight-
enment, but he is unaware what kind of ontological wonderland he is
standing in. The difference between F is A and F is not A cannot be
simply swept aside and ascribed to the realm of Becoming. Rather, the
wholly other of indeterminateness inheres in all realities. The Forms are
not exempt. If a unity is accountable for many instances, it must contain
many first within itselfnot in the form of Forms but of formlessness. For
Zhuangzi, recognizing the ground of the many as the groundlessness of
not-being marks the beginning of true wisdom. If one can look deeply
enough through one particular reality, one should be able to enter into the
awakening state of mind with the realization that all realities are inwardly
connected through the unawakened not-being.
In the instance of the ideal bed, the key is to conceptualize the prior of
not-being a numerical Bed-itself. A causal design is a realization of this
prior idea. It is a child being born out of this not-being idea. In order to
cause various beds, change must implied within the design. The self-modi-
fication then meets different demands to produce beds of varied kinds out
of the same master plan.
Indeterminate Determinate
In generation, the act and the vessel happen simultaneously as one sin-
gle event. Thus the line of distinction between indeterminate and deter-
minate is situated between the mother and the act. To allocate this line in
the threefold transformation, it is located between the design (a) and the
act together with the vessel (b +c). The line indicates the moment when a
carpenter gives birth to a bed. He transforms a design (a) into a reality
by the act (b) of creating a vessel (c) for his design. Likewise, the line exists
in Platos analogy of the divine craftsman who creates all beds according
to the ideal bed.
One fundamental issue must be cleared up: it is not the ideal bed that
functions as the determinate cause, but rather it is the act that creates
actual beds that is accountable for the determination. We can see the point
of argument clearly within the next threefold transformation (whether it is
called causation or generation).
The equation suggests that the act has introduced not-being through the
project of creation. In other words, the maker of the world is either inca-
pable of doing a proper job or something has prevented the act from fully
actualizing the design. In either case, the act is insufficient. To blame the
Demiurge for incapability is not going to answer the question, so where
does not-being come from? In the Timaeus, more than halfway through the
narrative of creation, Plato introduces another primary cause, Necessity
(48a). It seems that Necessity is needed to explain the cause of contingency
in the world. However, since Necessity preexisted together with Reason in
the precosmos, its primordiality entails that indeterminate formlessness
was there prior to the creation.
The inference affirms our argument that the element of indetermi-
nateness must have existed prior to the act or not-being existed prior to
both the act and the existence of the vessel. Therefore, the line in the
second diagram in this section must be shifted back to the position prior
to the act. Neither the divine act nor the vessel (the created world) was
responsible for the indeterminateness in the precosmos. If so, the distinc-
tion between the determinate ideal (being) and the indeterminate actual
(becoming) is not viable. Insofar as the preexistence of Reason and Neces-
sity is affirmed, the determinate and the indeterminate must inhere in
the precosmos. For Daoism the partnership of being and not-being is the
intrinsic nature of the world and its origin.
Cosmogony:
Generation or Causation?
Is the world created out of an intelligent design? So far we have assumed
the existence of a design in the threefold schema in order to conduct a dia-
logue with Platos twofold causation. The above discussion has stretched
both schemas beyond their original contexts. This is because the doctrine
of creation has imposed serious demands on both models, more specifi-
cally, the question of how to explain the change from nothing into being.
Here we come to an inquiry into the relationship between the indetermi-
nate and the determinate that underlies the cosmogonical change from
nothing into being.
Plato argues that creation came about as the result of the fact that Rea-
son controlled Necessity by persuasion (Timaeus 48a). But are Reason and
Necessity really two conflicting causes or two sides of a single cause? For
Plato, they are clearly conflicting causes, and neither one is reducible to
the other. In Ge Hongs cosmogony, however, creation is not understood
as the victory of order over chaos. Rather, forms emerge out of formless-
ness as the self-expression of the Dao. Viewing the question from the sub-
170 comparative ontology
Necessity, this seems to explain that the child of the marriagethe world
of Becominghas genetically inherited characters of both order and dis-
order. But there is a sense of awkwardness in the marital analogy. Mar-
riage is a relationship of two persons, not a single person. If we externalize
Reason and Necessity as two causes, as Plato does, how can the creator
the single personact as both mother and father at once? To defend the
proposition that the world was created by a single creator entails that the
reconciliation cannot take an external form as the marriage between the
two, but must take place within the creator. Once the two personalities are
internalized, then the creator must also live with two conflicting identities.
If we force the Aristotelian reproduction theory into this changed circum-
stance, the result is alarming. The creator would have to be androgynous.
To compare the birth of a child with the birth of the world, the transi-
tion from the childless state to the birth of the child could be viewed as the
cosmogonical change from nothing into being. In this situation, the transi-
tion from nothing into being must first be pregnant within the creator,
and then the world can be born. To be precise, from nothing into being
cannot simply be the external transformation that belongs to the created
world, which undergoes the change from the chaotic precosmos to the cre-
ated world. It must equally be an internal change that happens within the
creator. How can the very first changefrom nothing into beinghappen
within the creator? From the viewpoint of Ge Hongs cosmogony, Platos
theogony explains nothing about the fundamental change that happens
within the creator.
The doctrine of creation is essentially a creation out of something. To
use the schema in the last section, the change from something to some-
thing can be explained as the sequence that follows:
sation model is false. The craftsman has copied the many Forms to shape
his single living being (the one), and he is not content to stop here but has
further made the physical world (the many) as the copy of the single living
being. In this situation, the craftsman must be mad, because, to rephrase
Keyts argument, the eternal one will not be one but many. The craftsman
has committed the fallacy of division. 8
Keyts criticism basically is a rejection of Platos causation model. But
Keyt has not explored further the ontological limits that Plato imposed on
the doctrine of creation and how it causes the main issue of creation, the
One or the craftsman, to be explained away. Here is an explanation. Since
being without not-being is the treaty for the causal creator, it also implies
that the creator has no room for indeterminateness. The required space
for the gestation of the world has been externalized as Necessity, which
belongs solely to primordial chaos. This ontological denial of not-being
has crippled the creator and prevented him from taking the self-differen-
tiation movethe move from being-itself to not-being-itself. The external-
ization of not-being paints the picture in which the Demiurge stands in
front of chaos and prepares to change the precosmos once for all into the
orderly world ruled by Reason.
But the craftsman cannot take the responsibility of structuring Neces-
sity down to every single detail of the myriad things. Otherwise it becomes
a Form limited by the multi-placed determination. The all-controlling cre-
ator thus has no freedom either. The cause/caused relation will condition
the unity to be totally responsible for the plurality. He would become a
cosmic power station responsible for energizing all electric appliances
in the world. The causing creator, even if he or she had a perfect intelli-
gent design for the world, could neither be contingent nor spontaneous.
Fundamentally, not-being, which enables freedom and spontaneity for
the creator, has been purposefully ruled out from the design of the power
station directed by the one over many doctrine. Without self-differentia-
tion, the creator will be the salve of his own creation. To understand the
point in generation terms, the creator turns himself into the only caretaker
of his progeny. He can neither be free from the duty of fostering the many,
nor can he be creative any more. Each child becomes an increased load
weighing on the maker. In mechanical terms, the world becomes a crafted
clock created by the single act of creation; nothing new can be yielded out
of its motion. Until the creator is willing to let go of the controls, he is not
going to discover the freedom of not-being that has enabled the gestation
of the many in the first place.
Letting go of the controls means letting go of the Forms. Until the
Forms have been abandoned, the divine craftsman will not realize the fact
174 comparative ontology
that none but himself can be creative. This is simply because there was no
other maker in the precosmos.
life be. It was freedom, not an intelligent design, that created life and its
spontaneous unfolding.
Having noticed the paradox of indeterminate and determinate within
the first move of Dao, we should read again Ge Hongs ontology of change.
Change is the principle of Nature. Certainly, as a universal phenomenon,
change does not need a definition. Just as an ocean changes perpetually
without the need to define what change is, the argument also claims that
change is the way that Nature is. But reading the argument in the light of
the above discussion it has a new meaning. Change is both determinate
and indeterminate, like the evolving life. Evolution overall is open-ended,
thus indeterminate. But the fact that life strives to grow into a genealogical
tree is determinate. Although overall change in the world remains sponta-
neous, change is not entirely chaotic. For Ge Hong, Nature had an inner
drive for the gestation of Qi, and life was unleashed from the cosmogoni-
cal from nothing into being. Thus Nature is not just what we see in the
world, but also refers to the primordial activity between Xuan and Qi that
sets off change and is still active in the world. Thus the argument has a
double meaning referring to both the inner and the outer. And the double
meaning is concealed within the term Nature itself.
In classical Chinese the term ziran applies to external Nature that in
modern terms means the natural world and to internal Nature. Laozi
famously says: The Dao follows its own accord (daofa ziran ). Cer-
tainly Laozi does not mean that ziran is another entity superior to the Dao,
but the Dao moves according to its own Nature or more literally self-so. It
implies a lack of external causation among other things. There is no such
concept in Platos ontology as the self-so. Though the Good could be read
as a self-so entity similar to Neo-Platonists idea of God, Plato clearly calls
it the Form of the Good. In Ge Hongs writings, the same use of ziran can
be found. Among humans there are Laozi and the ancestor Peng, just as
there are [long-lived] pine and cypress among trees. [They] have inborn
Nature [bing zhi ziran ] (IC 46). Here inborn is translated from
the word bing , which refers to natural endowment prior to the manifes-
tation of actual longevity. The double meaning of self-so and inborn in the
term ziran has an ontological significance. The connotation can be further
explained with the modern concept of ontology.
The modern Chinese term for ontology consists of two characters: ben
and ti (). They literally mean basic and body, or philosophically
fundamental and form. Here there is already a distinction between
Platos being, which does not require a body to be a reality (such as the
Form of Beauty), and the Chinese term, which requires both essence and
existence. In Ge Hongs cosmogony the basic can be identified as the
nothing177
passing on of potency from Xuan to Qi, whereas the form is the body
of the fetus that realizes the evolving life. But the spirit-body clarification
actually is misleading, because it still suggests two natures, one essential
and another existential. It is more Platonic than Daoist. The distinction
in modern ontology is far more equivocal in classical Daoism. Since the
modern concept of benti is completely absent in Daoism from Laozi to Ge
Hong, we ought to look for the ancient equivalent.
What we find is ziranNature. In Ge Hongs argument, there is no
distinction between ben and ti, between the essential and the existential.
The two are one. Even though Ge Hong identifies a conceptual distinction
between something and nothing, between Qi and Xuan, he never treats
them as polarized opposites, but as complements to articulate a more ele-
mentary realityNature, which is change. Just as day and night form a
natural cycle, Xuan and Qi are two parts of the same Dao with the same
Nature. Since ziran literally means self-so, the spontaneous tendency within
ziran is applicable to both the cosmogonical pregnancy and the evolution
of the natural world. So once ontology has been understood in terms of
ziran, there is a striking synthesis. Ge Hong argues that change is the fun-
damental reality of Dao defined by the relational exchange of life between
Xuan and Qi, and change is the universal reality of the world manifested
by the myriad things. But both aspects of change are one single Nature.
Nature requires no external force to move it; it follows its own accord.
If we line up Ge Hongs correlations in a table, the breadth of his rela-
tional ontology becomes evident. The left column in Table 7.2 represents
the concepts that refer to inner reality; the right column designates outer
reality. The interplay of the two is Nature, or ontology.
Inner Outer
Dao Qi
Nothing Something
Xuan One
Cosmogony Soteriology
178 comparative ontology
motherly Xuan. Since Ge Hong has never spoken of another entity outside
of Xuan, the change from nothing into being is not caused by an external
entity. It is the result of the opposite move of Xuan in the act of self-making
the other. Laozi defines this as By returning to what it is, the Dao moves
(fanzhe dao zhi dong ) (Laozi 40). Ge Hong develops the reverse
movement of Dao in his soteriology as the change from many to the One.
This change is ziran and implies self-change (zihua ).
Self-change is a one to one creativity, not a two to one reproduction.
Viewed from this perspective, Platos two to one schema has a further
problem. Logically, to compress two contrary orders of Reason and Neces-
sity within a single creator would generate the need to manage two perso-
nas with a single being. If we interpret Reason as the cause of being and
Necessity as not-being, we can bring Platonism closer to Daoism. But the
comparison needs to sort out the relation between being and not-being in
terms of what happens internal to the creator. To adopt the mother-child
analogy for not-being and being, this would make the not-being Necessity
the mother and the being of Reason the child. Reason is no longer the
father of the world but the child of Necessity. The suggestion immediately
pushes the comparison beyond Platos intention.
Plato intends to write a theogony. The forming of the formless comes
as a result of Reasons victory over Necessity. So Reason and Necessity are
treated as two causes externally opposite to each other. But being and not-
being must not be externalized. The logical opposition exists internally
within the causing head of the one. The partnership of the two is essen-
tially required for the One to cause the many. But the core of Platos ontol-
ogy prohibits the mingling of being and not-being. Once more the root
problem of from one to many is not the incapability of the Demiurge, but
rather Platos theory of the Forms. In the doctrine of creation, the prob-
lem has been amplified to the cosmic scale. Two ontological dilemmas
identified in previous sections appear to be external issues: the continuity
between one and many, and the discontinuity between them. But they are
actually internal issues.
sity becomes the candidate. Between the one and the many, there must
exist a discontinuity that enables the creator to hold not-being-itself within
as its chief identity. What the not-being does is to ensure that the creator
and the created are not ontologically alike, which is called transcendence
by Plato. To meet the second dilemma, a determinate creator cannot be
like a Form. Otherwise the continuity either commits multiplaced deter-
mination or discounts plurality represented by the many. Either the many
reinsert not-being back into being, or the world is Parmenidean homo-
geneity. The latter is not an option. For the creator to free itself from the
duty of causing different beings with the single being without not-being
stipulation, the creator cannot externalize not-being-itself by the cause/
caused distinction, but must cooperate with not-being-itself within its caus-
ing being. What the not-being does is to draw an internal distinction that
the creator must be internally free from the commitment of multiplaced
determination and externally to let the continuity spontaneously unfold
and the many rise out of the one. The core of continuity is not determi-
nate but indeterminate.
Both dilemmas affirm the Daoist thesis that the partnership of being
and not-being exist right within the creator and within Nature. Thus not-
being and being cannot be externalized as two separate causes of Necessity
and Reason. In the context of creation, both dilemmas require not-being
to be the chief identity, with Reason the child of Necessity.
But there is still a difficulty ahead. How does Necessity conceive Rea-
son? If they are two irreducible causes, there is no chance for one to pass
into the other. If this relationship between the two cannot be answered,
it ends in eternal dualism within the creator. Ge Hong has offered an
alternative answer. The partnership between the not-being of Xuan and
the first being of Qi is the ontological change from nothing into being.
Is this cosmogony a solution for Platos OM problem within the theory of
Forms?
The comparison here requires two clarifications.
Summary
The chapter began with the question of why not-being is denied an onto-
logical property and then answers that indeterminate not-being is at the
heart of the OM problem. Comparative ontology takes Platos being with-
out not-being and Ge Hongs not-being with being as two propositions
nothing181
for a dialogue. Though the dialogue operates at an abstract level and uses
language closer to modern philosophy than to that of classic Daoism, the
basic issues are only two. One is to address the relationship between being
and not-being. The other is the implication for cosmogony.
On the first issue, the first section of the chapter investigates Platos
rejection of indeterminate not-being. Then it examines subsequent prob-
lems in having the Good take up the task of being the one over many unity
to embrace Forms into a harmonious whole. Then the relationship of not-
being and being is approached from Ge Hongs biological model. Inde-
terminate Xuan and the determinate life of Qi form a relational ontology
comparable with the motherly womb and its fetus in gestation. The section
then arrives at the issue of subject negation in Platos use of the verb-noun
to be and subject correlation in Ge Hongs double subject of Xuan-Qi.
From this point, the dialogue moves on from ontology to cosmogony.
Should abstruse cosmogony be approached through the biological
model of generation or the ideal/actual model of causation? To answer
this question, the second section takes a step back to discuss the logi-
cal aspects of the partnership of not-being and being. By going back to
examine how not-being (wu ) and being (you ) are used in Ge Hongs
genealogical one and many a creative tension between the inward with-
drawing of the Dao and the outward letting be of life is found. The distinc-
tion between indeterminate and determinate is located between inward
indeterminateness and the outer determinate act of giving birth. But in
Platonic causation, the distinction is the other way around and is situated
between the determinate ideal and the indeterminate actual. Because the
act of causation is determinate, Plato mistakenly infers that the cause too
must be determinate. The collapse of being and act in the ideal has subse-
quently swallowed the element of not-being that is required to shape the
unity of harmony, which Plato has envisioned in the Good.
In the doctrine of creation, the denial of not-being is then amplified
when Plato is compelled to introduce the cause of the worlds contingency.
The introduction of Necessity immediately creates a primordial dualism
and implicitly recognizes that the world cannot be created by Reason
alone but came to be as the child of two parents. But the two-ness of
Reason and Necessity contradicts the oneness of the divine craftsman. The
theogony is complied to reconcile two personalities in one person. This is
the direction in which the third section moves.
By reintroducing not-being back to the creator, Daoist from noth-
ing into being offers a solution to the problem of cosmogonical unity,
which the doctrine of Forms has created but is unable to solve. For the
theogony to work, Plato needs not only to reconsider ontological change,
182 comparative ontology
which the pre-Socratic monists had argued, but also to consider the Dao-
ist feminine model of pregnancy to solve the problem of internal change,
which his masculine causation had externalized as the victory of orderly
Reason over chaotic Necessity. The radical outcome of the internalization
of change is to alter Platos original doctrine. Reason was not the husband
who overcame chaotic Necessity with his rational control. Rather, Reason
is the child of Necessity. Another alteration, perhaps to Greek minds, is
that the birth of the world does not have to have a cause. It could well be
spontaneous self-change that Nature follows by its own accord. No creator
is needed. What does this mean for the created world? We next turn from
cosmogony to cosmology.
chapter 8
The One
Dao begins with the One, and its prestige is its uniqueness. Qi occupies
each of the categories [ge ju yi chu ] and makes the likeness
heaven, earth, and humanity (yixiang tiandiren ]. Therefore
one says the three ones [guyue sanyi ] (IC 323). According to Ge
Hong, the One can be found in all three categories of existence, heaven,
earth, and humanity. In relation to Xuans nothingness, it is something.
In relation to the world of many, it designates the oneness of natural life.
In cosmogonical terms, the One can complete Yin and give birth to Yang
[yi neng cheng yin sheng yang ] (IC 323). In relation to the
evolving world, it is the formless life that separates itself into the two cre-
ative energies Yin and Yang. From the One a hundred million substances
have been formed, the Twenty-Eight Constellations are made to revolve
(IC 1). From its oneness the myriad things are smelted, as substances are
decomposed into different things in an alchemic vessel. In the context
of instrumental alchemy, the One is called the great materiality. Out
of the self-change of the great materiality (da wu zhi bianhua
) high mountains become valleys, and deep troughs rise into hills (IC
284). In relation to internal alchemy, the One refers to the harmonious
life in which various organisms abide.
183
184 comparative ontology
Heaven is like a chicken egg and the earth like a yolk in an egg [tian
ru jizhi , di ru jizhong huang ]. It dwells alone inside
heaven. Heaven is large, and the earth is small. The [inner] surface of
heaven has water. Qi supports heaven and earth as they move carrying
water [tiandi ge chengqi erli , zaishui erxing ].
The circumference of heaven is divided into three hundred sixty five
and one-fourth degrees. The degrees can then be divided into halves.
The first half covers the earth, and the other half reaches under the
earth. Therefore the Twenty-Eight Constellations become half visible
and half invisible. Heaven rotates with the movement of a turning
wheel.1 (AT 281)
The Continuity of Qi
During the creation, this egg has been hatched into the cosmological
egg. The yolk has materialized into the center of the universe, which
is the earth. The nebulosity has liquefied into the inner circle of oceans
and heavenly water around the earth, and the vigor of Qi has been incor-
porated in the movements of the celestial bodies. The basic categories of
existence have emerged out of the shapeless yet potent life of the cosmo-
gonical egg. The whole image of the egg shares a remarkable feature in
common with another ancient theory known as Xuanye recorded in
the Astronomical Treatise two pages before Ge Hongs essay.
Xi Meng wrote during the Han dynasty: Heaven has no fixed
the one187
Huntian Cosmology
In three hundred years of history from Han to Jin, astronomical debates
evolved around three theories: Xuanye , Gaitian , and Huntian
. The famous British Sinologist and historian of natural sciences Joseph
Needham translated these terms as the following respectively: the Infinite
Empty Space theory, the Hemispherical Dome theory, and the Celestial
Sphere theory.7 A more recent trend, for example, in Christopher Cul-
lens 1996 study, is simply to keep the names in pinyin without any transla-
tion.8 Here I follow the new trend. Instead of stretching each term through
translation, the pinyin terms invite people to go deeper to understand the
distinctive contents of each theory.
Needhams translations are not always helpful, and they can also be
misleading. For instance, the first theory does not suggest that space is
completely empty, as if it is Newtons empty spaceontologically mean-
ingless. The Chinese word is night (ye ) and refers to the night sky.
The ancient text clearly explains that heaven has no fixed matter, look-
ing upward, its height is far reaching without limit (AT 279).9 This oldest
astronomical model depicts the universe as like the night sky, dark and
impenetrably deep, and the scope of the cosmos as extending infinitely.
This is why Needham chose to label it infinite. He further argues that
the ancient Chinese conceived the model of an infinite universe before
any other tradition.10 By looking through the lens of modern astronomy,
Needham found the worldview of infinite space at its infancy. However,
Needhams idea of the infinite universe is more Newtonian then Daoist.
The key concept of the night sky is closer to Ge Hongs theory of Xuan
dark, formless, and infinite.
The second model, Gaitian, depicts heaven as being in the shape of a
lid covering the earth. It is translated by Needham as the Lid of Heaven
theory. But the lid imagery explains nothing about the Confucian eth-
ics behind the astronomical model, a hemispherical lid covering a flat
and square earth. The model reflects the Confucian orthodoxy whereby
heaven is round and earth is square (tianyuan difang ). It is
interesting that here the underlying principle of astronomy is not natu-
ral philosophy but ethics. Spherical heaven contains boundless kindness,
whereas the square earth encompasses definable human morality reach-
ing out in four cardinal directions. The highest virtue that humans can
achieve is to live out moral lives in conformity with the cosmos. The mor-
alization of cosmology occupied an important position in Chinese politics,
particularly as cosmology justified imperial sovereignty. At the same time,
cosmology was constantly adjusted by the political process.11 The interplay
190 comparative ontology
ited from the Greeks. Modern scholars, however, have reconstructed the
theory out of various historical records. Figures 8.1 and 8.2 represent the
geometric content. By using these illustrations, we are able to gain some
insight into why Ge Hong defended this new worldview.
Figure 8.1 represents the cosmic egg. Historically there were two ver-
sions of the theory differentiated by the key issue of whether the earth was
flat or spherical. As shown in the upper drawing, the earlier version shows
the earth as flat. The belief in a flat earth was central to the Gaitian theory
of a semispherical lid covering the flat earth. Evidently this version did not
completely break away from the Gaitian theory. Ge Hongs writing indi-
cates a later correction: the earth is spherical like a yolk in an egg. Qi
supports heaven, and the earth flows on the water. Heaven rotates with
the movement of a turning wheel on the axis defined by North and South
poles. Ge Hongs version corresponds to the lower drawing in Figure 8.1.
Figure 8.2 contains three diagrams. The top left circle is the celestial
sphere. The cosmos has two celestial poles forming the axis of rotation,
and the axis is aligned on an angle with the line formed by the zenith
and the nadir. The great circle at the horizontal level is the earths hori-
zon; another great circle intersecting the horizon is the celestial equator.
The spherical circle represents the meridian movements in a solar year.
The top right drawing represents the terrestrial sphere. The intersection
of the zodiac and the equator produce four points: two intersectional
points indicate the vernal equinox and autumnal equinox; two tangen-
tial points represent the summer solstice and the winter solstice. These
four points define the seasons of the solar calendar. The Chinese calendar
from very early times adopted a system based on combined solar and lunar
movements.
The lower diagram in Figure 8.2 is a detailed map of the top right dia-
gram, looking at the cross-section where zodiac and equator intersect. It
shows that the celestial equator and the zodiac are not imaginative circles,
but are defined by the Twenty-Eight Constellations. The Constellations
form two overlapping circles. The vernal equinox and the autumnal equi-
nox are two points produced by the intersecting circles. For many centu-
ries the Constellations have been central to the entire Chinese astronomi-
cal system. When the Jesuits arrived in China, they were surprised by the
unique system distinct from the Greek and Egyptian astronomies. But they
failed to understand it.
Greek astronomy relies on the stars heliacal risings and settings near
the ecliptic. The disadvantage of this system, as Needham points out, is
inconsistent observability in different seasons.14 The Constellations, how-
ever, are oriented toward the North Pole. Ge Hong clearly points out that
the Twenty-Eight Constellations become half visible and half invisible
within a turning wheel. The reference is a key to explaining how the
Constellations shape the astronomy.
Even though not all of them are observable at any given time, the
appearance of the stars on two different circles forms a circumpolar ring.
Dividing the ring into 365.25 degrees that radiate from the pole form a
the one193
Constellations are half visible above and half invisible below the horizon, it
is possible to work from the navigational compass shaped by the stars and
defined by the principle of opposition according to which every point is
definable on the celestial equator. The only practical problem is to build
an instrument to map the celestial movements and to demonstrate the
navigational compass.
Zhang Hengs Sphere is essentially a model of the cosmos based on
empirical observation. The invention of the Sphere a century before Ge
Hong provided a physical instrument to visualize and predict celestial
movements. Various rings were attached to the center of the sphere on
which to designate celestial bodies. Just as modern astronomy requires a
timing mechanism to keep precise time for astronomical instruments, the
Sphere works with a timing vessel called ke lou , which is a water clock
that measures time with water drips (Figures 8.3, 8.4). The vessel usually
contains a group of containers that are arranged in stages by fixing them
at varied heights. Time is measured by reading the amount of drip water
as cumulated on a continuous scale. The same principle of gravity is used
to power the sphere. Water constantly flowing from a fixed height provides
a defined and constant hydraulic force to move the instrument at a stable
speed. The Sphere enabled the imperial astronomers Zhang Heng and Lu
Gongji to calculate and predict the movement of constellations
accurately and to examine the appearance and disappearance of celestial
bodies.
Ge Hong writes:
Fig. 8.3. The Armillary Sphere and the water clock: An eleventh-century
reproduction of the Sphere (left); a seventh-century water clock with five stages
(right). (Reproduced with the permission of the Needham Research Institute
from Joseph Needham, Science and Civilisation in China [Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1959], vol. 3, 350, 325)
Cyclical Time
What is common to the cosmic egg and the instrumental egg is change.
Zhang Heng has an instrument of changethe Armillary Sphere; Ge
Hong also has an instrument of changethe alchemical crucible. Heav-
enly truths are manifested through the change in the likeness of a rotating
wheel. The key word rotation or turning (zhuan ) is exactly the same
word used to describe the number of cycles of change in instrumental
alchemy. By ascertaining circular changes, the alchemical vessel assimilates
the process of change in Nature. The Sphere recapitulates celestial pat-
terns of rotation; the cycles of alchemical change make alchemical prin-
ciples perceptible.
For Ge Hong there is an intrinsic connection between astronomy and
alchemy. The connection is change. Because the world is made of Qi, it
turns the Twenty-Eight Constellations in motion (IC 1) and moves the
circle of seasonal change on earth (IC 323). It also enables the alchemi-
cal rotation such that lead is white, but by the change of becoming red
it turns into cinnabar; cinnabar is red, but by the process of whitening it
Fig. 8.5. Heavenly inscriptions: A map of constellations (tianwen ) (above);
a Daoist reading the gnomon (below left); a group of divine inscriptions (fu )
(below right). (The first two illustrations are reproduced with the permission of
the Needham Research Institute from Joseph Needham, Science and Civilisation in
China, vol. 3 [Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1959), 277, 306]. The last
one is a group of talismans in Ge Hongs Inner Chapters [311, 314] rewritten in
calligraphy by the author)
the one199
becomes lead (IC 284). The astronomical instrument and the alchemical
vessel explore the same origin of the changes, by a similar instrumental
method to assimilate change. Like the astronomical instrument of change,
the alchemical vessel is a miniature of the cosmic egg. By reenacting the
cosmic egg, which is potently awakening, it too becomes an alchemical egg
in which Qi is spontaneously in the making through cyclical reconstruc-
tion of matter. The crucial part of the assimilation is the knowledge of what
governs changes. Alchemical principles inhere inside the crucible where
matter is decomposed and recomposed. But to unveil these principles,
alchemists must know how to create rotation.
Rotation is motion through time. Unlike modern time, which is an
abstract concept, for the ancient Chinese time is filled with material changes.
Therefore, time is a concrete process. For astronomers, the Sphere is a time
mechanism. It correlates celestial time with its internal clockthe timing
vesselregulated by water. The essence of time is change. For alchemists,
time is also measured by the number of cycles. But the timing of each cycle
is the most secret part of compounding elixirs. It is regulated not by the flux-
ing water, but by the changing fire. Minerals and metals can neither yield
changing phenomena, nor can they produce elixirs, unless the regulation
of fire is done under the specific timing measured in cycles. The growth of
new matter has its internal clock too. And this clock is artificially re-created
by the regulation of fire, with which elixirs are refined and linked to sote-
riological effects, which are also related to time. Similar to the cosmic vessel
with the sun and the moon to display circular time in the heavens, com-
parable to the earthly vessel with seasonal changes to display earthly time,
the alchemical vessel incubates the growth of matter by inserting circular
timethe material time represented by elixirsinto the decomposition
and recomposition of matter. What the insertion of time achieves is change
at an accelerated speed. But no matter whether time is at a natural rate or
an accelerated speed, the essence of time is still observable change.
Against the alchemical unity of change, there is a methodological ques-
tion here. We can ask Needham and scientifically minded Daoist scholars
a one and many question. Could Qi be a unity for astronomy, alchemy,
and medicine that have been understood separately because of scientific
categorizations? Insofar as the astronomy-alchemy comparison has been
viewed through the OM perspective, no matter whether the means of natu-
ral study is astronomical or alchemical, the common subject is change.
Ge Hong did not explain change in plural contexts by distinguishing
astronomical change and alchemical change as two categories of material
change. Rather, he envisioned that change itself was essentially a unity.
Change is the irreducible reality of cosmic life.
200 comparative ontology
The unity in the astronomical sense is the Qi that supports and turns
the wheel of celestial phenomena. The unity in the alchemical sense is the
Qi that shapes and reshapes matter. But both forms of Qi are material in
nature, just as the cyclic time. It brings matter and form together into a
natural bond that has potency of its own. And this material unity of matter
and form is called by alchemists dan elixir. The material essence, which
has been incubated out of the alchemical egg, shares the same potency as
the Qi in the cosmic egg. The Sphere gives a visible expression to the one
and the many in astronomical theory. The alchemical crucible gives Ge
Hongs alchemical OM theory a laboratory instrument. The Sphere stud-
ies Nature in the present process, whereas the alchemical crucible stud-
ies the process of Nature in its original form. The former has shaped the
empirical study of cosmology; the latter has pioneered the instrumental
study of cosmogony. The former aims to know the oneness of the many,
the latter the manyness of the One.
ated an ambiguity for the astronomical model historically that still causes
confusion and debate among modern scholars.19
Like many Confucians of his time, Zhang Heng lived in the shadow
of the famous Confucian scholar Dong Zhongshu (179104 BC).
Historically the idea heavens and humans become one (tianren heyi
) has been a shared vision of Confucian and Daoist intellectu-
als. However, it was Dong Zhongshu who first systematized the idea and
transformed it into an even more forceful argument called the induc-
tion between heaven and humanity (tianren ganying ). In his cel-
ebrated work Chunqiu fanlu , Dong said: The Yin Qi of heaven
and earth emerges; subsequently the Yin Qi of humans rises. The rising of
Yin Qi in humans also causes the Yin Qi of the cosmos to emerge. The Dao
is the same (book 13). The argument does not only state that heaven has
profound influences on human existence, but also that humans can influ-
ence the course of heaven. The influence is bidirectional, because humans
and the heaven principles share the same origin in the Dao. Therefore, it
is called induction.
The induction theory had a profound influence on astronomy during
the Jin period. But it also has its limits. In the Astronomical Treatise, the
passage on the five perceptible planets clearly reflects the need to corre-
spond natural phenomena with Confucian ethics. The content is highly
systematized; Table 8.1 provides a summary.20
In the table, the induction theory explains the correspondence between
East The Year Star Jupiter Wood Kindness
South The Twinkling Star Mars Fire Decency
West The Morning White Venus Metal Honesty
North The Hourly Star Mercury Water Wisdom
Middle The Exorcist Saturn Earth Faith
202 comparative ontology
five planets and four cardinal virtues. The philosophy is clearly the tradi-
tional Yin-Yang and Five Phases system, but further developed by Dong
Zhongshu. Thus five directions, five planets, the Five Phases, and five vir-
tues form a unique system of semi-astrology and semi-astronomy. However,
the purpose of the system is not to explain planetary patterns, but rather
to use cosmic phenomena to explain historical affairs. The core interest is
not natural studies, but ethics.
Viewed against the historical background, it is not difficult to under-
stand why Zhang Hengs astronomy was entangled in and limited by moral-
ity. Contrary to Zhang Hengs ambiguity, Ge Hongs astronomical writing
indicates the abandonment of the flat earth orthodoxy. Consequently
natural studies were freed from the contemporary ethics. The egg model
stood out clearly; heaven and earth were concentric spheres. The correc-
tion from the flat earth to the round earth represents a remarkable
step from ethical astrology to empirical astronomy. This step took nearly
two hundred years to complete, and it was made possible by Zhang Heng
and Ge Hong, who created two instrumental models to study the changing
universe. While many contemporary thinkers still lived in the shadow of
Dongs induction theory, Ge Hong showed no attachment to the lingering
orthodoxy. Instead, his writings continued to focus on empirical matters.
Heaven is similar to a bamboo hat, and the earth is like a basin turned
upside down []. Heaven and the earth both are ele-
vated in the middle and low on the periphery. Under the North Pole
is the center of heaven and the earth, where the land is situated at the
highest position; the surrounding land slopes down from the center.
The appearance and disappearance of the sun, the moon, and the stars
determine day and night. On the day of midwinter, the heavens [at the
North Pole] are higher than the outermost barrier-declination-circle
[waiheng ] by 60,000 li .22 The earth under the North Pole is also
higher than its peripheries under the outermost barrier-declination-
circle by 60,000 li. The heavens outermost barrier-declination-circle is
higher than the earth beneath the North Pole by 20,000 li. The heavens
and the earth are like concentric domes with a constant distance of
80,000 li from the sun to the earth. The sun attaches to and shifts with
the heavens. Between the seasons of winter and summer, the movement
of the sun covers the map of seven barriers and six paths [qiheng liujian
].23 The diameter and circumference of each barrier in li can
be calculated according to the similar right triangles [gougu chongcha
] and the shadow lengths of the gnomon; the obtained measure-
ments either far or near can all come from the calculation methods.
Therefore, the methods are called Zhou Bei . (AT 278279)
The text describes the complex Gaitian theory. Modern scholars have
shown a great degree of interest in the mathematical nature of the theory.
Figure 8.6 presents a detailed reconstruction.24 A recent study by Cullen
rightly argues that the primary feature of the theory is to define celestial
time for a functional calendar, and this practical issue has been overlooked
in previous studies.25 Since Ge Hong never disputed the agricultural pur-
pose of the Chinese calendar, we go directly to the astronomical structure
in the Gaitian theory.
Certainly, mathematics had found an important role when the Gaitian
theory was developed. However, for the current purpose, it is only neces-
sary to highlight two features of the text to explain Ge Hongs argument
on the issue of sunset. The main feature is the location of the celestial
axis at the North Pole. The heavenly lid rotates around the axis just like a
turning millstone; the sun also orbits the pole like a circumpolar star that
never sets but illuminates different portions of the earth at different times
of the day. Ge Hong explores the empirical problem. He argues, The sun
rises from the east, moves upwards, sets in the west, and disappears in the
night. The phenomena prove that the sun never goes to the [upward]
North Pole (AT 283).
Fig. 8.6. Reconstruction of the Gaitian theory. (Original drawing by Herbert Chatley; reproduced by permission of
the Needham Research Institute from Joseph Needham, Science and Civilisation in China [Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1959], vol. 3, 212)
the one205
earth, water appears. How can heaven travel through this water? It cannot
be true (AT 281).28 The problem becomes more acute for the rising and
setting sun. It seemed that the sun would have to set in the west, go under
the water, and emerge from the east.
Again Wang Chongs argument is problematic based on generaliza-
tion. Underground water does not represent all water. Ge Hong should
have explored this problem and argued that even in the lid model heaven
envelops the water around the earth but does not travel through it. Instead
he addresses the background Yin-Yang philosophy used by Wang Chong.
According to that philosophy, the sun belonged to the positive Yang,
whereas water belonged to the negative Yin. Wang Chong argued that this
order could not be disturbed (LH 2, On the Sun, 500). Ge Hong quoted
a phrase from the Book of Changes and replied with the analogy Heaven is
the dragon. The analogy suggests that the dragon (symbolizing the Yang
of the sun) was able to reach heaven and dive into the water (the sphere
of Yin) (AT 282).
Has Ge Hong answered Wang Chongs question at all? Some mod-
ern scholars mistakenly believe that Ge Hong has avoided the question
completely. 29 But they have overlooked the context of the astronomical
debate. It is already implied that if Wang Chong had followed Ge Hongs
version rather than Zhang Hengs version of the Huntian theory, he would
not even have raised the question. The solution is simple. The problem is
not about heaven going through water, but about the shape of the water.
The argument can be reconstructed.
Wang Chongs attack is based on the old version that has a flat earth
and flat water:
Ge Hongs defense was based on the new version that has a spherical
earth and spherical water:
These arguments diverge on the premises that set the Gaitian and the
Huntian theories apart. Ge Hong establishes the premise in the first para-
graph of his essay. Heaven forms the shape of an egg. The egg theory has
208 comparative ontology
three spherical layers: heaven, atmospheric water, and the earth, just as
there are three layers in an egg: a yolk, egg white, and eggshell.
The commentator Qiu Guanting of the Five Dynasties period
made these layers geometrically more distinct. The Master Embracing
Simplicity says: Four thousand miles away from the earth, there is the
sphere in which Qi is hard, so celestial bodies do not fall. . . . Heaven
encloses Qi, Qi encloses water, and water encloses the earth. 30 We can
explain the egg theory accordingly.
(A) The center is the spherical earth like a yolk. (B) The middle
layer is the meteorological heaven like egg white. Ge Hong has made the
point explicit by saying, There is water on the inner surface of heaven.
From an earthly point of observation, the inner surface of heaven indicates
the surface of heaven closer to the earth. Wang Chong focuses only on
groundwater and underground water on earth. Ge Hongs heavenly water
is located on the inner surface of heaven as moisture in clouds to gener-
ate rain and snow. (C) The central feature of the geocentric cosmos is the
outer layer of heaven. Ge Hong says: Qi supports heaven and the earth as
they move by carrying water. This supporting Qi in the geometry of the
egg means the outer layer of heaven where the celestial bodies are located.
This three-layer cosmology negates Wang Chongs criticism. Neither
the turning heaven nor any celestial bodies need to enter into water at
all. They never travel through water, but travel through Qi. This is the
essence of the Huntian theory. The theory and the empirical knowledge
of heavens rotation cohere.
There is one more outstanding question. Why does Ge Hong employ
the symbolism of a dragon to defend the theory on another front attacked
by Wang Chongs knowledge of Yin-Yang philosophy? There is a hidden
argument about Qi here. The dragon can go between Yin and Yang: the
symbolism rejects the criticism based on the assumption that the division
between heaven and water cannot be disturbed. The symbolism would
have been clear to ancient ears. The dragon could also symbolize vitality.
Ge Hong describes with regard to inner cultivation that the cosmic Qi is
encircled by dragons and tigers (IC 324). In the cosmological sense the
invisible vigor of universal Qi is made visible through the dragon. Thus the
dragon offers an alternative explanation to the duality of Yin and Yang. Qi
was the formless unity prior to the rising of Yin and Yang. Qi is Ge Hongs
real defense.
The introduction of Qi also invites a crucial question that leads to
another contribution made by Ge Hong. Why do celestial bodies float
in the sky without falling down? Ge Hong says: Qi supports heaven and
earth. The point is later made explicit by Ma Yongqing (1109?) of
the one209
the Five Dynasties. The master said: Forty li away from the earth, there
is a sphere in which Qi is hard, so celestial bodies do not fall. 31 It can be
inferred that the outer sphere possesses the supportive strength, not the
earth alone, which contains material Qi. Therefore, the reason why the
sun, the moon, the stars, and the planets are supported without falling is
all about this hard Qi [gangqi ]. 32 Modern scholars have pointed out
that Ge Hongs concept of hard Qi had an irreversible impact on later
thinkers. For instance, the renowned Song scholar Zhu Xi argued
that the heaven had nine rotating layers, and celestial bodies moved like
objects in a vortex. 33 Certainly the commentary by Ma Yongqing suggested
a distinction between the hard Qi supporting heaven and the soft Qi in
internal alchemy. No matter whether it is hard or soft, it has the common
feature of being supportive.
It might appear odd to think that the layers of heaven are supported
by Qi. But one can make a comparison with Newtons law of gravity. Prior
to Newtons discovery of gravity, there was no clear explanation as to why
celestial bodies float in the sky by themselves. According to Newtons law,
gravity is associated with mass. As long as material objects are there, gravity
will be there. Gravity functions as a force that brings celestial bodies into
the balanced relationship. In other words, gravity is the internal web of the
material cosmos. But this web attached to nothing, where matter is gravity
also. The theory of supportive Qi can produce a similar answer. In the cos-
mic egg, the web of Qi attached to nothing. As far as celestial bodies exist,
the web of material Qi is there because Qi is the unity of form and matter.
Similar to Newtons gravity between celestial bodies, Qi is the supportive
medium.
Modern scholars have not realized the crucial connection. Ge Hong
neither invented the idea of supportive Qi, nor did he create the cos-
mic egg theory. The concept of universal Qi already existed in the oldest
Xuanye theory. The sun, the moon, and stars naturally float inside form-
lessness. Their movements all depend upon the single Qi (AT 279). Ge
Hong knew the theory. He accepted the idea of Qi and criticized the idea
of heaven-human induction in The Thesis of Heavenly Peace (Antian
lun ) recorded just two pages before his own essay (AT 280).34 He
also partly accepted the egg theory, though he criticized its incomplete-
ness. According to ancient Confucian theory, the body of heaven and
earth is in the shape of a birds egg (AT 285). He accepted the egg theory
shared by both Daoists and Confucians, but he rejected measurements
of the cosmos because for him the cosmos was infinite in the likeness of
Xuan. To put these two points together in their historical setting, Ge Hong
created a hybrid theory, though it is not directly evident in his text. He
210 comparative ontology
kept the essence of the Xuanye theory, namely, the infinite universe. But
he extracted the old mathematical content and inserted the idea of Qi into
this ancient Confucian egg.
What he has achieved is a new life. The cosmic genealogy has been
continued in the new form. The Daoist concept of supportive and soterio-
logical Qi becomes the core of two cosmological models. This Qi has reju-
venated the ancient Confucian egg. In the historical background, where
Daoist heterodoxy lived under the shadow of Han Confucian orthodoxy,
Ge Hong not only turned the tables of argument, but also reconciled the
Xuanye and Huntian theories, one associated with Daoist cosmogony and
the other representing empirical astronomy.
The reconciliation in itself is an argument about cosmic evolution from
one to many. And this argument has already been anticipated in the first
paragraph of the Inner Chapters, where Ge Hong names the infinite Xuan.
Contrary to the Gaitian theory, which calculated the scope of the cosmos
mathematically, Ge Hong never attempted to fit the cosmos into any mea-
surable limits. In the same passage by Ma Yongqing, there is a conclusive
sentence yet to mention. Having been inspired by Ge Hongs hard Qi, the
commentator says, Now I will not believe that there is any definite distance
from the ground to heaven. 35 The cosmological egg is an infinite one.
hand, the realities became the criteria of the theory. Theory and reality
formed a balanced tension.
For Ge Hong, the tension can be as simply put as the story. Yang Xiong
could no longer feel the warmth of the sun after the sunset. The Gaitian
theory cannot explain this primary fact away because the fact also veri-
fies whether the theory is true. If the theory is true, then it does not only
explain why one feels the warmth of the sun, but also gives the reality a
coherent expression when the warmth has gone.
The method of two matching talismans contains two OM models:
one intellectual and another empirical. But both are the reflections of
the same reality. That reality is the cosmos. The Huntian theory provides
an intellectual telescope through which one can gaze at the night sky with
a fresh OM lens. Any observer would be impressed by the new theory or
the technological achievement of the Sphere. But what really inspired the
ancient minds were the astronomical phenomena. Cosmological studies
can be impressive and sophisticated. Nonetheless they are approximate
representations of the complex cosmos. No matter how the Huntian the-
ory was advanced at the time, it was still a glimpse of the boundless uni-
verse. Two matching talismans is not a fixed balance. It is creative and
evolving. Every generation has the responsibility to play out the tension by
including new empirical data. The play can be seen through the liturgical
use of talismans that aims to reactivate the fusion between the macro and
the micro in the moment of ritual performance. But through the perfor-
mance, Daoist naturalism is implicitly expressed. Fundamentally natural
studies recapture what has already existed and are at work in Nature. All
that studies can do is to make the hidden reality apparent.
Ge Hongs lifetime empirical study was alchemy, not astronomy. He
believed that Nature follows its own creative accord. The principle of inde-
terminate action seeks no control over Nature. Rather Daoists act like
an astronomical instrument or an alchemical crucible as vessels so that
Nature can display invisible signatures in and through visible means. What
instrumentalism can achieve is rather like an enlightened Daoist adept
who becomes an instrument to animate the creative core of Nature. As
the eulogy quoted by Ge Hong says, Zhang Heng made the Sphere to
animate Natures own making. Likewise, alchemists are not magicians
who give people the illusion of creating something out of nothing. They
are mediators who construct an artificial instrument in which Nature takes
care of the making. What happens inside the reaction chamber is entirely
beyond alchemists control. The only thing that they can control is the
circular time regulated by the cycles of fire that accelerate the cosmic pro-
cess of change. This ethical principle of indeterminate action functions as
212 comparative ontology
the elements according to Forms. Out of this divine act, the first born out
of Reason was the World Soul. By implanting Reason in the Soul (30b),
the world was virtually awakened by the divine mind. In the likeness of
the creator, the Soul was created as the living being (30c).
Platos Reason and Soul stand for the continuity between cosmogony
and cosmology, which is comparable to Ge Hongs Qi that carries the con-
tinuity between the precosmic egg and the egg of the current universe.
Reason is comparable with the creative Qi in the precosmic egg, whereas
the Soul is comparable with the Qi supporting the living universe. How-
ever, the key difference is the emphasis. Ge Hong uses the single word
Qi to highlight the continuity between cosmogony and cosmology. The
discontinuity is articulated in terms of the genealogical difference between
the ancestor and his progenies. Plato employs the logic of causality to
emphasize the discontinuity between Reason and the Soul, the creator and
the created. The continuity, in contrast, is expressed through the word
likeness. Although the Soul is created in the likeness of Reason, it is
nonetheless the visible living being of the invisible Reason. The conti-
nuity of likeness comes as the determinative act of the creator to infuse
intelligence into the created.
Another comparative issue more relevant to Plato is the tension of
motion and rest. Since Qi is always evolving, what is at rest is therefore
in relation to the mother Xuan. Qi inheres within the world and remains
to be the inner drive to turn the wheel of change. Similarly the Soul is
the moving image of the resting Reason. Plato says, The god created a
single visible living being, containing within itself all living beings of the
same natural order (30d) and established a single spherical universe in
circular motion according to the order of the Soul. Compared with Qi,
the Soul also is accountable for the unifying order to move the universe
in circular motionthe astronomical sign of life. However, beyond this
similarity, once more an ontological question is concealed. Is the rest truly
at rest while it causes motion? From the perspective of evolutionary Qi, it
moves; therefore it moves others. Can Platos Soul bridge the distinction
between unchanging Reason and the changing world?
Prior to the creation of the material universe, the Demiurge first created
the Soul and made it the dominating and controlling partner of the
body (34c). Using the metaphor of a blacksmith making a model, the mak-
ing of the Soul is described as a mechanical process to craft various parts
into a structural universe. First a long strip was cut into two narrow strips
214 comparative ontology
(36b). One strip was folded into a large ring and became the outer ring to
allocate fixed stars. Another strip was bent into a smaller ring and formed
the inner ring to accommodate moving planets (38c). Plato calls the first
ring Sameness and the second ring Difference (35a). Out of these two pri-
mary realities, the craftsman smelted the two and then produced a third
alloy reality called Existence (35a). Later the craftsman subdivided the
second strip Difference into seven unequal parts to form different orbits
for the sun and the moon and the five known planets (38c39e).
Physiology Astronomy
Head rational part Outer ring Sameness
Heart emotional part Middle ring Existence
Belly appetitive part Inner ring Difference
mental because it is the fusion between the One and the many. In every
single human, there inheres an element of cosmic origin. For Ge Hong it
is called Qi. For Plato, in every human being there is an element of the
divine infused by creative Reason. It rests upon the continuity between
Reason and rational minds, which Plato calls it Sameness.
But Platos correspondence between the World Soul and the human
soul falls short in answering the question why humans alone can possess
the rational aspects of life. For Ge Hong, humans are gifted to understand
Qi, but Qi is universally present in the world, in herbs, animals, and miner-
als. In every creature there is an intrinsic nature of Qi. Do humans alone
have souls that resemble the cosmic Soul? Does humanity alone have a
monopoly on cosmic lifethe gene traceable to the creator? For Plato,
the human soul alone has the intrinsic nature of Reason. Crafted beds,
beautiful roses, and geometrically shaped objects have no intrinsic nature.
Because Forms are ontologically independent, independence rejects there
being a Form in the likeness of the soul, which is both immanent and
composite.
Why cannot the soul have the same transcendence as Forms? It is sim-
ply because the body must be ensouled to be alive; likewise the body can-
not exist without the mind. If the Soul designates the unity of the worlds
body, it implies that the Soul must be immanent in the body. If the Soul
had the ontological independence of Forms, then the absolute transcen-
dence would make the body of the universe soulless, or the Soul disembod-
ied. Therefore, it is right to call the vitality of the universe the Soul and
not a Form. Plato has already arrived at this point, when he argues that the
Soul, as the self-mover, is the ultimate cause of motion and moves celestial
bodies. But he cannot stay away from the Pythagorean kind of mathemati-
cal Forms, so he assigns the mathematical equation c = 2r to the Soul to
be the Form of the Soul. From here onwards, a problem begins to unfold.
Does this mean that this mathematic Form becomes immanent in the
world through the Soul? If it does, Plato suggests that Forms can be imma-
nent. In fact they have to be immanentwe will see why shortly. If so, he
would have turned away from the theory of transcendental Forms. Daoism
would regard the move actually as a remarkable effort to close the gap
between the one and the many, which have previously been kept apart by
the division of being and becoming.
The OM Argument
To understand the OM argument in the Soul, we need to demonstrate
some distinctions between Forms and the Soul. Cornford has shown that
the three parts of the Soul correspond to three attributes of Forms. Same-
the one219
Many of Forms. Forms are ideal causes, whereas sensibles are created as
physical copies of Forms. They belong to two separate orders of being
and becoming. But nothing mediates the never-changing causes and
ever-changing caused. Through the mediation of the Soul, however, Pro-
clus interpretation intends to close the Parmenidean gap in Platonism.
This remarkable shift does not exist in the Republic. Even the prologue of
Timaeus states that the paradigm of Being/Becoming is the condition that
the Demiurge has to work with.
Why does Proclus modify the model/copy paradigm on behalf of
Plato? If planetary motions display a celestial clock, then time must be
immanent in the motions, so that times was, is, and will be become
perceptible through astronomical observation. This is exactly the same
dilemma as having immanent Forms. Ethical Forms ( Justice, Beauty,
Good) must be personified in a persons life in order for the virtues to
be perceptible through bodily behaviors. What stops Plato from accept-
ing the immanence is the combined influence of Parmenidean ontology
and Pythagorean mathematics. The being without not-being ontology
prohibits Forms to be entangled in the Becoming. Two equal sticks can
be destroyed, but the algebraic equality remains transcendental of the
objects. This is idealism. But the dilemma is equally powerful. To be the
ultimate cause of motion, the Soul cannot enjoy the transcendent state
as Forms but must be entangled in becoming. To solve the problem that
is entangled in, yet unaffected by, Becoming, the solution does not come
from mathematics, but from ethics. The Soul must hold all three elements
together in harmony to exemplify the purpose of creationthe Good. The
only way to hold them together is to coordinate the three parts, similar to
the philosophical charioteer in the Phaedrus who coordinates two winged
horses with the skill to keep them from breaking their wings because of
conflict between them.
The core argument of Proclus is basically intermediation. It is the same
argument in the intermediation of Qi between the One and the many.
The coordination among the three parts of the Soul speaks for a relational
ontology other than a causal ontology. Proclus interpretation also shifts
the ontological ground on behalf of Plato. Plato wants to prioritize math-
ematical Forms over the Soul in the text, but Proclus, with Aristotelian
criticism in mind, hopes to insert the neglected issue of mediation back
into Platos ontology. From a Daoist point of view, this is the right move to
solve the OM problem.
The World Soul is an attempt to reconcile the Parmenidean gap of
Being and Becoming. Created to be the sole copy of the eternal model, the
Soul becomes the only model identity according to which the body of the
the one221
Zero to Three
Ancient commentators answered the first question. Plato aims to explain
the mathematical structure of the Soul in terms of solid geometry. The
reason for stopping at the cube is that the cube symbolizes body in three
dimensions. 45 The Soul is a three-dimensional sphere equidistant in all
directions from the center (34a). The body of the universe is built three
dimensional because the Souls determinate order is diffused through
the whole and enclosed body (34b). In descending order, n = 2 refers to
plane geometry; n=1 becomes arithmetically the primary even 2 and the
odd 3. In algebra, of course, 3 is not the primary odd, but 1.
Corresponding to the building of the astronomic model by the divine
blacksmith, Plato gives the spatial characterises of arithmetic numbers.
The condition n =13 summarizes the move from arithmetic numbers to
planes and from planes to solids. It seems Plato has brilliantly managed
to adopt all three Pythagorean ideas in the principle of division. (A) The
world is made of numbers. (B) Numbers can be divided into two different
groups: even and odd. (C) Geometry is explainable with numbers. How-
ever, if we have a closer look at the numbers involved in division, there are
some inconsistencies.
When n equals 0, 2n and 3n produce the common root number 1.
The Soul is a unity of Sameness symbolized by the numerical one. When n
equals 1, they yield the even 2 and the odd 3. The numbers can be divided
into two contrary groups. When n equals 2, there come 4 and 9. They
symbolize plane geometry. The numbers 4 and 9 could be the area of a
square with bases of 2 and 3 respectively. But the square is only one of
many planes. Why are circles and triangles not included? When n equals 3,
8 and 27 appear. They symbolize solid geometry. But 8 and 27 are only the
volumes of the cubes with bases of 2 and 3. Why are pyramid, sphere, and
other solids not included? Does Plato suggest that squares and cubes are
primaries of all planes and solids respectively? But we have been told: the
Soul fundamentally is a sphere. Unless Plato can show an inscribed circle
in a square and an inscribed sphere in a cube, there is no direct correspon-
dence between the numbers and the Soul. The numbers become symbolic
to express the Pythagorean tendency.
The Primary 1
The second question is an explicit OM question. Why is 1 the primary
number for both even and odd numbers? For Plato, the numerical 1 has
a higher order than any other number. The numerical one is indivisible,
irreducible, and the root number. These characters only Forms can pos-
224 comparative ontology
Third, what does the single stuff really mean to Plato? To enlarge the
picture by placing the division within the creation of the Soul, we face
another problem. From the very beginning Plato states that the Form
equidistance in all directions from the centeris the chief and single
identity of the Soul. To construct the Soul in the cosmogonical background
means to incarnate the immaterial Form with cosmological structures. The
mathematical division symbolizes the divine act to make the Form embod-
ied. Fourth, how is it possible to divide this Form? If the Form is indivisible,
as the doctrine of Forms insists that anything divisible cannot be the most
fundamental, then the Demiurge must be bound by the rule. Consequently
he cannot divide the strip of soul-stuff, even if his Pythagorean conscience
tells him otherwise. The construction of the Soul becomes impossible. If
the Form can be divided, then it implies that each Form must be divisible.
Plato has borrowed Pythagorean numbers to explain the change from one
to many but arrives at an inconsistency that can overturn his crowning
theory. All in all, the construction of the Soul exhibits a real challenge for
the doctrine of Forms.
The most difficult part of the one and the many is not about the divis-
ibility of the Form, but about the Form itself. Is the equation c = 2rnot
complex at allcapable of turning the entire universe? Is it the ultimate
cause of motion? The prominent reason for Plato being committed to the
Form is ideal perfection. In his words, the figure with extremes equidis-
tant in all directions from the center has the greatest degree of complete-
ness and uniformity, as he [the Demiurge] judged uniformity to be incal-
culably superior to its opposite (33c). Certainly Pythagorean mathematics
has played a key role in the construction of the Soul. But the perfectionism
belongs to Platos idealism. He has idealized mathematics by turning r into
the one over many principle with a familiar ontological twist. Once he has
done so in this context, he has boxed himself inside the idealismthe
perfection of the Form of the Circle, which simplifies cosmology into the
order of the circumference.
But Ge Hong would ask two questions: Why should the universe be
a sphere, not an egg? Why should all living souls in this world be in
conformity with this single idea, and what about each individual is exem-
plified by the immortals? These questions cannot be answered by scru-
tinizing the single passage about division. We can ask another question
instead.
Does mathematics actually explain the change from one to many?
Commentators ancient and modern have agreed that Platos passage is
about division. But Cornfords diagram shows multiplication. The single
soul-stuff is not meant to be 1, but a whole. If it were 1, then by divi-
226 comparative ontology
sion the Demiurge could only get , , 8, 3, 9, and 27. The division
from 1 to the fractions involves quantitative variation, but no qualitative
transformation. Here we again run into the contrast between two modes
of change: Greek physical variation and Daoist alchemical transformation.
Plato explains the change from one to many as physical variation. But
from the whole to the parts explains nothing about the from one to
many transformation. If Plato plans to explain cosmological unity, there is
an ontological dilemma in showing the discontinuity between the One and
the many and how discontinuity other than quantitative variation comes
about. The ancient interpretation maintained above foresees the problem
by interpreting the change in the sequence of numbers, planes, and sol-
ids. However, mathematically solids consist of planes, planes are made of
lines, and lines are numbers. They can all be explained by 1/2n and 1/3n
as numbers. There is no change in kind involved. Just as the pre-Socratic
materialists explained change in terms of physical variation, Platos math-
ematical division too has failed to explain the change in kind.
internally as plural as human life. But the mathematical Form has mis-
led the ethical intuition without realizing the harmonious rotation of the
cosmos is a balanced zero. Within the harmonious unity, the Form gov-
erning the rotation happens to be one of many orders within the totality
of change balanced by the dialectic opposites. Each single order in the
cosmos bears the relation of zero and one to form the unity of harmony.
This relationship derives from the creative core of the universe, which is
the bond of Xuan-Qi (zero and one). Ge Hongs hagiographic tradition
depicts the OM relation vividly. Many immortals have preserved the bond.
They dwell freely in the cosmos and collectively animate the creative core
of the universe with their plural personalities. The zero and one bond of
immortal life shares the same genesis as cosmic life. What does this bond
imply for the Soul? In order for the Soul to be a balanced one, there must
be a hidden reality of zero somewhere.
In the past section we have gone the extra distance to engage the com-
mentary tradition and have arrived at the conclusion that there must be
an element of zero that symbolizes the indeterminate nature hidden in the
Soul. Plato originally intended the Soul to be a harmonious unity for the
body of the world. But Pythagorean mathematics alters the ethical model
by assigning the equation c =2r to the Soul. This shift from the ethical to
the mathematical creates two OM problems.
The first one is the relationship between a single Soul and multiple
Forms. If the Soul is the Form of circumference, why is the equation c = 2r
singled out as universal over the rest of Forms? How can all principles of
the world be reduced to this determinate structure? The second one is the
relationship between the Soul and the myriad things in the world. How
can a single Soul form the harmony shared by the many?
A a B
The overlapping (a) is the common property that both A and B share.
It is neither a whole A nor a whole B. And this section of not a whole A
and not a whole B is essentially required for relational harmony. We call
this (a) blood in modern medicine or Qi in ancient alchemy.
Applying these points to the above graphic yields two results. First, the
overlapping (a) is not a complete A and not a complete B. Accord-
ing to the negation, it becomes not-A and not-B. Second, A must be
an indivisible one A without not-A. In order to meet the requirement
that A is a numerical 1, A cannot contain not-A. Thus the relational (a) is
excluded from A. The same logic applies to B. The denial of the shared (a)
leads to the denial of participation between A and B. But to be a relational
being, somehow A must contain this property (a). If it is denied, then rela-
tionshipboth like and unlikeis not possible. In the biological model, if
blood is denied, then there will be neither participating harmony between
the heart and the kidneys, nor is human life as a whole possible.
Now we come to a problem that relates to Platos strange idea of
numerical being. By the principle of noncomposition, not-A is rejected.
So A is one in the sense of numerical oneness. This is Platos idealism that
any universal must be a numerical being. But two numerical beings can-
not participate in each other. Plato often speaks of the two mathematical
Forms most frequent in the doctrine of creation: the circle (the structure
of Soul) and the triangle (the structure of the elements). Is it possible to
form a participatory relationship between the two? Since circles and trian-
gles cannot be reduced to each other, it is not possible to find a common
resemblance between them. In theory, triangles should not participate in
circles. If so, how can the Soul form a harmony, a Form contain all Forms?
The root problem of numerical being is the ontology of being with-
230 comparative ontology
A B A B
The 1 and 2 and the 1 and 3 situation can be shown in the diagrams
above. Let us see the crucial change that numerical beings make to our
original diagram. Originally, A and B are not numerical beings. They are
relational beings, and both share the common property (a). Since numeri-
cal beings are meant to be noncomposite beings that deny this shared
not-being, they cannot relate to each other as overlapping coalitions.
They can either be next to each other or apart from each other. This is
the implication of being without not-being. All that the exclusion of not-
being does is to promote ontological individualism.
the one231
cannot reshape radon adjacency into harmony unless the Soul continu-
ously evolves after creation, thus changing independently from the divine
model. If it does mutate into a harmonious unity, then the Soul becomes
the rebellious child of the maker. The Soul has rejected this genesis but
become the creative life of the universe.
Fig. 8.8. Two distinctive schemes of the One and the many
the one235
the world of Forms and the world of actuality is defined by the sameness
between Reason and the Soul. The discontinuity is stated as the unchange-
able model and the changeable copy. The former is ruled by Reason,
whereas the latter is ruled by the Soulthe cause of motion.
Now let us examine the problem of plurality caused by the Forms. Plato
says, It is impossible for the best to produce anything but the highest
(30b). Thus the Demiurge made the copy of the Soul to incarnate Rea-
son. If the universe is a perfect copy of the divine model, then Plato will
face the problem of creating two worldsone duplicating the other. The
causation explains nothing about the phenomenon of change. The world
of Forms contains no change. But the fact is that, like human souls, the
World Soul is not entirely rational. The entire cosmos cannot be viewed
as a monad ruled by rational Sameness. It also contains Existence and Dif-
ference. Similar to the appetitive part of the human soul located in the
belly, the inner ring of difference contains the earth, in which becoming
is the primarily reality. If the universe contains irrational elements, then
not all phenomena are reducible to a single intelligence. Even if the Soul
is assumed to rotate by the principle of Radius, it does not follow that
everything within the rotating sphere is regular. For instance, four sea-
sons form a circular change. But neither atmospheric motions nor oceanic
changes are irregular. If we borrow Ge Hongs theory of two matching tal-
ismans, we can put the uncreated world of Forms and the created world
of actualities side by side. They are unmatched. Then the question is this:
where does change come from?
Platos model/copy is a theory of craftsmanship. To adopt the theory
leaves change unexplained. But the doctrine of creation requires this dis-
continuity. What does this discontinuity mean? We have encountered two
approaches in the diagrams above. The two eggs theory explains change
by affirming that the One changes itself in order to create principles of
change. This is the change from one to many. The model/copy theory
presupposes the principles as preexistent. Preexistence seems to have
avoided the discontinuity problem by emphasizing the continuity between
the model and the copy. Yet insofar as the doctrine of creation stands, the
discontinuity is unavoidable. The paradox of continuity and discontinuity
is about change.
We can reduce the size of cosmic change to a small scale. By taking only
one Form from the world of Forms, we can see the OM problem. For one
Form to create many instances is to change from one to many (Figure 8.9).
How does the causality work if change has been ontologically denied?
We have already examined this problem. For instance, to create differ-
ent beds, Plato believes that only one ideal Bed is required. But normal
236 comparative ontology
beds, sofa beds, and water beds represent a horizontal discontinuity. They
are different from each other as well as called beds. The discontinuity is
change. If the Form is the cause for them, then it must accommodate the
external discontinuity (change) represented by the many. In a schema of
design-act-instances, the craftsman must modify the design and act upon
three versions of the design in order to build the different beds. Modifica-
tion is internal change, which happens within the one. Though Plato has
externalized the change by placing the Demiurge outside the one to carry
out the act of building the many, the modification must first occur within
the divine mind so the maker can act accordingly to actualize the internal
change in the context of external change in those beds.
What does internal change mean? It means that the Form must contain
the element of change rather being absolutely changeless. The argument
is not just specific to Plato, but also of general application. On the latter,
suppose a bed is an article of furniture designed to sleep on. It appears
that there can be all sorts of variations without the basic specification
being changed. However, the definition to sleep on is an OM unity. A
multiplicity of instances that satisfy the functionality are implied in the
definition. Furthermore, the causal design is not strictly one idea, but a
unity of many possible applications of the idea. So the definition in itself
the one237
Summary
The One shapes different progenies of the One, and the One unfolds its
essence into the plural existence of the many. This is the first argument
concerning Ge Hongs two eggs theory in the context of various astro-
nomical writings. This cosmogonical answer to the OM problem basically
rejects Platos doctrine of creation. In particular Forms cannot be ontolog-
ical permanents. They can only have relative permanency in the evolving
cosmos. This is the second major argument on the critical reading of the
World Soul. The composite Soul is designed to be a solution to bridge the
gap between Being and Becoming. Compared with Ge Hongs method of
two matching talismans, Platos natural studies are set within the limits
of his idealism. The problem of the Soul is basically the problem of Forms.
chapter 9
The Many
This chapter is situated against the background of two distinct natural phi-
losophies: Ge Hongs alchemical universe and Platos geometrical world.
The comparative study is textually based. It starts with my critique of the
alchemy as chemistry thesis in Daoist studies with the aim to free alchemy
from the need to explain itself by the means of modern science. Then I
introduce my alchemy-cosmogony approach and place Ge Hongs instru-
mental studies of minerals in dialogue with Platos geometrical structures
of matter.
238
the many239
The British Sinologist Joseph Needham, who was also trained in chem-
istry, argued that Chinese alchemy was an early form of chemistry (includ-
ing biochemistry) within the history of sciences. The thesis of alchemy as
chemistry fit well within the scheme of Needhams Science and Civilisation
in China, which is based on categorizations of modern sciences. We will
come back to the philosophical problem in greater detail later.
Nathan Sivin, an American historian of science who was trained as a
chemist as well, applied the alchemy as chemistry thesis in his study on
Essential Formulas (Oral Transmission) of the Alchemical Scripts attrib-
uted to Sun Simo (581682) of the Tang.6 Sivin argued that any
conclusions about alchemy would be premature until the chemistry of
the text was fully reconstructed.7 His textual study reflected this scientific
method. It reconstructed the composition of each ingredient, recovered
the measurements from ancient prescriptions, analyzed applied methods
for the art of elixir making, and conducted laboratory tests on recogniz-
able chemical reactions. Sivin has identified alchemy as follows:
An Qi Sheng
375
Mao Xi Gong Ma Ming Sheng
Ye Xia Gong
106 p728-9
Le Chen Gong 375
Gai Gong
Cao Can
Yin Chang Sheng 375380
Li Zhong Fu
Wei Bo Yang L Zi Hua Zhu Xian Sheng
Zuo Ci
Y Sheng X Cong Shi Wang Si Zhen
Bao Jing
Chun Y Shu Tong Ge Xan
Zheng Ying
Ding Yi X Mai
Ge Hong
Wu Meng Yang Yi
Fig. 9.1. Alchemic traditions between the Han and Jin periods. The
reconstruction is based on the studies of Joseph Needham and Chen Guofu as
well as my own research. Here I adopt the general scheme of alchemic traditions
proposed by Needham in Science and Civilisation in China, vol. 5, part 3, 77.
During my research I only managed to find some of the historical records on
Ge Hongs side of the tradition. The text notes in the diagram demonstrate the
intergenerational continuation from Zhang Ling to Ge Hong.
242 comparative ontology
to form the first portion of the text, yet the later portions evidently used
instrumental alchemy to explain internal alchemy. Moreover, the titles of
early texts mentioned in Ge Hongs writings were often wholly or partially
borrowed by texts of later writers in the present Daoist Canon to claim
some form of lineage.
One of Ge Hongs greatest achievements was to make the secret tradi-
tion public. He was the first alchemist to publish the sacred texts. Forty-one
detailed prescriptions can be found in the chapter on Golden Elixirs (IC
7487) and another seven in the chapter on Yellow and White (IC 289291).
In the chapter on the Bibliographical Tradition (19),11 he documented
many alchemical texts among 204 ancient texts, with specific indication of
the number of fascicles in each (IC 333335). The publication was revolu-
tionary. By making the sacred texts public, Ge Hong was making a political
move to invite many educated Confucians like himself to leave their social
commitment behind and engage in the empirical study of Nature.
To synthesize it, take one measure of liquid gold [jinye ] and mer-
cury and cook them for thirty days. When the reaction is complete
[when they liquefy], pour it into a yellow-earth vessel, and then seal it
with Six-One Mud [liuyi ni ]. Fire the vessel for sixty two-hour
periods [liushi shi ]; [the sublimated liquor] will form the elixir.
If one takes the elixir of the size of a small bean, the person should
become an immortal. Use one spatula [yidao gui ] of this elixir
powder, and project it into one jin () of mercury; the mercury will
be turned into white silver. Take one jin of this elixir and heat it with
intense fire, and it will form red gold and flow as liquor. Colloidal gold
is called elixir gold [danjin ]. (IC 83)
The passage describes a very early method, if not the earliest recorded
method, used to form a solution of natural gold. The procedure first
the many243
The text mentions that the same base materials, gold and mercury, are
used. Compared with the previous text, the main method is acidification,
or the wet method, followed by the firing method, which the text does not
mention explicitly. Reading this text in conjunction with the last text, the
two methods become more intelligible.
Additional realgar, saltpeter, and vinegar are employed in the second
244 comparative ontology
method. They may be used to assist the long process of dissolving a gold-
mercury alloy into the colloidal form. With this additional information,
it is evident that Ge Hong has omitted the following crucial details in the
first stage of acidification:
which in turn neutralizes the toxicity of gold. The cylinder is sealed with
silk and lacquer, and is immersed in vinegar. In one hundred days gold
and mercury will dissolve forming the Gold Water (colloidal gold) and
the Mercury Water respectively, that will be separated and distinguishable
from each other. 14 The key element in the passage is the separation of
the end products. The Gold Water is heavier than the Mercury Water, so
the colloidal gold can easily be retrieved from the bottom of the vessel.
The second phase in making the Returned Elixir is a sublimation pro-
cess: Additional mercury is boiled in the Gold Liquor; vinegar is then
poured over it. The mercury is then heated for thirty days, after which it
takes on a purple colour, and is placed in a crucible luted with Six-One
Mud. 15
As the result of the sublimation, a small quantity of sublimated metal
forms small beans on the top part of the crucible, the cooling part. It then
can be collected as the Returned Elixir. A small quantity of it can be used
in the alchemy of projection to turn a large amount of base metal into
artificial gold or silver. This projection is mentioned in the first text.
In 1964 the Chinese chemist Wang Kuike published a recon-
struction with detailed chemical formulas to explain the alchemical pro-
cess. The key part of the reaction consists of two consecutive changes: 16
the first upper book, the middle book, and the last book of the current
Scripture on the Elixir of Grand Purity (IC 76). The description confirms that
the version Ge Hong possessed during the Jin dynasty was composed of
three fascicles. However, Ge Hongs version again was lost. It is nowhere to
be found in contemporary texts. The only surviving portion of the origi-
nal text appears in Ge Hongs recollection in the chapter on the Golden
Elixir. In the Daoist Canon, the first part of the Oral Instructions of the Heav-
enly Master on the Grand Purity Scripture (DZ 18, 787792)
bears some textual resemblance to it. It may belong to the same textual
tradition, but it is a later edition.18 Therefore, the primary textual source
for the retroversion of the Returned Elixir is Ge Hongs recollection. The
Oral Instructions is the secondary source.
The Master Embracing Simplicity says: the method of the Grand Purity
elixir derives from Yuan Jun , who was the master of Laozi. . . . This
Grand Purity elixir is harder to synthesize than are the elixirs of the
Nine Tripods, but it is the superior method to ascend into the heavens
during daylight. To synthesize the elixir, first the Flowery Pond [huachi
] must be constructed. Red Salt [chiyan ], Hard Snow [genyun
], Mystery White [xuanbai ], Flying Talismans [feifu ], and
Three-Five Divine Water [shenshui ] must be prepared, and then
the fire may be lit.
To achieve immortality requires ingesting the elixir of the one-cycle
for three years, of the two-cycle for two years, of the three-cycle for one
year, of the four-cycle for half a year, of the five-cycle for one hundred
days, of the six-cycle for forty days, of the seven-cycle for thirty days, of
the eight-cycle for ten days, and of the nine-cycle for three days. Place
the nine-cycle elixir inside a divine tripod, expose it under the sun after
the summer solstice. Once the tripod becomes hot, insert a jin of
Red Child [zhuer , cinnabar] beneath the lid. Watch over it and
wait for the essence of the sun shining upon it. After a while something
suddenly happens as the result of sunshine. The compound will pro-
duce sparking and splendid five-colored divine light, and immediately
be transformed into the Returned Elixir [huandan ]. Whoever
takes a spatula of the returned elixir will at once ascend into heaven in
daylight. The script also mentions that the nine-cycle elixir should be
placed in a sealed earthenware crucible and heated by a chaff fire, first
gentle then intense. From one to nine, the elixirs are formed in varied
number of days, so the effectiveness can be differentiated. The fewer
the cycles of the elixir that has been transformed, the less its strength.
Therefore, by ingesting the less transformed elixir, immortality will be
248 comparative ontology
ized the essence of Nature in the same degree as the creator, who has
transformed the primordial formless Qi through nine cycles of self-change.
Contrary to the spiral evolution of the cosmos from one to many, the mak-
ing of the elixirs represents a return from the many to the one. The name
Returned Elixir makes this reverse clear. The whole alchemical process
is about the return from multifarious base materials to a single essence.
As is commonly the case in Ge Hongs alchemical texts, this particu-
lar description only gives an impression, not a prescription. There is just
enough information for alchemists to know what the solution and fire
methods and key ingredients are. Nevertheless, the information is nowhere
near enough to make the text intelligible to outsiders. In fact, no alchemi-
cal texts are intended to be fully intelligible without oral instructions, which
were never written down but passed on through a strict master-apprentice
relationship. Even with oral instructions, texts are meaningless unless they
have been turned into praxes, which is the essence of instrumentalism.
In other words, the text, written in obscure technical language, contains
introductory and invitational messages for those seeking immortality, but
it is not a scientific manual written as a step-by-step guide. To understand
hidden connotations, one is required to have practical experience, during
which a master instructs an apprentice in the practice by revealing crucial
points with oral instructions, such as cyclical time regulated by fire.
This praxis-instruction-realization procedure is the same method used
in the Preservation of the One and evidently becomes the key phase in
later internal alchemy. For alchemists, it is common knowledge that the
greatest difficulty is not to obtain scriptures, but to gain instruction. To
gain instruction, as his autobiographic passages show (IC 71, 83, 287), Ge
Hong holds that one must live a contemplative life within a Daoist order,
prepare the mind and the body for years to achieve a pure state of simplic-
ity, and prove himself to be worthy as the bearer of the instruction in order
to carry on the lineage.
With these hermeneutical difficulties in mind, it is still necessary to
make the text at least more accessible to modern minds. In the first para-
graph, the text mentions two instruments: the Flowery Pond (huachi )
and the earthenware crucible (tufu ). These terms indicate that both
the dissolving method and the firing method are used. Four key ingredi-
ents include Red Salt, Hard Snow, Mystery White, and Three-Five Divine
Water. Among them the first three ingredients are mentioned with greater
explanatory details in the Oral Instructions: Alchemists shall mix a special
mud with White Lead [qianbai , Mystery White in Ge Hongs text] and
the great vinegar [dacu ]. Having been well stirred, the mixture can be
applied to the top of an earthenware crucible. Then a lid made of the base
250 comparative ontology
material Red Salt is used to cover the crucible. Reapply the mixture to the
joint in order to seal the crucible (DZ 18, 788).
Red Salt in the text is an impure mineral salt and possibly contains iron,
which would explain its red appearance. It is said that a lid of the earth-
enware crucible is made of the mineral. The lead-based substance Mystery
White is used as a material to provide the seal that the earthenware crucible
requires to survive intense heat without cracking. These two explanatory
details correspond with Ge Hongs warning: in order to achieve success,
the earthenware crucible must be completely sealed during the heating
procedure. Hard Snow is also known as Masculine Snow (xiongxue ):
this is possibly a sort of alchemical mercury directly involved in the reac-
tion as a key ingredient. The Oral Instructions say: To use Hard Snow one
shall place the Six-One Mud in a big flat pan and pile it up to form a square
container like a dry measuring unit for grain [shengxing ]. Dry it com-
pletely in the shade [not in the sun, in order to have an even shrinkage].
Place Hard Snow at the bottom, cover the top with a copper sheet, and
spray some great vinegar inside the container. After being heated in a coal
fire, Hard Snow and the copper sheet will disappear (DZ 18, 788).
Here the text reveals that coal fire is applied in comparison with the
use of a chaff fire specified in Ge Hongs version. It is a common knowl-
edge that intense fire (wuhuo ) and gentle fire (wenhuo ) can yield
completely different results even with the same base materials. Heated by
a chaff fire, first gentle then intense is perhaps the most important clue
to obtaining the elixir by knowing the degree of firing (huohou ). The
use of a chaff fire rather than a coal fire is certainly intended to produce
a lower temperature, probably with the aim of gaining easier and more
responsive regulation.
It should be noted, though, that the name Returned Elixir appears
many times in various alchemical texts, and the heating method differs
from text to text. Compared with the description in the Nine Tripods, Ge
Hongs text records a solar heating method.22 By exposing the tripod
under the sun after the summer solstice and adding extra cinnabar, the
heated tripod will transform the nine-cycle elixir into Returned Elixir.
To what extent alchemists used solar energy is unclear, but the method
is strikingly similar to the technique used in modern solar heating systems.
In order to use solar energy, the construction of the tripod becomes essen-
tial. The tripod had a double-layer construction with metal outside and
clay inside. The metal tripod would usually be painted black in order to
have the best heat reception from the summer sun. The clay layer had
perhaps three layers. The metal interior is first covered with the material
called the Six-One Mud. On the top of it is a layer of Red Salt. Then a cop-
the many251
per sheet is placed on the top part of the vessel to reflect heat traveling
upward. The interior, therefore, functions as insulation to cumulate and
preserve heat. Modern solar heating systems are usually constructed with
a double-layer glass tube with a transparent outer layer and an inner layer
painted black. Air is extracted between layers to create a vacuum for insu-
lation. On a normal sunny day, the interior temperature can reach over
200 degrees Celsius. Likewise, if the tripod is well insulated and heat is not
radiated back into the air, its interior could reach a very high temperature
during a summer afternoon.
From the modern point of view, the key is the temperature. But Ge
Hong says nothing about temperature, merely revealing how the instru-
ment is constructed. As long as the instrument is correctly constructed,
reaching the temperature is just a matter of time. Under these conditions,
Ge Hong provides another instruction. When the tripod is hot, one jin
(five hundred grams) of red cinnabar (Red Child ) is placed under
the lid (IC 76). As the essence of the sun shines upon the tripod, the
text says, the compound will produce sparking and splendid five-colored
divine light.
This spectacular phenomenon can be explained by chemistry.23 Cin-
nabar (HgS) when heated by solar energy begins to decompound at a rela-
tively low temperature of 285 degrees Celsius. The reaction produces liquid
mercury and sulfur dioxide gas. Mercury at this temperature is unstable
and quickly reacts with oxygen, forms hydrargyrum oxide (HgO), and pro-
duces more heat for subsequent reaction. The end product, the Returned
Elixir, could be a mixture of sulfuretted hydrargyrum and hydrargyrum
oxide (HgS + HgO), both red in color. The chemical reactions that take
place on the top of the tripod can be explained by the following formulas:
insulation material inside of the vessel. Ge Hong revealed that the term
Six-One was an esoteric name used by alchemists, and it actually meant
seven ingredients. But he never revealed the actual ingredients of Six-
One Mud. Apparently he kept the making of this material secret simply
because the success of the entire practice relied on this first stagecon-
structing the reaction vessel.
The ingredients were made public in many later alchemical texts, but
the proportions were either unknown or vary from text to text. According
to the study of Sivin on the prescription by the alchemist Sun Simo ,
the ingredients can be chemically identified as shown in Table 9.125
A test conducted by Sivin demonstrates the application of the mud
made of seven materials. The compound can stand the intense heat at 900
degrees Celsius without showing any signs of cracking.26 Using the mud as
the covering material actually constructs the reaction vessel as a chemically
stable and physically insulated and sealed environment.
From Sivins study, we can further speculate that a possible reaction
could take place in the middle of the tripod. The energy generated from
the oxidization process on the top part of the tripod can create intense
heat and bring the interior temperature to 450 to 500 degrees. This tem-
perature (above the evaporation temperature of mercury, 375 degrees
Celsius) is required for the Mystery White to react.
During the reaction, the splendid five-colored divine light may partly
derive from the burning of minerals: Na+ (yellow), Pb+ (white) contained
in Mystery White, the cyclical change of HgS (red), and Cu+ (blue) in the
Arsenolite As2O3
Red bole A red siliceous clay
Left-oriented oyster shell
Kalinite Kal(SO4)2.12H2O
Talc 3MgO.2SiO2.2H2O
Turkestan salt impure NaCl
Lake salt Na2CO3.NaHCO3.2H2O
the many253
copper sheet. These reactions would have inspired Ge Hong. The spec-
tacular phenomena energized by the sun displays the remarkable transfor-
mation of the elixir.
Sivins chemical reconstruction and laboratory tests make the text more
intelligible. But these chemical formulas bear no reference to the effica-
cious Returned Elixir. All that can be said about the elixir can be sum-
marized as the cyclical reaction of cinnabar. There is nothing more to it.
Inorganic chemistry treats these base materials as lifeless matter, externally
objectifies the reactions, and pays no attention to the induction between
the changes in the instrumental egg and the soteriological change in the
human egg of the alchemists.
One particular criticism against alchemy, perhaps the most damaging,
is also articulated by chemistry. Some elixirs are toxic because they contain
the heavy metals mercury and lead as well as highly toxic arsenide. Ingest-
ing elixirs can cause slow or rapid poisoning to the body. The result is death-
dealing rather than life-giving. Thus chemistry completely rejects the syn-
thesis of change and life behind instrumental alchemy.27 The driving force
for alchemists to find the medicine of life has been denied. Chemistry was
born out of the magic play of alchemy but divorced it long ago during the
rebirth of reason. That elixirs became associated with death rather than
life contributed to the death of instrumental alchemy.28 Finding the pill of
immortality belonged to a Daoist hallucination that historically faded away
as more and more people died by ingesting elixirs.29 Instrumental alchemy
lasted over one and a half millennia before it died away. During its dying
phase, internal alchemy was born through the maturing spirituality under
the influence of Buddhist soteriology.
Certainly inorganic chemists, Sivin and Needham alike in the West
and Chen Guofu and Zhao Kuanghua in China, have made considerable
contributions to the study of alchemy. Chen Guofus canonical studies
are undoubtedly groundbreaking. Yet after almost a century of diligence,
the studies have revealed their limits and blind side. On the one hand,
the alchemy as chemistry thesis claims that it has explained alchemical
changes chemically. On the other hand, its rationalism has explained away
the synthesis of change and life. Historians of chemistry have worn protec-
tive glasses of rationalism during their research, and what they have found
254 comparative ontology
the One. The unfolding nature of the One shapes the evolution of the
many. Is this unity determinate? For Darwin, although natural selection
is determinate, evolution is an open-ended. Thus it is indeterminate. For
Daoism, the unifying One is the creative Nature. The One is only deter-
minate in relation to the many by giving birth to them. But in itself it is
indeterminate. Because the ending is the beginning in the cyclical change,
there is no inbuilt teleological purpose in the change.
Induction
Alchemy believes in induction between change and life. Induction refers
to indirect but consequential correspondence between the two, like two
coils in an inductor. The alchemical view of life is not restricted to human
life; rather it is the other way around: human vitality is viewed against cos-
mic potency. The synthesis of change and life emerges from the cosmo-
gonical egg, from which Qi evolves through generative change. Ge Hong
believes that Qi is the foundation of all lives. Plato also argues that human
life, though defined psychologically, shares the same substance with the
World Soul. For Plato, immortal souls have an eternal home in the ratio-
nal, immaterial, and changeless realm. For Ge Hong, the most authen-
tic form of immortality is the body-spirit unity. The essence of life is not
unchangeable, but creative. Ge Hongs soteriology argues that changing
life from finite being to infinite existence does not mean the breaking up
of the body-spirit unity, but carries the same natural bond by partaking in
the cosmic continuity of change and life.
Though modern biology denies physical immortality, its Darwinian
philosophy accepts the continuity of change and life from species to spe-
cies. The continuity of evolution is cosmogonical in essence. Its dialectical
opposite is the discontinuity of natural selection. The change-life continu-
ity persists through the selective discontinuity that the extinction of one
species gives rise new ones. If the paradox of ontological continuity and
discontinuity is denied, the denial of the change-life relation implies that
there should be no life at all. However, the birth of a new life, such a
human infant, is the very synthesis of change and life.
the many257
The key idea behind alchemical evolution is the metaphor of the chang-
ing egg. Human life is viewed as an alchemical egg that changes within the
cosmic egg. Other creatures also evolve into various eggs. Each creature
comes into existence as the result of internalizing external change; what
happens in the time-space matrix is engraved in the individual formation
of matter-form. Thus, each living entity is pregnant with change, and
carries cosmic change within its vessel. The pregnancy of each creature
is as creative as Xuan that is in constant gestation of Qi. Even minerals
are not considered as lifeless matter. They can biologically grow inside
an alchemical eggan instrumental miniature of the cosmic time-space
egg. For instance, Ge Hong points out that the essence of cinnabar can
generate gold, and if the mountain has cinnabar, one can often find
gold below the cinnabar layer (IC 286). For chemistry, the generalization
in the first part of the sentence is false. But geologically the second part
is true.30 Gold seems to grow out of cinnabar orea matrix of new mat-
terin the macrocosm.
Instrumental alchemy aims to reenact the evolution of the macrocosm
inside its microcosm and to shorten the long natural time taken by natu-
ral transformation by alchemical means using cyclical transformation.
The growing of gold artificially inside the alchemical time-space egg cor-
responds to the growth of gold in the natural time-space egg. Ge Hong
concludes, The elixir gold made from alchemical change contains the
essences of base minerals and is superior to natural gold (IC 286).31 Again,
chemistry will reject the superiority of artificial gold because it is not gold
at all. But it overlooks a philosophical point beyond the norms of chemis-
try. By interrupting natural cyclical change, alchemists break up base mate-
rials and reinsert change into the formation of matter through the instru-
mental method. Inserting change into matter is an artificial means of the
natural process of change but happens far more quickly than the process
of internalizing evolution into a species. The primary goal is not balancing
chemical formulas, but the study of matter in its most fundamental form,
namely, matter in transformation. The essence of alchemy, therefore, is
not about chemistry, but physics.
I shall set three limits to the comparison between physics and alchemy
by saying what this comparison is and is not. (1) Alchemy is not physics;
alchemy is alchemy. But the OM arguments in alchemy and physics are
comparable. The analogy does not replace the alchemy as chemistry the-
sis with another alchemy as physics one. Rather it explores the OM issue
258 comparative ontology
The tripod has three feet that correspond to three forms of support-
ing knowledge [heavenly, earthly, and human]. The unity of the upper
and the lower parts corresponds to the merging of Yang and Yin. The
legs four inches tall symbolize the four changing seasons. The inner
chamber eight inches deep symbolizes eight points on the compass.
The lower part containing eight doors allows winds to blow in from
eight directions. The burning coal divided into twenty-four portions
corresponds to the consecutive twenty-four fortnightly periods on the
lunar calendar. . . . The Dao of the great elixir is hidden in the activity
that reenacts many thousands years natural making with twelve-hour
periods [of artificial making]. (DZ 19, 1)
to do with the physical universe. But they are conventional in the con-
temporary cosmology. For modern empiricism, the correlation based on
measurements is not convincing. But is it convincing for alchemists like
Ge Hong?
Arbitrary standards are regarded as innate in the world as people knew
it. The three forms of supporting knowledge in Confucian society, four
changing seasons in agriculture, eight points on the compass in navi-
gation, and so on, are basic categories that give expression to the orderly
universe. The same is true in Platos natural studies. Astronomical mea-
surements were also arbitrary, but nonetheless they are representations of
the created order in the intelligible world. But unlike Platonic knowledge
that is purely about knowing ideas through ideas, alchemical measure-
ments, such as the Nine-Cycle transformation, have a critical role in the
induction theory based on fundamental correlative thinking. There is a
direct correspondence between Natures making and alchemical transfor-
mation. One may question whether an instrument of the universe can be
successfully built according to ancient measurements and categories of
the world. But the significance of correlative thinking cannot be brushed
away.
Technical induction certainly is not an alchemical ambition. Beneath
the Jura Mountains near Geneva, Switzerland, the worlds most power-
ful accelerator is now ready. The European Organization for Nuclear
Research will conduct some of the most important scientific experiments
of recent times, helping scientists to unravel how and why the universe
came to exist. The modern particle accelerator works on the same prin-
ciple as an alchemical vessel, that is, to create artificial conditions in which
those imperceptible conditions pertaining in the early universe can be
assimilated. By accelerating protons to near the speed of light and then
smashing them together, physicists expect to see the breaking down of
protons revealing phenomena related to the structure of matter at the
primordial level. The search for the so-called god particle is basically
cosmogonical-alchemical.
Technical inductions ancient and modern aim at the same purpose
to reenact change. The phenomena of change associated with the cosmog-
ony of matter are still present in the universe, but they are not perceptible
by ordinary means. By shortening time and energizing space, the induc-
tion reverses time-space to its primordial unity. And the unity within the
most elementary matter becomes an empirical window through which the
evolution of the cosmos may be observed at the level of the most basic and
creative unity. From an alchemical perspective, this creative core does not
belong solely to the beginning of the universe, but also transcends time-
the many261
space and continues in and behind the myriad things made of this pri-
mary matter. Ge Hong says, That which is Dark is the primordial ancestor
of Nature and the Great Forebear of the myriad different [things] . . . Its
unbroken continuity is named as excellence. . . . Therefore, where Xuan is,
happiness is unceasing; where it withdraws, spirits depart and substances
become fragments (IC 1).
To build a sealed time-space environment, alchemists use a key mate-
rial oddly called Six-One Mud (). According to Pregadios study,
the term Six-One conceals a metaphysical idea called the reenactment
of cosmogony. 32 The total number seven recalls a seven-staged creation
out of chaos in the Zhuangzi 5. And the concept of chaos is repeated in the
story in chapter 21. There was an emperor titled Chaos (Hundun )
who lived in the middle land. Unlike a normal person he lacked the seven
openings (eyes, ears, and so on). Two kings from the north and the south
came to create one physical opening each day as their way to repay his
previous hospitality. On the seventh day, the emperor died as the result of
forced differentiation (Zhuangzi 5). From this story Pregadio draws a paral-
lel with the seven-day genesis in Judeo-Christian theology.33 Although he
speculates in the right cosmogonical direction, the parallel is not entirely
apt. Zhuangzi does not have a seven-staged creation in mind.
The term Hundun should not be translated as chaosa disorderly
precosmosa term that is also adopted by Sivin.34 The translation chaos
derives from Greek mythology and is called Necessity by Plato to designate
the opposite of Reason. In Chinese the characters themselves indicate that
the concept is related to water. According to Shuowen jiezi , hun
refers primarily to massive flows of water (hun feng liu ye ),
and the meaning of turbid or muddy water is secondary.35 The word dun
refers to formlessness. For example, hunhun xi in Laozi 20 and hun-
hun dundun in Zhuangzi 11 both carry the meaning of unable to
identify a particular form. 36 Moreover, in Daoist ecology the term carries
a positive meaning referring to the wholeness of the world and its origin,37
rather than the negative connotation in Platos Timaeus (52d, e).
We need to continue to translate it as formlessness. In alchemical
terminology, it also refers to the divine chamber (shenshi ), a name
for enclosed vessels, or a crucible is directly called hundun.38 What is this
enclosure? It is a time-space environment or an embryo of matter. In one
instance Ge Hong says, Unless people have penetrated the most primor-
dial core of things, they will not see the true shape of [Nature] (IC 284).39
The key application of the Six-One Mud is to create a sealed cham-
ber that is physically insulated and chemically stable. This is the spatial
aspect of the Mud. Another aspect is time. Six-One corresponds to seven
262 comparative ontology
days; seven days is a basic time unit in alchemy. The number Nine in
Nine-Cycle Elixir refers to nine times seven days. The final elixir is the
end product of a sixty-three-day (97) period of cyclical change. The key
reason for Ge Hong to keep the prescription for the Mud secret is that a
successful construction of the alchemical egg holds the key to the techno-
logical induction. The time-space environment is the biological womb
for the growth of matter.
Similar to the cosmic egg, in which Xuan is the embryo of the primal
matter Qi, an alchemical egg space covered with the Mud only becomes
an embryo when it has been filled with minerals. Otherwise it is merely
an empty vessel. And the alchemical embryogenesis will not be pregnant
with the essence of life unless it is activated by the energy of fire. Other-
wise, the time-space environment only contains disassociated minerals
an assembly of parts without relational ontology. Once the various miner-
als are energized, what happens inside the time-space environment is not
chaosabsence of orderat all. It contains the orderliness of change. Ge
Hong believes that the orderliness is biological. Alchemical embryogenesis
happens in and through the change measured by cyclical time and ener-
gized by formless space. Like a human fetus, change produces a matter-
form bond that internalizes external time-space.
When we put the time-space order in Ge Hongs description of the
nine-cycle elixirs into the chart and diagram in Figure 9.2, we can see two
symmetrical trends in the time-space coordinates.
In the chart on the left, we face again the Daoist concept of material
time. Time is not an abstract idea, but is expressed by concrete things,
namely, elixirs produced by various cycles of change. This material time
is shown as the horizontal line in the graph, which corresponds to the
second column in the table. And space is not an empty space either, like
the space in atomism and the Newtonian mechanical universe. It is also a
concrete notion symbolized by the material space of the elixirs. The more
incubation days that it has, the smaller the elixir becomes. The last col-
umn in the table corresponds to the vertical line in the graph as space.
The organizing principle of the table is change. But the change is nei-
ther a Platonic abstract idea of being and becoming, nor a scale between
two opposites like Aristotelian variation. Change is interwoven together in
the matrix of time and space, and materialized as different elixirs defined
by its soteriological effects. The whole activity of forming elixirs defines
change as a process.
This process shapes various elixirs in stages. The elixirs represent the
products that have gone through different incubation periods. Each elixir
has internalized a specific matrix time-space in the alchemical embryo and
Fig. 9.2. Cycles of change and material time-space
264 comparative ontology
grows into a matter-form unit. The nine-cycle elixir occupies the smallest
material space because it has internalized the cyclical time turned by fire
and is closest to the Xuan-One in the scale of time. The one-cycle has the
biggest size because it has had the least internal time to form the bond of
matter-form. These nine unities are categorized according to time (num-
bers of cycles) and space (physical size). They are shown in Table 9.2 as
a decreasing trend. The nine-cycle elixir is held to be the most superior
medicine to transform human life by strengthening the bond of change
and life within the human body because it is believed to have mingled in it
the natural evolution of change and life. This aspect of longevity is shown
in the increasing trend in the graph.
These two trends are symmetrical. The decreasing order refers to the
change from the many to the One. Against the background of cosmogoni-
cal change, it shows the return from actuality to primordiality. This is the
reverse order of creation. Many minerals possess different material forms
in which the primal matter Qi has varied presences. The more alchemical
change happens to the base materials, the simpler and stronger the bond
matter-form becomes. The final elixir corresponds to materialized Dao in
which Xuan is eternally pregnant with Qi. The elixir is spatially the small-
est but the most everlasting in time. The materialized Dao corresponds to
the creative core of the universe. When time and space are infinitely small,
there is only formlessness. When the matrix of time-space is closer to zero,
even matter and form are undistinguished.
By ingesting the bean-sized elixir, Daoist adepts anticipate a new cre-
ation within themselves. Today bodily alchemy, which has superseded
instrumental alchemy, maintains the same idea of transfiguration through
the means of ingesting bodily elixirs produced in the crucibles of elixir
fields through the pneumatic body. The transformation would put the cre-
ative core of all changes at the center of their beings. The increasing trend
refers to longevitya bond of change and life. The more the elixir has
undergone the incubation of material life, the more enduring is the bond
between change and primal matter, Qi. The most evolved material form
occupies infinite space, contains a countless number of changes, and has
the most diverse forms of life. This is the current cosmos. It is this cosmic
life that all immortal beings aim to animate.
Fig. 9.3. Embryogenesis of matter and the alchemic structure of the universe
ness. Within the formless dark there rests its external reality in the mode of
changing formlessness into matter-form unity, namely, Qi. This ontologi-
cal One keeps expanding. The primordial changeability is still present in
the universe and still engaged in the making of the many.
To examine the analogy of alchemy and physics closely, I shall bring
in some theories of physics. As physicists predict, the current universe is
made mostly of Dark Matter and Dark Energy, and the Dark Energy causes
the expansion of the universe to accelerate in the first place.40 What is this
the many267
an open system, then what can be seen as relatively closed? Without the
closedness, the very openness could lead to endless expansion and thus
dissolution. This is the same philosophical question about difference and
sameness in change.
The figures above illustrate two comparable trends. One is alchemi-
cal embryogenesis. Change is represented by the trend from the formless
Dao to various elixir-matters and is closely associated with transforming
cyclestime. The other is the trend from superparticles in the supersym-
metry to sixteen matter-force particles in the Standard Model, from pro-
ton and neutron to atom, from the smallest living entity molecule to the
largest living universe. Strictly speaking, this increasing trend in physics
is not evolution, but represents the structural layers of the world. So the
question is how these structural layers can be viewed as evolutionary. The
crucial issue is time and its effects on change.
Like the alchemical form of material time, the trend from particles to
the more complex entities of the sophisticated world can also been under-
stood as a scale of time in material forms. In alchemy, this material time
scale is related to the closeness to the primordial Dao. In the scale from the
one-cycle elixir to the nine-cycle elixir, each one is an independent materi-
alized Dao. These nine elixirs categorized by the soteriological effects are
the hypostases of Dao but differed on the basis of their closeness to the
cosmogonical One. So time has a crucial effect on the end product. And
each elixir is a unique product of change containing sameness and differ-
ence in relation to the origin. Insofar as the order from one-cycle elixir to
nine-cycle elixir goes, we can see the sequence by which one gives rise to
the other. In OM language, each elixir is a one and many of the Dao in
essence. But they are differentiated by change. An independent one and
many of the Dao gives rise to another one and many through change.
More precisely they have different internal clocks numbered by the cycles
of change. This is the alchemical model of one and many.
From this alchemical perspective, a hidden OM argument can be artic-
ulated from the trend represented by the structural layers. The elementary
particles are not, strictly speaking, reducible elements following deduc-
tive analysis. But in the generative schema each thing in the world is the
hypostasis of primary superparticles. Different layers of matter, atoms, mol-
ecules, living entities, and so on represent different relational bonds with
the primaries. On the scale of time, each single one of them is an inde-
pendent OM unity. Therefore, the one and many is not defined as a single
universal and plural products of it, but each single one of the many is a
paradoxical unity of the one and many. Elementary particles are many in
relation to something more primordial, namely, superparticles. An atom is
the many271
Contrary to Ge Hongs spiral evolution from one to many, Platos one over
many ontology argues the linear hierarchy of the ideal/actual. This subor-
dination evidently carries the chief motif in the creation of the world. The
body of the universe came after the Soul (34c). Since the Soul animates
Reason, the Demiurge also makes the irrational body ruled by the rational
Soul, and the body is the visible image of the invisible Soul (31a). Although
Plato calls the divine craftsman a godnot Zeus, the supreme god of the
Greek pantheonthe whole discourse of constructing the body is basically
ontological. Because of the distinction between causing Forms and caused
matter, the creation of the parts of the body becomes the resemblance of
Forms by the elements.
The Demiurge first overcame chaos with Forms, then structured four
disorganized element with Forms, and finally assembled the parts into the
whole of the Soul. Although Platos view on the structure of matter has
little originality, because the four elements and the atomistic irreducible
particles had already been argued, in the narrative on making the body,
Plato more specifically than in other dialogues applies the ontology to
natural philosophy. Nature refers to the ideal world that determinates the
the many273
actual world and the metaphysical Forms that rule physical things through
causation.
So god, when he began to put together the body of the universe, made
it of fire and earth. But it is not possible to combine two things prop-
erly without a third to act as a bond to hold them together. And the
best bond is . . . a continued geometrical proportion. So god placed
water and air between fire and earth, and made them so far as possible
proportional to one another. . . . By these means and from these four
constituents the body of the universe was created to be at unity owing to
the proportion. . . . The construction of the world used up the whole of
each of these four elements. . . . A suitable shape for a living being that
was to contain within itself all living beings would be a figure that con-
tains all possible figures within itself. Therefore, he made it a spherical
shape, with the extremes equidistant in all directions from the center, a
figure that has the greatest degree of completeness and uniformity, as
he judged uniformity to be incalculably superior to its opposite [plural-
ity]. (31b33b)
Plato has packed many ideas into this text: the four elements, geomet-
rical continuity, a spherical universe, uniformity, and others. He clearly
accepts Empedocles material pluralism, but he does not explain why
the limited plurality of fire, air, water, and earth is more suitable than
the unlimited plurality of the atomists for the starting premise. However,
Plato argues a monist position in addition to pluralism, which indirectly
explains his position. A close reading can reveal that the chief argument is
the familiar OVM structure.
The text has features distinctive of geometrical immaterialism. The
Demiurge made the body as a living being that was to contain within itself
all living beings, turned the whole into a spherical shape, and judged
that the spherical figure has the greatest degree of completeness and uni-
formity and is superior to its opposite, plurality. Again the spherical uni-
verse was Empedocles idea. But Empedocles did not mean that the world
was physically spherical, but historically cyclical (Simplicius, Commentary on
the Physics, B17). Plato evidently gives a geometric twist to the original idea.
274 comparative ontology
Phases contain an extra phase called Wood, and the phase Metal is absent
in the Greek elements; the Greek element air is not found in the Chinese
Phases.
The diagram on the right demonstrates that the elements can change
from the state of unification to the state of separation under the forces of
Love and Strife. The diagram on the left demonstrates two orders among
the Five Phases. The outer circle represents the ring of generation (sheng
).
These two orders shape the dialectical relations among the Phases. The
most striking feature of the Phases is its interchangeability. Empedocles
elements can be mixed but not interchanged. By Love they are compressed
together and by Strife expanded apart.
What does the interchangeability imply for change? Wood, for exam-
ple, relies on water for natural growth and takes root in earth for nourish-
ment, thus impoverishing the soil. It can be burned to generate fire; fire
returns the ash to earth and enriches the soil with the constituent miner-
als. The order of degeneration is wood-earth-water-fire-wood. Similar to
a tree, the change of wood is balanced by generation and degeneration.
Generation and degeneration are basically continuity and discontinuity.
Daoism traditionally uses Yin and Yang to symbolize two orders. Because
Yin and Yang form a relational whole, wood contains an inner balance in
the likeness of the balanced cosmogonical energies.
The same conjunction of continuity and discontinuity exists in each
Phase. Since each Phase in the circle represents a point of correlated bal-
276 comparative ontology
ance, each one becomes relational to the others through the same bal-
anced Yin-Yang. What the balance represents is essentially change. And
change is the fundamental reality of Nature that manifests as a cosmic
turning wheel, as the diagram depicts. Once the wheel starts turning, the
Phases interchange through the cyclical process. There will not be more
wood than the other Phases, because each one is weighed in the balance
with the others by the same orders of generation and degeneration. The
unceasing circle of change expresses remarkable similarity with Emped-
ocles homogeneous Sphere. Love is not the only force at work to bring
about change in the cosmos, but Strife also.
The similarity between the two systems of change is the dual involve-
ment of the contrary orders. Contrary to the Five Phases, however, the
interchangeability among the elements is strikingly missing. Why is it
important? It is the continuity that connects the elements by forming a
relational bond among them. The bond is change. Love and Strife must
not simply compress or expend the four. To generate plurality beyond
the universals, as in the case of alchemical change among minerals, it is
fundamental to establish the interchangeability among them. Empedocles
knew the problem. He said: Painters take the many-colored pigments in
their hands and, harmoniously mixing them, some more some less . . .
[the mixing of the four] create trees, men and women, beast, birds, and
fish (B23).
The metaphor of mixing many colors seems to have explained the
interchangeability. But the metaphor implies that to mix varied quanti-
fies of the four can generate a new one, such as tree, human, and animal.
To mix four requires the change that all four must pass into one another,
just as four colors are mixed into one. The essence of the mixing is the
creation of something new. The mixing of water and pebbles does not
produce a new entity, but a situation in which the pebbles are surrounded
by water. It is again a situation of attachment, not a unity of harmony. In
the instance of a tree, once the four elements are mixed, they form an
organic life where all four need to be woven together in harmony of unity.
The metaphor has pointed in the right direction by saying harmoniously
mixing them. But how does this passing into each other exactly happen
in the painters mixing? Empedocles did not answer.
Passing into each other means change within and upon each element.
It is relatively easy to speak of the discontinuity of change. For instance,
the different colors of the rainbow can be reunited into white. But what
is the continuity between the seven-colored rainbow and white? This con-
tinuity principle is missing in Empedocles. Plato takes this challenge and
comes up with an answer.
the many277
Geometrical Continuity
Similar to the Chinese categorization in which fire symbolizes the positive
heaven and earth represents the negative earth, Plato also treats fire and
earth as the two extremes of the four, between which there exist air and
water. By setting fire and earth apart, Plato is able to hang a conceptual
string called a continued geometrical proportion (31d) between two
poles. This geometric proportion organizes air and water, and becomes
the best bond of their difference. The bond then functions as the miss-
ing continuity in the midst of discontinuity among Empedocles elements.
Interesting here is a hidden change. The continuity is not a material sub-
stance in the likeness of the elements, but a geometrical proportion. Here
Plato makes his Pythagorean advance beyond Empedocles pluralism.
One would expect that the geometrical proportion somehow should
reconcile the difference between geometrical immaterialism and the par-
ticles theory of Empedocles material pluralism. But Plato does not put in
the effort to reconcile the difference in the overall schema of the creation
of the body. Instead he still relies on the ethical model of the souls ruling
nature over the body. Therefore, the content of the continuity is familiar.
It comprises exactly the same algebraic divisions and involves the same
numbers that have structured the Soul. The proportion contains the num-
bers (1, 3, 9, 27) and (1, 2, 4, 8) with cube and square characteristics
(32a). Again, what do these numbers really represent? The branch of odds
contains the pattern of 3 n =1, 3, 9, 27 (n = 03), and the branch of evens
shows the order of 2 n =1, 2, 4, 8 (n = 03). When n = 0, both branches pro-
duce the primary number 1, which symbolizes the numerical oneness of
the Soul. Here Plato has interpreted Empedocles Love and Strife algebra-
ically as even and odd numbers but gives Pythagorean numbers material
and spatial dimensions.
The mathematical treatment of Empedocles materialism continues
where Plato later links each element to a particular solid shape: earth-
cube, air-octahedron, fire-pyramid, and water-icosahedron (55d56c).
Since all solid shapes are distinct, four elements also become the build-
ing blocks for constructing the body of the universe. This hypothesis of a
universe made up of mathematical particles in essence turns the material-
ism of Empedocles into Pythagorean idealism.
The crucial question is whether this insertion of geometrical soul stuffs
into material elements actually serves the purpose of reconciling the dif-
ference between Being and Becoming. We must keep this question in
mind. The question is similar to one in modern stem cell research. The
most crucial part of the development of new life is not the insertion of
278 comparative ontology
genetic information into the cell, but the embodiment of the genes within
the new environment of the emptied cell. If the difference of Being and
Becoming is not reconciled, then the project of constructing the body of
the universe is in serious doubt.
In the meantime, we shall stay with the text and examine how geomet-
ric proportion is used to explain the continuity among the four. Once the
proportion has been transformed from algebraic division into solid geom-
etry, Plato explains that the construction of the body is made possible by
the determinate structure to the proportion. He claims that once the four
have been put together, they produce the cosmos-dodecahedron like a ball
with twelve faces stitched togetherthe structure first mentioned in the
Phaedo (110b).46 (See Figure 9.6.) Now let us examine the claim.
In solid geometry it is not possible to construct a dodecahedron by
but with its scope. For Ge Hong, it is the infinite Xuan that provides the
environment for plurality to be interwoven into a whole. If Plato aban-
dons the idealism of the spherical soul and the body, then he might find
that there is an infinite layer enclosing the cosmos, a layer of the Good
of its otherness similar to the Daoist Xuan. The perfection of this infinite
(or transcendental) layer is not about its spherical structure, but about
its indefinite depth. Of course, this Daoist reading was not the direction
in which Western philosophy evolved. Influenced by Plato, Aristotles
geocentric worldview had an unshakable impact on Western cosmology
until the rise of modern astronomy. What the infinite scope really means
for the one and many is that the unity of plural elements is intrinsically
indeterminate.
Plato is correct to imagine that the spherical world contains all ele-
ments in it and correctly has not established the determinate structure
of the sphere over other geometric solids because the sphere mathemati-
cally is indeterminate over the element-solids. However, because of the
determinative soul/body structure, Plato is unable to see the indetermi-
nate unity of the Soul that by nature does not, and cannot, control every
aspect of change in the world with the determinate Form of sphere. On
the contrary, Ge Hong argues the cosmos is like an alchemical vessel and
allows the material substances to undergo interchange based on their
inner capacities to change insofar as the condition for change has been
provided.
What has really imprisoned the universe is the unchangeable geomet-
ric Form of the sphere. The Form minimizes change and causes the body
of the world to be as close as possible to the ideal perfection of change-
lessness. What would happen if the Form were infinite in scope? Would
infinity set the universe free? Mathematically an infinite radius will not
produce an infinite sphere because an infinite dimension has no specific
shape at all. The infinity of the Form will reject the ideal sphere. Without
the ideal, the Demiurge cannot turn the world in autorotation, nor can
he actualize the idea of the greatest degree of completeness and unifor-
mity through it (33b). Therefore, in order to preserve the idealism, it is
necessary to locate the universe in the finite norm.
The subordination of finite becoming to unchanging being consti-
tutes the relation of the body and the Soul. This subordination comes as a
direct result when the OVM ontology has been applied to natural philoso-
phy. The body of the universe also shares the same status of becoming as
the human body that undergoes the process of birth, growth, aging, and
dying. The finitude of the universe relates to its status of coming to be,
thus implied opposite of ceasing to be. Under this physical condition, the
282 comparative ontology
Demiurge puts the Soul in the center and diffuses it through the whole
body (34a), and hence the universe incarnates the divine logos with its
finite body.
To be sure, this is a remarkable turnabout from the nonparticipation
principle in the doctrine of Forms. The ideal bed is eternal and thus does
not participate in the actual bed subject to change and decay. Here, the
Soul is diffused through the whole body. It is the spiritual, rational, and
changeless identity to persist through material becoming. Unlike a Form,
this determination remains within the body to keep it ensouled and vital.
Contrary to the short-lived human body, the secret for the body of the
universe to have longevity is to reduce change to the minimumautorota-
tionby engaging Reason.
Change
near linear pattern when they enter earths atmosphere. How is it possible
for these motions to be reduced to the single and determinative circular
motion? Or how is it possible for the circular motion to produce irregulari-
ties within its defining norm? In short, the world cannot be fit into a model
of ideal perfection.
Plato may argue that noncircular motions are enclosed in the regular-
ity. The enclosure argument is heading in the right direction. But he has
not shown how the regular Soul vessel contains irregular patterns. This is
the same continuity connection between geometric proportion and the
plurality of the elements that we have been looking for since the begin-
ning of this study. The enclosure argument, however, could be interpreted
as indeterminate. Psychologically the human soul is not always in control
of emotions and appetites. It has room for itself being indeterminate. Bio-
logically various lives on earth would be caught up in the wheel of becom-
ing without any capacity to escape. Yet the circular motion can produce no
evolution but repetition.
Once change has been defined as repetition, what happens between
coming to be and ceasing to be is insignificant. Life is passively caught up
in the self-contradictory statue of changebeing and not-being. And each
moment of the circular motion is identical and shifts between coming to
be and ceasing to be. Therefore, no one is unique in the self-repeating
circulation. Our previous analysis shows exactly the opposite. If the prin-
ciple of the sphere is to be demonstrated in three coordinates, then each
moment of the circular motion is a unique spotno other moment has
the same coordinates. What is happening here? In analytical geometry,
the principle has been given precise measurements and locations to map
out the coherent surface that which the principle produces. Without these
unique spots, the principle is not demonstrable. This is an OM argument.
The argument basically reinserts change back into Platos causation.
The argument further entails that the uniqueness of individual change
cannot be swallowed by the polarized definition of coming to be and ceas-
ing to be. From the alchemical perspective, there is a cumulative evolution
in every moment of coming to be and ceasing to be. Alchemy does not only
view cyclical change as the incubation environment for changing minerals
(or elements), but the minerals must internalize the matrix of time-space
created by external cyclical changes into the products of changeelixirs.
Alchemical change does not only produce variations in degree, but the
accumulation of degrees transforms the kind. Being gives rise to Becom-
ing, and Becoming refines Being. On the contrary, individual changes in
Platos circular motion are insignificant against the defining background
of coming to be and ceasing to be. The rest/motion causation puts the
286 comparative ontology
On the other hand, if the elements are irreducible like atoms, then
four solid shapes should not be reduced to a simpler kind. Again, this
is not Platos intention, since he wants to reduce four shapes to two tri-
angles. As far as Plato is concerned, the vice of atomism is its rejection
of any unity. As in the Parmenides, the hypothesis of if the one is not
has demonstrated (164b166e), once unity has been eliminated, that the
denial of unity does not yield the result that all atoms are freestanding
universals. In fact, without the one, there will be no homogeneity among
them. Without homogeneity, for Plato, the limitless plurality is the pri-
mordial chaos: no single one of many existed. The denial of one leads to
the denial of many. To accept atomism means to leave the organization
of matter entirely to chance. That would defeat the whole purpose of the
creation of orders.
With this background in mind, Plato is more willing to modify Emped-
ocles limited four elements than the atomists unlimited pluralism. But
he has borrowed the atomist idea of physically shaped atoms to modify
Empedocles four root causes. Having done that, to bring the four into
unity becomes manageable.
direction of the cooking metaphor and flows from the selection of the
triangles to the predetermined regular solids. This is the direction that
Plato hopes readers to follow.
The isosceles triangle on the left in Figure 9.7 represents what Plato
means by both half right angles with two equal sides. But the one on
the right has no connection to what the text infers. Unequal sides can
refer to infinitely many right angle triangles as long as they are not equi-
lateral or isosceles. Plato later makes reference to a pair that composes an
equilateral (54a). Farther down in the text, he says, Three are composed
of the scalene, but the fourth alone from the isosceles (54c). Reading this
in conjunction with the assignments of shapes to elements (55d56c), it is
not difficult to work out the basic ingredients required for the element-
solids shown in Figure 9.6. Earth-cube alone has a square surface that
requires two identical isosceles triangles to make. The isosceles triangle
on the left in Figure 9.7 refers to the basic triangle for the earth-cube. Air-
octahedron, fire-pyramid, and water-icosahedron are structured out of a
single equilateral.
An equilateral triangle can be divided symmetrically into right triangles
with unequal sides. The diagram on the right in Figure 9.7 indicates
division to produce the second elementary right triangle. These two pri-
marily triangles are all that the element-solids require to form their sur-
faces. Cornford further suggests that Plato knew the Pythagorean theorem
(which historically was not discovered by Pythagoras). Plato says one isos-
celes and the other having a greater side whose square is three times that
of the lesser (54b). This phrase can be interpreted as the numbers (1,
1, 2; 1, 3, 2). And these numbers represent the sides AB, BC, AC, and
A' B', B' C ', A' C '. They can be explained by the right triangle principle:
AB 2 +BC 2 = AC 2 .
Cornfords suggestion is misleading. Why does Plato not make the the-
orem the single Form for these two right triangles? Since Plato is arguing
overall for the internal continuity of passing into each other for the four,
it would be more unifying to say that all these solids can be reduced to
the theorem. The theorem alone governs the chosen right triangles, and
two right triangles produce the four element-solids. The one-two-four
schema would explain the change ruled by Reason alone, not the mixture
of Love and Strife. In this way, the argument would be more consistent with
his argument on outer continuitythe Form of the sphereto enclose all
matters within. However, Plato is quite clear that the right triangles are
the basic ingredients, not the theorem. Cornford is partly right when
he identifies the selection of the regular triangles as determined by the
regular element-solids. Plato has selected the dishes and then gone back-
wards to find the ingredients determined by the selection. But Cornford
is partly wrong. This line of argument suggests that the theorem is not the
universal of the four. For some reason Plato does not apply it to the struc-
turing of matter.
Why does Plato stop at the triangles? The solids consist of the plane
triangles. The triangles are made up of lines. And lines are numbers. It is
not difficult for Plato to realize that the theorem represents the unity of
numbers. If Plato reduces the solids to numbers, then he goes all the way
to the Pythagorean doctrine that all things are made of numbers. Because
the theorem determines that only those numbers that meet the criterion
of AB 2 +BC 2 =AC 2 can be selected to construct the element-solids, the rest
will be ruled out. Yet to trim the Pythagorean infinite many numbers down
to limited orderly numbers will still end up with many numbers that meet
the criterion of the theorem: /n=( = infinity, n= any finite number).
This is the first problem of infinite plurality. Plato originally wanted to
use only four elements to manage the interchangeability among them.
To work with numbers, he would easily slip back into an infinite plurality,
similar to atomism, which he has already rejected.
Second, what is the theorem for? In Chinese astronomy, the ancient
Gaitian theory also applies the principle of the gnomon (3 2 +
4 2 = 5 2 ) mainly to calculate measurements of the universe. It is only a math-
ematical tool and is never meant to be the primary unity out of which
astronomical phenomena are structured. Instead the general unity is met-
aphorically put as the heavenly lid turning as a stone mill. The Chinese
use of the theorem is inspirational. The theorem can only be one of many
mathematical principles, not a cosmogonical algebra. If Plato selects the
theorem to be the elementary unity of the elements, then the selection will
single out the particular. The creation of the body of the world requires
the many291
all preexistent Forms. Why does the theorem alone rest at the most funda-
mental level of matter and all others work on top of what the theorem has
preconfigured?
Having argued against Cornfords interpretation, it is necessary to
point out that the text displays confusion mainly because of Platos ideal-
ism over natural study. The same problem of idealism over empiricism
occurs in modern physics. The standard particle model put the fundamen-
tal structure of matter into a neat mathematical description during the
1970s. The next twenty-five years research empirically showed the deter-
minative structure had left many elements out of the model, one of which
was gravity. In Platos case, the problem is the mixing of metaphors in the
mystical genre. The theorem could be a mathematical Form. If the theo-
rem was supposedly the most fundamental, then Plato would end up with
an empirical difficulty. For instance, the Demiurge hopes to build a bed
according to the Form of Bed. The wood in his hand is material made of
some kind of combination of the four elements. But the four elements are
all reducible to the single theorem. Then to structure a bed out of wood is
really about subordinating the theorem to the Form. This subordination
would exist in every single creature because the theorem exists in all mate-
rial things. The most fundamental of matter becomes the most secondary.
This is the second problem that the first becomes the last.
Third, is the theorem material or immaterial? The question arises out
of Platos mixture of geometrical immaterialism and the materialism of
the elements. The transformation of the elements relies on the premise
that the most elementary must be material. This is the proposition from
chaotic matters to orderly elements. Prior to creation, four elements had
already existed inside the mother of all becomingthe chaotic vessel of
the Receptacle. They were not substantial things but chaotic stuffs with
four qualities (49d). They were waiting to be transformed into order with
homogeneity. It seems to be appropriate to use the theorem to arrange
four chaotic qualities into substances. But to arrange them means to give
structure to them. There are many right triangles that can be produced
from the theorem. Eventually the Demiurge must decide on only two right
triangles that meet his ideal of perfection. To have two right triangles in
hand he cannot rely on the nonparticipatory principle of Form, but on the
immanence of Soul in the body. This is essentially because the theorem
must be ensouled in chaotic qualities to bring them into orderly things.
Thus the immaterial theorem must take material form in order to be sub-
stances. Two right triangles become the material form of the theorem.
These material ingredients are required for composing the element-sol-
ids, not the immaterial theorem. Here, where Plato is dealing with matter,
292 comparative ontology
he turns away from his contemporary Pythagoreans and turns toward the
materialism of Empedocles.
treat the element earth as the most changeless contradicts Platos three-
layer cosmos. The body of the earth represents the most turbulent part
of material Difference, whereas the element of fire belongs to the most
tranquilized heavenly ring where fixed stars locate.
Alchemists view fire as the most stable element because in an alchemi-
cal vessel everything (including the most stable gold) is subject to change,
whereas the fire remains the same through its changeability. From the
alchemical viewpoint, Platos order of stability should be reversed. The
earth is the most changeable and the fire relatively permanent. And the
order fits well with Platos three-layer structure. In failing to explain why
the earth is the most stable, Plato says, It would be too long a story to give
the reason, but if anyone can produce a proof that it is not so, we will wel-
come his achievement. So let us assume that there are two triangles from
which fire and the other bodies are constructed (54ab).
We shall take up Platos challenge and prove his assumption is wrong.
Contrary to alchemical stability, Plato has fixed his mind on a locomotive
sense of mobility and immobility. Here the usual tactic of Platofinding
the most changeless universalshows up again. He argues that the cube
is most immobile because it is made of the isosceles particle, and the
isosceles has a naturally more stable base than the scalene (55e). This is
a sound explanation, but it is false. What has gone wrong with Platos geo-
metric knowledge? He has overlooked a fundamental change that occurs
in the process of constructing four element-solids from two geometrical
particles, which are the triangles in Figure 9.8. (see Figure 9.8). We will
need to have plane geometry in mind in order to work out the change
in solid geometry. In plane geometry the isosceles has a longer base (2)
than the sides (1). Plato assumes that the scalene must also be set upright,
as Cornfords commentary accepts. But if the hypotenuse of the scalene is
equally treated as the base, then it has the longer base (2) than the isosce-
les (2). Therefore, the scalene is more stable than the isosceles.
Now, the change occurs when the Demiurge starts to play with the cos-
mic puzzle. If two isosceles are put together to form a square, the square
is no longer standing on the longer hypotenuse (2) but on one of the
sides (1). So the cube is set on a square with four equal sides (1). When
two scalenes are put together, they form an equilateral. A pyramid is made
of four equilaterals. And it is set on one equilateral with three equal sides
(2). In solid geometry, the pyramid is the most stable shape of all regular
solids. A cube only needs to be turned 90 degrees or more to be turned
to another side. A pyramid requires 120 degrees or more to be turned
to another side. Thus, solid geometry disproves Platos assumption. The
cube (earth) is not the most stable; the pyramid (fire) is. The geometric
294 comparative ontology
stability of fire agrees with the alchemical view that the most unchanging
is fire.
Platos judgment of stability is built on the false assumption that the
isosceles triangle is more stable than the scalene triangle. Behind the
assumption is the idealism of perfection. The isosceles has two equal sides
with symmetrical angles whose sum becomes a right angle (45 + 45 = 90).
And the square with two isosceles has the ideal shape of four equal sides
(1). Similar to the heavenly ideal shapethe spherethe material parti-
cle with the perfect shapesquarerepresents the earth. For Daoism this
idealism is not strange. What Confucian ethics called spherical heaven
and square earth overshadowed the Gaitian theory of astronomy with
its idealism. The fundamental method was to use natural science to jus-
tify moral and political orthodoxy. Here in Platos assignment of the four
regular solids to the elements, the ideal-driven false assumption has a real
consequence in the project of creation: the earth-cube is more resistant to
change than the fire-pyramid; and, between the least and the most change-
able, there are the water-icosahedron and the air-octahedron in the same
order of changeability. The order of stability is ranked as earth-water-air-
the many295
surfaces, the Demiurge had another idea about the order of stability, like
a player who changes the rules of the game once the game is under way.
The quantification of faces in the second row does not reflect the divine
arrangement in the first row. Furthermore, the physical density order in
the third row is a rational explanation entirely different from the geomet-
ric stability order. But geometry and physics do not cohere. After all, the
divine assignment has no order. Plato has attempted to give Empedocles
elements geometric and traceable orders, but he has achieved a result no
more intelligible than his predecessor had articulated.
Could the second stage of the divine play, structuring the elementary
particles, be governed by chance? Plato has claimed but not established
that the earth-cube is nonchangeable. Without this anchoring base, all ele-
ments can be cyclically interchanged. Compared with the complete inter-
changeability in the Chinese Five Phases and the mixing and separation
of Empedocles four elements, Plato is more interested in finding rational
orders for the element-solids. He has invented two geometric irreducibles.
But seeking order among the elements becomes entirely meaningless if
three of the four are interchangeable. Once three start to changethe key
for internal continuitythe cosmological-layer order (rest/motion), the
physical density order (heavy/light), the geometric stability order (sharp/
round), and any other order become meaningless in the process of inter-
change. For example, even the heaviest elementwatercan become the
lightestfire because they share the same geometric particle. And the
change is reversible.
change happen. In this stage, Plato sets the play in the backdrop where
Necessity plays the role of an equal contributor of the transformation.
When the Demiurge has brought the numbers, motions, and powers of
the elements together, every detail of the construction is made to the
most exact perfection permitted by the willing consent of Necessity (56c).
Compared with the ideal world of Forms above, in which Necessity has no
role, the physical realm is the territory of the goddess Necessity.
Since Plato declares, The world arrives as the mixed result of Reason
and Necessity, we should expect Plato to elaborate the role of Necessity
in relation to the partner Reason and the Receptaclethe mother of all
becomingin relation with Forms. In particular, we wish to hear the story
of how the most exact perfection permitted by the willing consent of
Necessity has been implemented in material things. However, the text dis-
appoints us. Plato does not go back to the feminine concepts. This leaves
us with little to go on, apart from wondering how Necessity gives consent
to transform the elements to embody divine perfection. Why is the god-
dess left out of the tableau? It is as if a boy and a girl are assembling a
puzzle together: the girl has some crucial pieces in her hands, and the boy
has persuaded her to give them to him. After the puzzle has been finished,
the story of the girl has not been told.
Plato believes in geometric particles as small as atoms, far too small
to be visible (56c). Then how is it possible to form a cosmos out of these
particles of atomic scale? The maker first engages in the process of dis-
mantling the elements into their primary particles and then rearranges
the particles into something else. When earth meets fire, it will be dis-
solved by its sharpness and, whether dissolution takes place in fire itself or
in a mass of air or water, will drift about until its parts meet, fit together,
and become earth again; for they can never be transformed into another
figure. But when water is broken up by fire or again by air, its parts can
combine to make one of fire and two of air; and the fragments of a single
particle of air can make two of fire (56de).
The first part of the passage explains the circular change of earth. It
indicates that the sharpness of fire-pyramid can dissolve earth-cube into
individual isosceles right triangles. Then the mass of heavier air or water
will recombine the particles into earth-cube again. Plato again empha-
sizes that earth alone cannot pass into other elements by the nature of its
unique isosceles right triangles. The second half of the passage explains
the process during which water, air, and fire undergo the process of inter-
change. Platonic scholars have already worked out the precise nature of
the process with two mathematical equations.49
298 comparative ontology
(c)2.5A=W; 2.516=40
In all dissolution processes, Plato suggests that air and water dissolve
into the primary particles by the cutting power of fire-pyramid. The
sharp angles of the pyramid cut and decompose the solids of air and water,
while fire itself does not dissolve. Compared with Empedocles metaphor
of mixing four colors, Plato has revealed mathematical exactness in his
interchange. Compared with Thales, who thought of transformation as
physical and meteorological changes of waters evaporation and condensa-
tion, Plato also treats the interchange as a physical process with two phases:
heating-decomposition and cooling-recomposition. Hot fire dissolves air
and water. When air and water have been broken down, they can be totally
consumed by fire, and become fire (57b). When fire slakes, the cooling
causes the condensation to yield the heavier element of air and further
liquefaction, water (57c). Contrary to material monism, Platos particle-
based interchange has explained the physical process of the heating/cool-
ing process mathematically.
How does fire become air or water? If the shape fire-pyramid does not
naturally dissolve, then it does not provide a starting point for the reverse
change. On the issue of what causes fire to change, Plato introduces a
large mass theory to be the opposite cause (57b). When fire is surrounded
by the predominating mass of heavier and larger elements, air and water
cause fire to cool and break down. The cooling breaks down fire into par-
ticles and recomposes them into heavier elements.
The explanation is similar to the Daoist degenerating circle in which
the many299
water extinguishes fire. The softness of water does not overcome the sharp-
ness of fire by cutting power, but by its natural capacity to break down
fire. For Daoism, the degeneration circle (water-fire-wood-earth-water) is
generated by the unbalance of Yin more than Yang. Again, as in the Daoist
explanation that Yin and Yang unbalance can cause change, Plato suggests
that the cooling process is caused by the unbalanced mass between the
light fire and the heavier elements. Water causes fire to cool down and
recombines base particles into the intermediate air or the end result of
water. The transformation of air can go both directions, if fire and water
are unequal in mass. It could either break down into fire by losing weight
or regroup into water by gaining weight.
The introduction of the predominating mass makes the cutting
power of fire redundant. For instance, we have a situation of total balance:
Obviously, balance does not mean equality, as if it there were two equal
weights on two sides of a scale. It means an active balance in which fire, air,
and water constantly interchange and have reached the balancing point.
The balance is mainly determined by the total particles of each element,
and the weight balance of each element makes the cutting power of fire
secondary. As the example shows, the total amount of fires cutting power
is counterbalanced by the total softness of water. Without taking the earth-
cube into consideration (a problem to be dealt with separately), the body
of the world must have an equal mass of each element. Any unbalance
among them will create further interchange until the active balance has
been reached. This alchemical reading provokes a further question. How
does the world attain this balance?
We can first pursue a Platonic question. What is the cause of the bidi-
rectional interchange of three elements? Since in Platos mind everything
material that moves must be moved by something else (57d), the inter-
change must owe its cause to something other than self-governance. If the
interchange is attained by self-governance, then the whole point of seek-
ing mathematical orders among the elements becomes meaningless. The
interchange could be spontaneous, and spontaneity requires no involve-
ment of Forms. In fact, Forms could be the very products of the spontane-
ous process of interchange. This indeterminateness would be blasphemy
to the doctrine of Forms. Yet to cause the interchange, the cause(s) must
be qualified for bidirectional change. Forms can be ruled out. The Form
300 comparative ontology
into perfect order running as if a heavenly clock were animating its eternal-
ity. But the untamed wife secretly and naturally gives the only childthe
physical worldthe genes of spontaneity to live a creative life of change.
of those of air and water. This inequality of masses causes the process of
interchange among the four elements.
Based on this argument, Plato makes a generalization that the transfor-
mation from the four to the many is governed by the same principle of
unbalanced masses. Platos general idea is as if the unbalanced masses had
tipped the cosmic scale, and the trend of the decomposition and recom-
position process was to roll downhill to transform the elements into the
myriad things. But the text shows nothing of how the disequilibrium func-
tions as the continuum to make the transformation from the four to the
many. Instead Plato concentrates on the various sizes of the basic triangles
as another basic factor in forming plurality (57cd).52 And he repeats what
has been said about the distribution of the elements with the additional
comment that the distribution relates to the occupation of empty space
(58bc). The reference to the occupation of empty space is probably an
implicit criticism of atomism, which regards infinite space between atoms
to be the continuum. Plato hopes to point out that space does not func-
tion as the continuum to bring atoms into an orderly uniformity. Overall
these lines of argument have not explained the change from the four to
the many.
As I have mentioned, Daoism views that balance does not mean rest,
but active motion in balance. If we use Platos rest-equilibrium synthesis,
we can see what Daoist active balance implies. For instance, the moon is
always in the motion of orbiting the earth, but its motion is basically an
active balance of revolution. Likewise Platos spherical rotation is about
active balance. Every point on the surface of the sphere is a moving point.
And the sum of individual motions produces the whole sphere both in
motion and at a balanced rest. Thus, balance is indeed associated with
motion.
The second half of Platos claim is false. To further explore the antith-
esis of motion and balance, we can ask, Is the interchange among the
four caused by disequilibrium? Taking air as the example, the fact that
air does not fully decompose into fire or recompose into water can be
caused by the balanced masses of fire and water. Here air represents the
Daoist point of active balance in constant interchange. There could be
an equal amount of fire recomposing into air and of water decomposing
into air. In this situation, the decomposition and the recomposition can
go on indefinitely as long as there is a point of balance where the heat of
the fire is offset by cooler water. The balance produces the result that the
amount of the airs mass is equal to the masses of fire and water at the
two ends. The balance could externally appear to be at rest, but internally
the interchange never ceases. Similar to a crucible in which each cycli-
304 comparative ontology
Since earth cannot be changed into any other element, its influence
on the interchange can be ruled out. Since wood possesses twelve fire,
four air, and two water, according to the particle theory, the masses of
the elements will be unbalanced in the order of ninety-six, sixty-four, and
eighty. If disequilibrium exists among the masses, under the principle of
unbalanced masses further interchange among the three must continue to
happen to reach a balance point. The process would decrease the mass of
fire (96 16=80), increase air (64 +16 =80), and keep water (80) the same.
The exchange results in a structural change in the original formula.
4.? = 80 + 80 + 80
5.? = 10 4 2 + 5 8 2 + 2 20 2
6.? = 10 fire + 5 air + 2 water
Thus the structure of wood (6) will not be same as originally (1). It
turns into something else.
For the sake of argument, let us imagine another situation to see the
further problem of disequilibrium. If we alter the formula by adding the
total mass of water to fire, we get something similar to alchemical fire. I
call it X.
7. X = (96 + 80) + 64
8. X = 22 fire + 4 air
9. X = 80 + 80 + 80
10. X = 10 fire + 5 air + 2 water
the promised trick was not produced. Readers with the expectation of see-
ing the Demiurge finish the cosmic puzzle have not seen the divine truth
revealed. Instead of demonstrating how four elements are composed into
new material things, Plato briefly groups plurality into categories. Fire
includes flame and glowing things that causes radiating light for people
to see (58c). Air does not have characteristics, similar to atomist space. Its
chief purpose is to be transparent for passing light generated by fire (58d).
Water includes all liquids and fusible things (including gold) (58d60b).
Finally, earth includes all solids (60b61c). If all solids are made of non-
interchangeable earth particles, then the alchemical phenomenon of cin-
nabar becoming mercury should not be possible. In fact, alchemy shows
earth and water are interchangeable.
In the elements-kinds categorization, Plato has an unacknowledged
equivocation between two different concepts. The fundamental concept
of cosmogonical change, which is required to produce the myriad things,
has been replaced with the notion of the physical variation of the elemen-
tary particles. Compared with the Daoist Five Phases, among which change
connects them in a circle of continuous interchange, Platos particle the-
ory falls short of achieving the continuity of change among the elements.
As discussed earlier, solid cinnabar can become liquefied mercury, and
the change is reversible. For Plato, this required change between elements
has been limited by the two types of right triangles that are irreducible
to each other and unalterable to become something not-being-itself. The
particles, just like Platonic Forms and atomists particles, represent two
unique beings, each of which excludes anything not-being-itself. There-
fore, physical variation of the elements must conform to this basic rule
implied by the nonchangeable particles. Therefore, change is not possible
between two types of particles.
Working with this fundamental limitation, Plato can only explain physi-
cal variations of the elements in terms of geometric grouping of the par-
ticles but cannot go beyond the discontinuity of the particles in order
to seek continuity through heterogeneity. This is again the ontological
paradox of continuity and discontinuity. Without the internal continuity
between the elements, the external cosmogonical change cannot move
from the four to the myriad things.
The categories named after four elements, in fact, have explained
nothing. They are merely universals in the likeness of Forms over many
instances. The chief virtue of Empedocles plurality has been swallowed
by the doctrine of Forms at the final stage of the divine play. Like an art-
ist, Empedocles mixed four basic colors into a variety of colors to paint a
picture of the world. The artist was a bit moodyLove some moments and
308 comparative ontology
incarnation possible, the fatherly Reason could intervene and stop the
Souls brave activity in order to protect his orthodoxy about Forms. After
all, the world is created, thus mortal. Yet Forms are immortal. If the Soul is
allowed to be creative, there is too great a danger of letting the child run
free. Fallen immortals have always been given the punishment of living
mortal lives. They are subject to decay, suffering, and death. Yet the Soul
is created in the image of the fatherly Reason, and therefore its immor-
tality must be defended at all cost. If the Demiurge maintains Reasons
orthodoxy, he can preserve the crown idealism of the tradition. But he will
return to the same dilemma with which his trouble begins and witness the
misery of the divine child. The immortal Soul is always homeless in the
passionate body.
The longer he sees the suffering of the child, the more deeply he
understands two contradictory prophecies. Parmenides once said: Being
and Becoming are predestined to be in the state of separation. If Par-
menides was right, Reason and Necessity should never get married. Yet the
Pythagorean theology predicted the incarnation of the Soul. The marriage
of Reason and Necessity was bound to happen. The Demiurge is caught
in between these two prophecies. As the project of creation has gone this
far, he knows for a fact now that the universe is the mixed result of Reason
and Necessity. The Pythagorean theology was right. Yet his Parmenidean
mind tries to resist the force that the incarnation brings. Incarnation by
definition is the full realization of Being in Becoming. Parmenidean Being
must be incarnated into Heraclitus Becoming; Forms must be mixed with
Empedocles elements. Since the divine child has already been born, and
named the Soul with the body of the world, it is the time for the divine
player to relearn his wisdom based on this fact. The new life has the free-
dom to embrace the omen of the future. And the freedom is more pre-
cious than the ancient dispute on being.
Summary
This chapter has covered four major topics: (1) Ge Hongs instrumental
alchemy, (2) a critique of the alchemy as chemistry thesis and a com-
parison with physics, (3) Platos mathematical structures of the elements,
and (4) the unreconciled Parmenidean Being and Pythagorean Soul. The
sections above contain complex and unfamiliar content because neither
Daoists nor Platonists would normally venture into the textual tradition of
the other. However the one and many question has brought them together
and placed them on the same philosophical table. This is done through
the investigation of two overlapping issues: how two distinctive forms of
312 comparative ontology
ontology shape two very different forms of natural philosophy and how
different ontologies also give rise to different epistemologies. Alchemy
engages the world with the empirical method and operates in the tradi-
tion of instrumentalism. Platos idealism applies Pythagorean mathematics
to Empedocles material elements and formulates the natural philosophy
that the material world is explained by immaterial ideas.
The study of alchemy begins with textual analysis and demonstrates
what has been produced by the alchemy as chemistry thesis in Daoist stud-
ies. However, the protochemistry label has limited and reduced alchemy
to the small body of knowledge rationally explainable by chemical formu-
las. In alchemy, the synthesis of change and life, which inorganic chem-
istry proves to be a fatal antithesis, actually becomes the very foundation
of modern biochemistry. On the scale of Darwinian evolution, change is
the essence of life, and life is the product of change. Moreover, alchemy
cannot be demythologized as a religious means of seeking immortality. As
the comparison with physics has demonstrated, instrumental alchemy is
basically instrumental cosmogony, a search for the origin of the universe
through empirical means. The subject matter, the cosmogonical one and
many is also at the heart of modern physics. The concept of material time
in the formation of elixirs can also be explained through comparison with
the structural layers of matter from small particles to large organisms to
the living universe. The underlying argument, therefore, is OM in kind.
Being does not only give rise to Becoming, but Becoming also redefines
Being.
The comparison leads to a critical reading of Platos mathematical
model of the universe. That section takes a long path to investigate the
internal coherence of Platos particle theory of the elements. It focuses on
the key issue of interchangeability of the element-solids, and disproves the
claim that the myriad things are made of two irreducible triangle particles.
The section basically is a calculated rejection of Platonic scholarship that
turns a mystical genre to rational science.
The criticism of Platos natural philosophy also reveals a major source
of inconsistency in Platos ontology: the transcendental Forms inherited
from Parmenides Being and the doctrine of the souls traceable to the
historical Pythagoras. The Pythagorean idea of the incarnated soul has
not helped Plato to realize that truths must be embodied in mundane
life. What has preoccupied Platos thought is the immaterialism devel-
oped by the contemporary Pythagorean School. The immaterial nature
of mathematical truths fits well with the transmigration of souls. Idealism
has blinded him to what Pythagorean theology implies. It is the marriage
of Reason and Necessity in the Timaeus, not the Parmenidean division of
the many313
Comparative Methodology
315
316 conclusion
The second main feature of the method is the unusual starting point.
Comparison does not have to start from categorical similarities; knowing
the contrary provides a beginning for comparison. We must not assume the
existence of a metaphysical chair against which Platonic chairs and Daoist
chairs can then be meaningfully compared. On the contrary, alchemy and
geometry can be compared as long as they are understood within the con-
texts of Ge Hongs cosmogony and Platos theogony. On the acceptance
of difference, we can recognize the shared quest to name the origin of the
world. In classical studies, it would be too arrogant to invent a methodol-
ogy predefined by modern perception so that the past can be understood
by the present. Any historical study must relearn the lesson of letting his-
tory speak to us. In searching for the ultimate concernwhat the world
consists of or derives fromhistory shaped two intellectual traditions; now
with humility toward the ancient wisdom, a comparative thinker can bring
the traditions together by reengaging the one and many discourse. The
current study, therefore, is a continuation of this one and many debate.
Comparing and contrasting are two forces, just like Yin and Yang, and
together they shape the dialogical process.
Since it is a discourse, strictly speaking the method is neither monism
nor pluralism. Rather it is a process of both one and many. In this regard,
the method embeds a critique of postmodernism. The god of modernism
demands the universalism of one over many, and the goddesses of post-
modernism celebrate the many without one. Certainly postmodernism
has abandoned the assumption that all philosophies could converge on
the same metaphysical mountaintop, an assumption that entails the uni-
versalism of reason underlying all activities in natural sciences and even
liberal arts. Nevertheless, postmodernist pluralism is not a problem-free
paradigm. The willing acceptance of many without one assumes that no
unity is required in the pluralistic world. We should take a warning from
Platos Parmenides that the denial of the one will lead to the denial of the
many too. The many without the One is the primordial chaos. For Daoism,
the world overall cannot be seen as a place of endless fragments. Endless
pluralism is also relativism.
Postmodernist pluralism recalls the ontological individualism argued
by ancient atomists. Atomism rejects unity and endorses infinite plural-
ity, thus leaving the relationship among the many entirely meaningless.
However, the underlying assumption of such pluralism is that no dialogue
should be necessary as long as individual traditions have their own right
and space to evolve independently without any need to be interwoven
into a living whole. The space between the many, just like the empty space
between atoms, is ontologically meaningless. The ancient material plural-
conclusion317
Plato. Perhaps this book has created a protected and secure environment
to introduce Daoism on the international stage. Nonetheless, any engage-
ment is relational and thus bidirectional. A critical reading of Plato
presents tremendous challenges for a comparative thinker, like myself,
to understand Plato by revealing logical arguments hidden in the dra-
matized dialogues and to demonstrate the level of complicity in Platos
thought, which is foreign to Daoists. In reality, the critical reading of Plato
offers no protection to Ge Hong at all. The dialogue actually increases
the level of difficulty by not only inviting Daoists to read Platos dialogues
in their original context, but also to gain insights from modern analytic
philosophy. The process of comparing and contrasting equally challenges
Daoist thinkers to learn from Platonism and learn the language of reason
in order to understand the other. Whoever interprets Zhuangzi will also
be interpreted by him. This is the paradoxical saying Daoists must always
remember. Every step of translating and interpreting Daoist texts requires
a comparative scholar to give expression to Daoism beyond its abstruse
appearance and to allow Daoists to be challenged by the charity and the
coherence of Platonic reasoning. The end result is the creation of the
inner space that is also required for Daoists to appreciate Plato and his
tradition.
usually stay in academies and chew books. But the field trips took me to
see places where history is still in the making. To answer the existential
questions, I needed to rediscover my cultural home within which I am
accepted. When I was surrounded by morning mist, listening to the falling
rain, breathing in the fresh air, and drinking spring tea with the female
master of the monastic order, a renowned artist in residence, and a Daoist
scholar, I came to realize what the surrounding mountains have done to
them culturally and what the geographical location could equally do to
me. I came to accept where I was. The journey had taken me outside of
the familiar self to unvisited places, to understand as well as to be under-
stood by the other.
The journey of going outside the self is paradoxically the journey
to rediscover the inner self. This is exactly what Ge Hongs cultivation
method had predicted. When the finite self is emptied into the infinite
Nature, the Real-One begins to emerge. Unlike the Platonic dialectician
who gazed at the heavenly sun when he attained enlightenment at the
intellectual mountaintop, I looked downwards from the peak of Mountain
Qingcheng to search for the gate where I had entered the temple. There,
gazing at the world below, I discovered the fact that Nature is inward con-
nectedness. I did not achieve the enlightenment of otherworldly truths,
but the ascending and descending routes at different sides of the moun-
tain were a journey of self-discovery about my intellectual and cultural
home. More than a cognitive exercise, comparative philosophy involves
this empirical journeyto understand the self through the other. The
shifting of geographical location, the fact of standing in the temple, and
the act of following the liturgical life of the monks all produced insights.
As I went, I discovered that the existential crisis could be turned into a
creative tension. Until I have reconciled with myself, I am not ready to
reconcile the tensions of history.
preted by the history of change. The dialogue has tabled a crucial criticism
at the heart of Western ontology. It also has offered a Daoist answer. The
criticism now invites a Platonic response.
If Platonists take up the challenge, they must also learn the language
of Daoism and read Ge Hong for what he is. Then they would realize that,
without the dialogue with Plato, Ge Hongs philosophy would not be as
readily recognizable in the rhapsodical genre; without the comparative
connections, one would easily become lost in the historicity of Daoist tra-
ditions. Moreover, the philosophical language adopted for the dialogue is
far closer to Platos than to Ge Hongs. Indeed, it has made the religions
tradition more accessible to modern philosophical minds. After all, the
comparative method has opened an intellectual door not just to under-
stand the other, but also to understand the self through the other. Who
would step across the line between the self and the other?
Historically, Plato and Ge Hong never met, but the dialogue has brought
them together. If Daoism should be modernized, as is currently argued
by the school of New Daoism , Daoist scholarship should neither
isolate itself within the protective walls of antiquity, which are still guarded
by the method of historical-textual analysis, nor sacrifice its originality for
scientific rationalism. The comparative method has demonstrated a Dao-
ist apologetics in the world of pluralism. The strategy is not one of passive
defense, but of active engagement.
By moving out of the self into the world of many, Daoism can truly redis-
cover, and be empowered by, what it stands for in the course of history. But
to reunderstand oneself through dialogue requires the elementary step of
seeking understanding about the dialogue partner. Unfortunately, basic
training in Western thought is commonly lacking among Daoist scholars
in China. The rise of New Confucianism in the West has already
testified to a successful experience. Three generations of Confucian schol-
ars went to the West and learned from the West to accommodate science
and democracy. They then actively taught Confucianism in various institu-
tions, making the argument that the West shall learn from China and from
Confucianism in particular. To learn from this lesson of active engage-
ment, the modernization of Daoism is neither a simple matter of learning
natural science nor a collective effort to carve an intellectual property in
a Confucian society. It needs to be an outward journey of self-rediscovery.
This study has taken the outward journey and thus discovered that reli-
gious Daoism is capable of engaging with rational philosophy and that it
conclusion323
already contains the synthesis to close the gap between natural and moral
philosophers.
Instead of seeking approval by the other, the core value of the com-
parative method is to offer a path of reconciliation. As mentioned before,
the reconciliation starts with the self. My journey began with the exercise
of comparing and contrasting and then turned this simple method into
a relational discourse. As I go back and forth between comparing ideas
and contrasting premises, I come to discover that the tension between two
philosophies has a radical opening. Unless I stand there, they have noth-
ing in common. Once this was a polarizing tension defined by the logic
of opposition and causing an identity crisis; now it has become a creative
tension linked by relational ontology. By standing in the radical opening,
by holding the tension of the two, I become a bridge over the cultural gulf.
This is the same existential position in which I once stood. But now I have
changed. I can participate in a dialogue with two great minds.
Philosophers can live in different parts of history and belong to differ-
ent cultures and linguistic traditions. But they live in the same world, and
they have some shared concerns about the world. This is where a compara-
tive thinker really standson the same earth under the same heaven. I
am standing in the middle of the radical opening between heaven and
the earth. The cosmos is constantly inviting seeking minds to participate
in its wholeness; even in a confirmed existential location, as long as I am
open to the world, I am able find the oneness of the world at the pres-
ent moment. The realization of this simple truth is indeed liberating. It
marks a complete circle in my intellectual journey. Starting from a long
and unmapped journey to the West through theological landscapes, I then
returned to the cultural home, taking the philosophical route in the jour-
ney to the East. Ge Hong systematized religious Daoism and wrote the tril-
ogy on the doctrine of Xuan Dao, the doctrine of the Golden Elixir, and
the doctrine of Immortals. Plato founded the Academy and created the
categories of ontology, natural philosophy, and ethics. I have brought them
together through the categories of the heavens, the earth, and humanity.
I am standing at the place where philosophers are the inductions between
heaven and earth.
Apart from making an academic contribution, I believe that intellec-
tual adventure is intrinsically autobiographical. Therefore it has a life of its
own. The wisdom that a person can attain from a book is limited in scope,
but the dialogical method can unleash the thought yet to evolve into a
fuller life. If one seeks to reconcile the many with a single unifying theory,
one becomes a monist philosopher, increasingly isolated in the pluralistic
world. If one transforms oneself into a bidirectional bridge to shorten the
324 conclusion
to change. While Plato is explaining how the sun, the source of light for
everything to be seen, had enlightened the ascending path that they have
just taken, he looks into the heavens. At that very moment he discovers
that the sun is too bright to gaze directly into its brilliance. The intense
light actually makes him temporarily blind. When he has recovered his
sight, he sees Ge Hong pointing below with his right hand. Indicating the
land under the sun, he notes the beauty of the sun; the myriad things have
made the goodness of the sun visible. Walking toward the crucible stand-
ing in the courtyard, Ge Hong relates a parable. The sun is like alchemical
fire. Alchemists do not know what fire is until they go to collect what the
fire has done to the elixirs. These flowers and trees and countless living
beings in this mountain collectively give expression to what the sun has
done to this place. You have labeled them physical objects a degree away
from truth, while making the sun transcendent. But alchemists see them
as Natures elixirsthe materialized Qiin the crucible of life. There can-
not be two separate natures, one above and another one below. There is
only one Natureto freely be what is to be. Isnt this what the sun does?
The ascending journey does not stop at the courtyard; they move to
the seventh floor of the pavilion, where the spring tea has just been pre-
pared. Plato walks along the eight windows opened to the surroundings
where dark mountain peaks stand out like islands in a sea of white. He
is overwhelmed by the breathtaking view, which previously he has seen
only in paintings. The mountain is indeed beautiful, but is harmony tran-
scendent? Ge Hong relates another parable. Harmony is like the view
before us, always changing, therefore always the same. Harmony is like the
immortal being who lives in these mountains. He always opens himself to
harbor the myriad things within his all-embracing emptiness. While they
continue the conversation, the morning clouds drift away with the east
wind, and the sun reveals the path of their ascending journey. Looking at
the horizon where heaven and earth met, Ge Hong tells his guest, That
is where Daoist immortals live, and this is where we philosophers stand.
You may not know it, but we are already in the community of immortal
beings. All we need to do is to remove the heaven-earth distinction. Nature
has already shown us the harmony between them. If we can do the same,
heaven and earth may also become onein us.
On his descending journey, one thing keeps coming back to Platos
mind. He should not be that elderly man who occupies the center stage
of philosophy together with young Aristotle, as Raphael portrayed him in
the School of Athens on the wall of the Sistine Chapel, looking face to face at
the Son of God on the opposite side. He wonders, Is the division between
Reason and Revelation a mere illusion?
Notes
327
328 notes to pages xxxxiii
ogy and the one-many in the Chinese ontology. Although Lis works contains
specific discussion on Zhuangzi, unfortunately the comparison of Daoism and
Western philosophy is done with broad strokeswithout penetrating details.
12. Throughout this book Daoism is translated from the Chinese term
, the School of Dao, which can be traced to the bibliographical chapter in
the History of the Sui Jingji zhi *.
13. In many textbooks on Chinese intellectual history, Ge Hong is men-
tioned along with other Daoist thinkers in the Wei-Jin period. However, his
thought is mainly seen as a religious sidetrack along the main philosophical
stream and is not considered to be directly comparable with his philosophi-
cal contemporaries. For this general treatment see Ren Jiyu 1963, 2: 247253;
Beijing Daxue Zhexuexi Zhongguo Zhexue Jiaoyanshi 2001, 203207; Xiang
Shiling 2004, 339344.
14. Three important works on the philosophy of religious Daoism have
removed the division and established important connections between so-
called philosophical Daoism and religious Daoism. See L Pengzhi 2000; Li
Dahua 2001; Li Dahua, Li Gang, and He Jianming 2003.
15. There is a new trend in Sinology that regards religious Daoism as the
larger paradigm within which philosophical Daoism is an important stream.
This new approach does not only remove the division between religion and
philosophy, but also sets philosophy within religion. For an influential argu-
ment see Bokenkamp and Nickerson 1997, 1015.
16. Schipper 1993; Schipper and Verellen 2004; Robinet 1997.
17. Kohn 1991, 2000.
18. Bokenkamp and Nickerson 1997.
19. Lagerwey 1987.
20. Campany 2002.
21. Ware and Ge 1966.
22. The formula by Xi Zeyan summa-
rizes the overtones of the multivolume collective work The History of Chinese
Daoism and Scientific Technology ( Jiang Sheng and Tang Weixia 2002, iv).
23. Needham 1968, 1960, 1971.
24. Jiang Sheng and Tang Weixia 2002; Needham 2001; Zhao Kuanghua
and Lu Jiaxi 1998; Rong Zhiyi 1998; Zhao Kuanghua 1996; Sivin 1995, 1968,
1969.
25. In my postgraduate education, I became engaged in the dialogue
between science and religion, through which I encountered a number of insti-
tutions that aim to bridge the gap between religion and science: the Center for
Theology and the Natural Sciences run by the Graduate Theological Union
(GTU) in Berkeley, California, http://www.ctns.org/ (accessed June 2006);
the John Templeton Foundation in Philadelphia, http://www.templeton
.org/ (accessed June 2006); the European Society for the Study of Science
and Theology at Leiden University in the Netherlands, http://www.esssat
.org/ (accessed June 2006).
notes to pages 29329
21. The connection between the Book of Changes and the Tai Xuan has been
well identified by Michael Nylan (1994). For a systematic study and commen-
tary, see Yang 1993.
22. Wang Qing 2000, 130. For the list of tetragrams (translated into Eng-
lish) used in the Tai Xuan see, Yang 1993, 2528.
23. The autobiography is only collected in ZHDZ and not in DZ.
24. Ge Hongs relation with Wei Poyang will be discussed in Chapter 9,
The Many, on Ge Hongs alchemy.
25. The number following the abbreviation indicates the page number in
the edition published by Zhonghua Shuju .
26. Wang Ming 1980, preface, 34; Yang Mingzhao 1991, 1997, preface,
12.
27. The details of the Gaitian model will be discussed extensively in the
chapter on the One. For a brief discussion of the contrary views of the two
models, see Zheng Wenguang 1979, 104107.
28. Ge Hongs astronomical texts will be closely studied in the context of
the alchemical universe in the chapter The One.
29. Chen Zungui 1980, 305, 306.
30. Cullens study of the Constellations in the Gaitian astronomy makes
an important correction to Needhams study. Cullen argues that Chinese
astronomy was not motivated merely by intellectual curiosity, but rather
aimed to produce an accurate calendar for agricultural demands, so such
operations as sowing and harvesting could be carried out at the proper time
(Cullen et al. 1996, 5; for a general background on calendrical astronomy,
see pp. 427).
31. Wang Mings textual notes 4 and 5 in Wang Ming 1980, 4.
32. ,
33.
34. The connection between alchemy and astronomy will be discussed in
the chapter on The One.
35. For details see Wang Mings comparison (1980, preface, 12).
36. , The sentence literally means change and
transformation are the self-so-ness of heaven and earth. Here I interpret ziran
as principle. The interpretation requires a separate discussion of ziran as an
ontological concept in Daoism. The detailed discussion will be presented in
the chapter on Nothing.
37. For a brief introduction see Hu Fuchen and L Xichen 2004, 178201;
for a comprehensive study see Kang Zhongqian 2003.
38. For a full philosophical discussion, see Zhou Shaoxian and Liu Guijie
1996.
39. I borrow the expression from Zhou Shaoxian. Ibid., 120.
40. Tang Yijie 2003, 64.
41. Ibid., 66.
notes to pages 2128331
42. Tang has published a fuller account of the School of Xuan and Dao-
ism in the Wei-Jin Period (Tang Yijie 1988). But there is no direct comparison
between Ge Hong and the School of Xuan.
43. Kang Zhongqian 2003, 618.
44. The seven include Ruan Ji (210263), Ji Kang (223262),
Shan Tao , Wang Jie , Xiang Xiu , Liu Ling , and Ruan Xian
. For bibliographic details see Lin Li-chen 2005, 1:3374.
45. Commentary by Wang Bi in Xiao Tianshi 1977, 391; for an English
translation see Wagner 2003, 122.
46. Commentary by Wang Bi in Xiao Tianshi 1977, 392; Wagner 2003, 123.
47. The point is summarized by the editor, his son Tang Yijie (Tang Yong-
tong 2001, 12).
48. Hu Fuchen and L Xichen 2004, 181.
49. During the conference on Ge Hong, I heard this claim repeatedly from
various scholars.
50. (Cosmology or Cosmogony)
(ontology or theory of being) (Tang Yongtong 2001, 44).
51. Kang Zhongqian 2003, 125139.
52. Xiao Tianshi 1977, 392. The passage creates a high level of difficulty for
a translator because the philosophical argument is concealed in the ambigu-
ity of the classical language. Here I have sacrificed textual fidelity but focused
on the philosophical meaning of the text. For a literal translation see Wagner
2003, 122, 123.
53. , ; ,
54. McGrath 1994, 493.
55. , , ,
56. , , , , ? For
those [Confucians] who have failed to grasp the breadth of the universe, even
though it is a simple matter of observation, how can they understand Xuan
upon Xuan and the wonder of all wonders? (IC 154).
57. Hu Fuchen and L Xichen 2004, 179.
58. The concept of Nothingness interprets the phrase
to designate the meaning of beyond the door of conceptual norms. (Laozi
1) The concept of potency comes from the phrase Dao is potent, its works are
beyond measure (Laozi 4). According to Heshang Gongs
interpretation, here the word chong is used interchangeably with
the word zhong denoting the sense of inner life. See Heshang Gongs com-
mentary in Xiao Tianshi 1977, 540.
59. Ge Xuan et al. 1977, 525, 526.
60. Bokenkamp and Nickerson 1997, 39.
61. , Ware has translated the sentence as he exists
through the zenith and enters through the nadir. Wares translation is rhe-
torically more satisfying for describing immortal existence. My translation is
332 notes to pages 2838
more literal in order to highlight the idea of wu, leaving the cosmic back-
ground of Daoist immortals to be extensively investigated in another chapter.
62. , , ,
63. Graham (1989) reviews scholarly work on this key stream of Chinese
intellectual history.
once one and many, and that it is just the opposite tension of the opposites
that constitutes the unity of the One (Burnet 1930, 143).
19. Taylor 1956, 351.
20. Cornford 1939, 114.
21. Ryle 1965, 98.
22. Ibid., 97.
23. Runciman 1965 [1959], 149.
24. Ibid., 184.
25. According to Runciman the following passages were written after the
Parmenides: Timaeus (51b52c), Philebus (15ab), Theaetetus (185d), Politicus
(284e286a), Sophist (249cd), Phaedrus (277a), and Laws (965 be). Runci-
man 1965 [1959], 152.
26. Robinson 1953.
27. Allen 1997, preface, xi.
28. Plato and Scolnicov 2003.
29. Cornford 1939, 87.
30. I rely on Taylors study to identify this asymmetrical participation. It
is in fact a relation of resemblance + derivation, and this relation is not sym-
metrical. My reflection in the glass is a reflection of my face, but my face is not
a reflection of it (Taylor 1956, 358; also in Cornford 1939, 9394).
31. Kirk 1957 (1971), (344), 269.
32. Ibid.
33. Ibid., (352), 277.
9. , Zh u Xi 1996, 322.
10. In Chapter 7, Nothing, the logical aspects of ontological change will
be discussed in the context of change as both continuity and discontinuity.
This paradox of sameness and difference will be then put in comparative con-
text with Platos disassociation of being and not-being.
11. Ware and Ge 1966, 2829.
12. Chen Feilong 2002, chap. 1.
13. , , ,
14. , , ,
15. , , , ,
The references follow the commentary by Huang Hui . LH 23, 949, is the
abbreviation for Lun heng, chapter 23, page 949 (Huang Hui 1990).
16. The reference follows the commentary by the
modern scholar Liu Kangde . (2001).
17. , , , ,
18. OC 43, 423, is the abbreviation for Outer Chapters, chapter 43, page 423.
The reference follows the annotated edition by Yang Mingzhao (1991,
1997).
19. ,
20. ,
21. , , , ,
22. Hu Fuchen 1989, 202.
23. The inner/outer distinction is absent in Ge Hongs writing. Historically
inner alchemy and outer alchemy came to be distinguished during the latter
period of the Tang dynasty. Hu Fuchen and L Xichen 2004, 527.
24. Robinet 1997, 80.
25. Campany translates the term fangshi as masters of esoterica ( 2002, 6).
26. Bokenkamp and Nickerson 1997, 67.
27. Chen Guofu 1963, 258.
28. Qing Xitai 1996, 336.
29. Chang Minyi 2003, 5759.
30. The translation is modified from Wares (1966) translation.
31. , ,
32. , , , ,
33. I have discovered some text notes in the work of Gu Jiu (1995, 463464),
but as I began to trace the notes to their original sources (Ding Fubao n.d.,
book 9), I discovered that many references are either incorrect or belonged
to texts of much later periods. Here I have created a table to demonstrate the
connection between Ge Hongs text and the early medical text the Scripture of
the Yellow Chamber. The asterisk indicates changes that I have made.
34. The Scripture of the Yellow Chamber in the Daoist Canon has three fas-
cicles: the Inner, the Outer, and the Middle. According to Hu Fuchen, the
earliest text, known as the Huangting jing , appeared in the Western
notes to pages 6881335
Jin period. During the Eastern Jin period, the Inner fascicle appeared as the
Neijing jing , and the earlier Huangting jing was then retitled
as the Outer fascicle or Waijing jing . The Middle fascicle or Taishang
huangting zhongjing jing belonged to a later period. So the
chronological order of the three with reference to Ge Hong is Waijing
jing, Baopuzi, Neijing jing (Hu Fuchen 1989, 225228). For a
study of the Huangting jing, see Schipper 1975; for a study of the Wushang
biyao, see Lagerwey 1981.
35. For a detailed study on the heavenly city and its relation to the cosmos,
see Wheatley 1971.
36. , ,
37. , , ,
38. Hu Fuchen 1989, 228.
39. , , ,
40. , , , ,
41. The argument turns out to be a massive study of Chinese sciences cat-
egorized into branches defined by Western sciences (Needham 19542003).
Lee in his translation of the Republic (Plato 1955, 250). The texts from the
Republic are also based on his translation.
9. Here I borrow Cornfords phrase (1941 [1955], 217).
10. Cross and Woozey argue that Platos attitude on poetry and art as illu-
sion in book 10 fits well into his scheme of knowledge presented in the Divided
Line (1964, chap. 12).
11. Just as ancient commentators had recognized the Pythagorean origin
of Platos idea of the harmonious World Soul, Cornford points out that the
harmony is musically demonstrable (1935a [1977] , 71, 72).
12. Taylor 1956, 187.
13. Ross 1951, 38.
14. Modern scholars have identified this mistake that has a Parmenidean
origin. See Cornford 1935b, 296; Owen 1999, 418421. The original publica-
tions are in Vlastos 1970.
15. Cornford 1935b, 208.
of good (Kraut 1999; also see Reeve 1988, 201203). I think Krauts interpre-
tation offers a moral lesson critical of modern individualism. Nonetheless the
so-called divergence of self and public interest, I argue from here onward, is
not as great as he perceives.
7. Taylor 1956, 295.
14. ,
15. Qing Xitai 1996, 1: 311, 312.
16. The original text says: (IC 15).
17. (IC 13).
18. , , (IC 15).
19. (IC 13).
20. ,
21. , ,
22. Hu Fuchen 1989, 128.
23. , , ,
24.
25. , , , ,
26. Ge Hong 1991; Campany 2002.
27. Campany 2002, 912.
28. Ibid., 98102.
29. Ibid., 4, 5.
30. Campany does not give a satisfying explanation on why transcen-
dent is a better translation than immortal, but he indicates that the term is
intended to argue against the philosophical interpretation by David Hall and
Roger Ames (Thinking through Confucius, 13). For details see Campany 2002,
5, n. 5.
31. See Campany 2002, 32, n. 48.
32. Here I borrow Schippers (folk) etymology, which recognizes the bodily
nature of immortality. But I have given mountain an extended interpreta-
tion as Nature to bring out the connotation that xian expresses the unifica-
tion of humanity with Nature (Schipper 1993, 164).
33. In his opening chapter, Campany says, My approach has been to avoid
using big labels, ists or isms at all. And Ge Hong is best seen as a collec-
tor and unifier, but hardly a systematizer. His hagiography tells people about
the roots of Daoist religion and, more broadly, about the history of Chinese
religions and the history of religions in general (Campany 2002, 5, 8, 9).
34. Ge Hong, He Tang, and Wang Mo 1880, 1.
35. , ,
36. , , ,
37. ,
38. Bigu is a Daoist art practiced by generations of adepts. I was told dur-
ing the First International Conference on Ge Hong in 2003 that the famous
scholar Hu Fuchen (at the same dinner table with me) had managed to live
on water and a couple of pieces of fruit daily for forty-eight days. His face did
appear to me vigorously pink, and he looked ten years younger than others of
similar age.
39. , , ,
41. , ,
42.
43.
44. Lunyu , .
45. In the Laws 9, the concept of injustice is defined as the mastery of the
soul by anger, fear, pleasure, pain, envy and desires, whether they lead to any
actual damage or not (863e).
46. Here I borrow Irwins phrase. See Irwin 1994, 224.
47. The Daoist idiom literarily means first looking and
hearing inwardly, second being at peace as if having no heart rate like a dead
body. According to Inner Alchemy, this particular idiom refers to the commu-
nication of inner and outer environments and the unification of bodily form
and pneumatic vigor (deriving from Dao). Here my translation mainly corre-
sponds with the method of Preservation of the One, which has been discussed
with respect to the doctrine of Xuan Dao.
48. ,
Chapter 7: Nothing
1. The original idea of the paradox of continuity and discontinuity was
conceived through the study of the Daoist relational ontology of nothing/
something. But the articulation was inspired by Neville, with whom I did a doc-
toral seminar in 1999. The details can be found in his book under the section
The Fundamental Dilemma of Ontology. The principle of the ontological
ground of differences states: Two differing determinations of being presup-
pose a common ground in virtue of which they are relevantly determined with
respect to each other and from which each delimits for itself a domain over
and against the other. The principle of the ontological equality of reciprocal
contrast states: If two determinations of being are contrasting terms from each
other, then they must be on the same ontological level and the categories
descriptive of them must be on the same logical level. Neville further develops
the dilemma in the creator-created distinction. For details see Neville 1992,
4042, 94106.
2. Owen 1999, 447453.
3. To be what is not a general statement. It has some exceptions. For
example nonexistent is the negative form of to be without a predicate. But I
have already been argued that the equation of not-being with nonexistence is
ontologically false.
4. Here I borrow Owens distinction to express the aspect of subject nega-
tion that happens to the English verb to be. But unlike Owens linguistic
scrutiny, I do not see any difference between to be not-something and to
not-be something. Socrates is not-beautiful may mean that Socrates can be
anything in appearance but beautiful. And Socrates is-not beautiful may spe-
cifically designate Socrates cannot be beautiful. But they mean the same thing
340 notes to pages 164197
in that both rule out the possibility Socrates is beautiful. See Owen 1999,
450453.
5. For Daoism if all trees had been destroyed in the world, the ideal tree
would be gone with physical trees. This is because the ontological status of
tree-ness is not conceived as an independent being, but the relationship
between the ideal and the actual. Here for arguments sake I have followed
Platos notion of independent Forms to articulate the point that all beings are
ultimately indeterminate.
6. Wright 2000, introduction.
7. Dean-Jones 2000, 102.
8. Keyt 1971, 232, 234.
9. In the second chapter of the Inner Chapters, Ge Hong argues that to
encounter the far reaching meaning of immortal existence and the peaceful
mystery of Dao and De, one must leave behind ones doubt and enter into
the greatness beyond the nothingness (IC 1415).
10. , . , (IC 2).
11. The point is inspired by Grahams study, where something and nothing
are compared to solid and tenuous (1990, 345).
18. The Chinese were the most persistent and accurate observers of celes-
tial phenomena anywhere in the world before the Arabs (Needham 1954
2003, vol. 3 [1959]: 171172).
19. Tang Rushan (1962) argued that this passage is telling evidence
that Zhang Heng originally combined the flat earth theory with the Gaitian
theory. Later Zheng Wenguang argued that Tang misinterpreted
the general advance of the Huntian theory because even the Gaitian theory
had abandoned the round heaven and flat earth (Zheng Wenguang 2000,
212215).
20. The table is reconstructed from passages in the Astronomical Treatise
(Fang Xuanling 1990, 318320).
21. Needham follows the study by Qian Baocong and indicates that
the first appearance of this version is in chapter 13 of Lshi chunqiu
(Needham 19542003, 3: 210, note h). Zheng Wenguang also follows
the first version of the Lid theory with regard to this passage (2000, 216).
22. The concept of waiheng designates the outer boundary of the heavens.
Here I follow Needhams translation as the outermost barrier-declination-
circle to provide the geometric shape of radian declination on a half circle
(Needham 19542003, vol. 3, section 20, 213).
23. Needham translates qiheng liujian literally as the seven barriers [dec-
lination-circles] and the six roads. But according to the Gaitian theory, the
term represents the celestial map that calculates the movement of the sun.
Therefore, I translate the term as the map of seven barriers and six paths
accordingly.
24. Here I use the diagram in Needhams book; he, in turn, follows the
study of Herbert Clatley (Needham 19542003, 3: 212). Qian Baocongs (1998)
reconstruction of the theory has been published in Chinese.
25. Cullen et al. 1996, 720, 92102.
26. For a detailed discussion of the geometry, see ibid., 105.
27. For the geometry of the calculations, see ibid., 136.
28. The sentence is Ge Hongs rephrasing of Wang Chongs argument,
which is in LH 2, On the Sun, 500502.
29. Jiang Sheng and Tang Weixia 2002, 671.
30. Qiu Guangtings commentary was written under the title Haichao lun
(A Discussion on Tides). See Quan Tangwen (Complete Writings
of the Tang), fascicle 899. Here I rely on recent Chinese scholarship in the
collective study edited by Jiang Sheng and Tang Weixia (2002, 671). The title
resembles that of the lost book Chaoshuo (On Tides) by Ge Hong. See the
bibliography of Ge Hong in Wang Ming 1980, 391.
31. , , IC 275.
32. The quotation has various sources. According to a Chinese study, the
passage comes from The Complete Writings of the Tang , fascicle 899 (Jiang
Sheng and Tang Weixia 2002, 671). But during my research I was not able to
trace the original document. According to Neehdams study, the author is not
342 notes to pages 209242
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Brumbaugh, Robert S. 1961. Plato on the One: The Hypotheses in the Parmenides.
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bibliography353
Academy, 45, 88, 138, 150, 323324 tive view of, 81; of revealing the self,
air: Anaximenes changeable matter, 34; 64; of ruling, 137
mathematical interpretation, 273, ascension, 125
277, 290, 307; as mathematical par- astronomy, xxiixxiii, 65, 94, 184,
ticle, 277, 289, 292, 294305; one of 189190, 192194, 196, 281; and
four Empedocles elements, 273, 275; alchemy, 190, 197, 199; Chinese,
Thales primal matter, 33 16, 200; empirical, 15, 195, 202,
alchemy: astronomy and, 199; bodily, 210; g eocentrism, 14, 200; infinite-
xxiii, 66, 186, 264; and chemistry, xix, space, 283; instrumental, 14, 1819,
xxii, 238240, 245246, 251, 253254, 31; mathematical, 9597, 205, 214,
258, 311312; instrumental, xvii, xxiv, 216; and music, 81; observatory,
8, 19, 5859, 104, 114, 121, 130, 183, 283; physiology and, 105, 216; three
195, 197, 240, 242, 253254, 257, theories of, 189
264, 283, 311312; internal (Inner), Athens: City of, 138, 155; School of, 325
59, 6567, 72, 183, 209, 244, 249, atomism: critique of, 231; Democritus,
253254; lineage, 238, 240242, 246; 287; material pluralism, 37, 148;
and physics, 257258, 265266, 269, problem of pluralism, 288, 290, 316;
317; theoretical, 10, 19, 122 space and void, 262, 303
Anaximander, xvii, 3334, 254; biology, Augustine, 102
3334
Anaximenes, xvii, 3334 Being and Becoming: xvii, 37, 4445,
Aquinas, 56 4951, 75, 84, 147, 153, 172, 218,
Aristotle: biological simile, 170; on 220, 237, 262, 277278, 286, 304,
change, 255; criticism of Platos 306, 311313
theory of Forms, 48, 88, 150, 320; benti, xvi, 177
doctrine of substance, 309; geocen- biology, 17, 66, 106107, 256, 272
tric worldview, 281; on Presocratic body: alchemical, 7073, 7677, 117,
ideas, 3334, 36, 41, 222, 255; the 170, 186, 259; body-soul, 107, 109;
Third Man Argument, 40, 150, 165 body-state unity, 133135, 137, 139
Armillary Sphere, 15, 183185, 190, 141; Buddhist, 68; celestial, 118119;
194197, 205, 214216, 280 Daoist, xxiii; as empty vessel, 98, 262;
art: of elixir making, 239; of healing, 60; physical, xxiv, 57, 60, 253, 264; Pla-
and iconography, 104; Platos nega- tonic, 158, 217218; and the spirit,
357
358 index
xxv, 64, 69, 74, 119, 123, 125, 129, Thales (meteorological), 33; as trans-
132133, 144, 177, 188, 256; of the formation of matter, 19, 258. See also
universe, 64, 217219, 223, 272273, from nothing into being
277278, 280282, 284, 286, 301, 304, chaos: of Necessity, 171; order over,
309; World Body, 131, 218, 228 169171, 301; primordial, 43, 89,
Book of Changes, 6, 910, 14, 19, 26, 30, 137, 171, 173, 261, 286288, 302,
34, 207 316. See also Necessity
breath: breathing like a fetus, 186; of the Chen Guofu, 238, 240, 253
cosmos, 62, 64; of the great begin- Chunqiu fanlu, 20, 201
ning, 1, 28, 53; pattern, 66, 74; the cinnabar, 34, 147, 197, 247, 250251,
rhythm of, 73 253, 257, 307; fields, 6570
Buddhist: enlightenment, 132; other- Commentary on the Armillary Sphere,
worldly transcendence, 108; soteriol- 183
ogy, 253254; Three Realms, 118; Confucianism: xxii, 20, 108109, 113,
view of the body, 68 142, 254, 322; New Confucianism,
xxii, 322; New Text Confucianism,
celestial: axis, 203, 216; bodies, 69, 19, 30, 142
7374, 96, 119, 164, 184187, 194, Constellations, 17, 185, 192, 194, 197,
206, 208209, 215, 217218; cen- 216; the Twenty-Eight, 2, 1517, 25,
ter, 18; clock, 16, 96, 199, 215, 220; 119, 183184, 192
equator, 192, 194; gods, 119, 121; Cornford, F. M.: mathematical structure
movements, 1819, 75, 95, 186187, of matter, 289290; the mathemat-
194, 205; poles, 192, 227; time, 119, ics of the Soul, 225; on Parmenides,
197, 199, 203, 205; world, 6869, 73, 40, 47; unchangeable Forms, 87; the
119 World Soul, 222
chance, 75, 288, 295296 cosmogony, 2, 45, 17, 2122, 2728, 30,
change: alchemical, 129, 197, 199, 56, 143, 170, 174, 181, 210, 258; and
243, 253, 255257, 264265, 276, cosmology, 22, 143, 182183, 185,
279, 284285, 306; Anaximanders 190, 213; Ge Hongs, xvi, xxv, 4, 69,
biology, 3334; Aristotles substan- 118, 169, 172, 176177, 186, 316;
tial, 255; Change is the principle of Heraclitus, 35; instrumental, 200,
Nature, 19, 30, 75, 176, 246, 284; 312; Laozis, xv, 20, 28; of the Mile-
cosmogonical, 17, 169, 172, 255, sian School, 36; in modern physics,
271, 306307; Empedocles (mixing 265; ontology and, 22, 181; reenact-
elements), 274276; evolutionary, ment of, 261; soteriology-cosmogony,
57; Heraclitus (changing river), xvii, 129, 177; theogony and, 56, 118,
3435, 3738, 100, 255; and life, 254, 143, 172, 185, 316. See also alchemy;
256258, 264, 271, 312; motion and change; cosmology
rest, 213, 283285, 296, 304; non- cosmology: egg, 190; empirical study
contradiction principle (Plato), 84, of, 200; Gaitian, 259; geocentric, 184,
87, 154; particle theory (Plato), 286, 283; of the Han period, 23; Huntian,
288, 304306, 308, 312; Pythagorean 189; of the infinite universe; 222;
(numbers), 222223, 225, 277, 290; mathematical, 222; modern, 267; Par-
the Soul as the cause of, 282, 284; menidean, 280; Platos, 79, 212, 216
index359
Creation ex nihilo, xvi, 56, 174 of the soul, 216, 220, 229. See also
crucible, 19, 3435, 72, 74, 197, Empedocles
199200, 211, 245, 250, 301, 303, elixir: bodily, 70, 72, 98, 264; field, 66,
309; body and, 74; called hundun, 72, 98, 264; Golden Liquor, 240,
261; earthenware, 247, 249; intel 242244; Nine-Cycle, 247248, 250,
lectual, 319, 321; and the universe, 258, 262, 264, 270; Returned,
258 244247, 249251, 253. See also
cinnabar: fields
Daodejing, 22, 28, 76 Empedocles, 3637, 255256, 269,
death, 88, 107, 109111, 128; life after, 273277, 279280, 282, 284, 286288,
104, 106107, 131133; life and, 292, 296, 298, 304, 306307, 311312;
63, 110, 114; life without, 104106; Love and Strife, 274277, 282, 284,
Socrates, 132, 313; Wang Chong on, 287289, 290, 304, 312, 319
113, 114 emperor, 133, 135, 139142, 147150,
degeneration, 114, 227, 275276, 295, 153, 231, 261
299 enlightenment: bodily, 72, 108, 142, 254;
democracy, 138139, 322 Buddhist, 108, 132, 254; intellectual,
Democritus, 36, 287 52, 92, 98, 108, 133, 319; state of, 26,
Dong Zhongshu, 20, 201202 64; the Way of Opinion to the Way
dualism: cause and caused, 89; Form/ of Truth, 35; Zhuangzi, 64
sensible, xvii; good and evil, 159; epistemology: Ge Hong, 27, 53; Laozi,
Parmenidean, 45; primordial, 181 26; Parmenides, 86; Plato, 51, 8182,
earth: earth-cube, 277, 289, 292297, 9192; Zhuangzi, 63
299; one of elementals, 3334, 36, equality: algebraic, 220; Athenian, 102;
286, 299; one of Five Phases, 201, to its Nature, 64
227, 275, 283; flat, 15, 189, 192, 200, eternity, 116, 133, 214215
202, 207; planet, 15, 18, 72, 184187, ethics: Confucian, 108, 111, 113114,
203, 206, 208209, 215216, 219, 235, 142, 201, 294; Ge Hongs, 114, 115,
283; square, 189. See also heaven: 131, 134, 142; Platonic, 91, 104, 110,
and earth 135136, 142, 216217, 220, 323;
egg: alchemical, 199200, 254, 256 Socratic, 38, 47
257, 262, 271, 279, 283284, 306; evil, 156158, 217; good and, 36, 84, 120,
cosmological, 186, 188, 210, 227, 156, 159160; and not-being, 156,
234; instrumental, 195, 197, 246, 158159
253; precosmic, 186188, 213,
227; theory, 15, 184186, 191, 200, fangshi, 60, 76
207209, 234235, 237 fangshu, xxiii, 60, 62, 76
Eleatic School, 44, 79 fate, 114, 132
elements: chemical, 246, 255256; fire: alchemical, 35, 255, 305, 306,
Empedocles, 3637, 212213, 320321; bodily, 7374; chaff, 250;
255256, 269, 273288, 290291, 297, chamber of, 70; coal, 250; Fire-
302303, 307309, 311312, 320; of pyramid, 277, 289, 292298; one of
Forms, 219; mathematical (Plato), the Five Phases, 227, 275, 299; (one
289, 292, 294301, 304307, 312; of Four Elements, 33, 273286, 288;
360 index
longevity, 105106, 128; the method matter: architecture of, 212, 286; dark
of, 54; physical, xxv, 104, 106107, energy and, 266267, 269; evolution
256, 258; quest for, 78, 30; of the of, 269; and force, 267, 270; geomet-
soul, 109110, 132133, 159, 313 ric matter particles, 267, 269, 270;
incarnation: of the Dao, 122; of God, 56; and internal clock, 258, 265; and life,
of heavens order, 139; of the World 57; matter-form, xxiii, 53, 63, 174,
Soul, 221, 310311 188, 200, 209, 246, 254, 257, 262,
indeterminate action, xviii, 54, 56, 73, 264266, 306, 309; primal, 57, 262,
134, 162163, 168, 211. See also 264, 271; the transformation of, 19,
wuwei 257258; structure of, 238, 260, 265,
infinity, 281, 290 272, 288
inner environment, 68, 71, 75, 165 medicine, xxiixxiii, 60, 76, 128, 133
instrumental alchemy, xvii, xxiv, 8, 19, 134, 139, 199, 229, 239240, 253, 264
5859, 104, 114, 121, 130, 183, 195, meteorological, 6, 34, 184, 208; change,
197, 240, 242, 253254, 257, 264, 283, 33, 298
311312. See also alchemy; waidan mind: cognitive, 77, 94, 309; the divine,
intelligence, 51, 81, 83, 85, 96, 213, 213, 236237; human, 7, 5051, 75,
234235, 301, 309 9091, 99, 106, 217
internal alchemy, 6566, 72, 183, 209, Moltmann, Jrgen, xvi
242, 249, 253254. See also alchemy; monism: alchemical, 246; Daoist, xxiv;
neidan material, 33, 39, 57, 298; ontological,
xviii; Parmenides, 45; and pluralism,
Ji Kang, 20 xvii, 32; pre-Socratic, 153
Jin dynasty, 15, 247 motion: active, 303; celestial, 185, 187,
Justice, the Form of, 46, 85, 89, 146, 157, 215; circular, 213, 215, 282, 284285;
220 heavens, 1, 18, 96; locomotive, 280;
and rest, 213, 285, 296, 304; ultimate
Lady of Taixuan, 127 cause of, 218, 220, 225
Laozi, xivxviii, xxv, 5, 7, 17, 2023, Mount Luofu, 138, 324
2629, 32, 54, 56, 75, 118, 121, 134,
149, 154, 162163, 175178, 196, 226, Necessity, 158159, 169171, 173,
232, 247, 317 178182, 214, 217, 219, 232233,
law: Platonic, 135, Newtonian, 267 261, 297, 301302, 310, 313. See also
Leucippus, 36 Reason and Necessity
Li Gang, 107 Needham, Joseph, xxiixxiii, 76, 189
Liexian zhuan, 104 190, 192, 199200, 239240, 243, 253
Liu An, 122, 126 neidan, xxiii. See also internal alchemy
longevity, xxv, 58, 62, 76, 101, 103, night sky, 56, 18, 62, 154, 164, 189, 211.
105106, 108, 114, 117118, 123, 125, See also Xuan
127128, 134, 140141, 176, 248, 264, nothingness: cultivation, 140; as the
271, 282 foundation of all (Hu Fuchens
interpretation), 22; the ground of
mathematics, 36, 47, 91, 9697, 203, 205, (Tang Yongtongs interpretation),
210, 214, 220, 222, 225, 228, 231, 312 21; Primordial, 28; and something,
362 index
xviii, 23, 113; unthinkable (Plato), Planets: the creation of, 304; the five (in
86, 88, 226; Wang Bis (ontology of ), Chinese astronomy), 73, 119, 187,
2324, 2627, 30; as wu, xviii, 23, 27, 201202, 221, 227, 283; in Timaeus,
28, 113, 175; of Xuan (Ge Hong), 53, 214215, 283284, 302
69, 183186 pluralism: atomist, xxiv, 288; chemical
numbers: odd and even, 222224, 227, and material, 240, 246; compara-
277; Pythagorean doctrine of, 36, 95, tive, 315; Empedocles, 36, 273, 277,
222 286; monism and, xvii; postmodern,
xxi, 316317; Pythagorean, xvii, 36;
oligarchy, 138 religious, xv, 56
One: cosmogonical, 22, 35, 55, 57, 161, Proclus, 48, 219220
183, 188, 212, 270, 312, 317; form- purification ritual, 59
less, 29, 234; gestation of the (as Qi), Pythagoras, 36, 219, 222, 289, 312
5354, 180181, 257; numerical,
4, 47, 99100, 146, 148, 161, 219, Qing dynasty, 3
223224, 227, 229231, 277; Par-
menidean, 35, 41, 83; preservation of Reason and Necessity, xviii, 156, 169,
the, 58, 60, 7677, 119, 134, 140, 249; 170172, 178181, 227, 233, 297, 301,
primordial (as Yi), 1, 4, 28, 53, 159, 307313
187, 269; Real-One, 59, 6465, 6869, receptacle, 170, 287, 291, 297, 300301,
73, 134; Xuan-One, 5960, 62, 64, 304, 309
6869, 130, 134, 264 Ruan Ji, 20
one within many (Ge Hong), 103,
134135, 142 sages, 58
one without many (Parmenides), 39, salvation, 56, 106
4142, 50, 83 Scripture of the Yellow Chamber, 68, 76,
ontological degrees, 80, 94, 117 187
opinion/sensibles, 83, 94; sensibles: and belief, 51, 98; the episte-
opposites: dialectic, 17, 154, 161, 227, mological problem of, 8283; Forms
228; logical, 25, 27, 34, 50, 85, 110, and, xviii, 3940, 44, 49, 8283, 153,
153, 262, 274 156, 221; and images, 82. See also
oral instructions, 59, 247, 249251 opinion/sensibles
outer environment, 68, 73 sexual arts, 128
Shanhai jing, 6, 18
Parmenides: Book of, 32, 39, 41, 165; shenxian, xxi, 104, 116
denial of not-being, 145; denial of Shenxian zhuan, xviii, xxi, 104, 115
plurality, 37, 39, 83; Platos spokes- simplicity, 20, 142, 186; the Mater
man, 4352; Way of Opinion, 35, Embracing, 1, 208, 247, 324
3738, 83; Way of Truth, 35, 3738. Simplicius, 33
See also Being and Becoming; One; Sivin, Nathan, 239, 252253, 261
one without many; opinion/ Song dynasty, 254
sensibles soteriology: Buddhist, 253254; Chris-
philosopher-king, 101103, 135136, tian, 254; cosmogony and, 129, 177;
138, 313 the doctrine of, 58, 258; four degrees
index363
of, 128; genealogy and, 129; reli- time-space, 119, 257, 259265, 285, 306
gious, xxv; system of, xxv transmigration, 36, 68, 131, 312
soul: disembodied, 106, 132; human, 49, tyranny, 138
51, 95, 216217, 219, 221, 235; just,
137; structure of, 213, 216, 222223, unity: alchemical, 199; of body and
277, 279, 281; the World, 50, 82, spirit, xxv, 69, 74, 188, 256; of Dao,
9596, 131, 143, 180, 187, 212213, xv, cosmogonical, 181, 233; of the
216221, 223225, 228, 234235, 237, elements, 280281, 290, 309; form-
256, 272, 280, 284, 310311, 313; See less, 208, 233; of form-matter, xxiii,
also immortality: of the soul 188, 209, 254, 266, 309; of Forms,
space: in atomism, 262; dark, 75; empty, xix, 44, 90, 100, 145, 170; of har-
54, 189, 262, 303, 316; formless, 170, mony, 150151, 170171, 181, 228,
262; free, xiiixiv; indeterminate, 232, 276; material, 48, 200, 254;
54, 148; infinite, 56, 62, 75, 189, 264, Necessity-Reason; 180, 233; of the
283, 303; inner, 165, 318; material, numerical one, 100, 265; ontological,
262, 264; relational, 317; three- 90; Parmenidean, 45; primordial, 38,
dimensional, 282283, 286. See also 180, 260; relational, 141, 170, 271;
time-space of togetherness, 100, 147149, 231
spontaneity, xxiv, 54, 70, 73, 75, 173, 188,
299, 302 waidan, xxvi. See also instrumental
state: awaken, 166, 180; cognitive, 77, 94; alchemy
of enlightenment, 26, 64; of gesta- Wang Bi, 2027, 30, 113
tion, 33; ideal, 102, 135, 138139; Wang Chong, 5758, 77, 111114, 187,
just, 135138; longevity of the, 135; 202, 205208
paradoxical, 63 Wang Ming, 3, 79, 1920, 22
Wei Boyang, 122, 126
Tai Xuan, 78, 19 wu, xviii, 1, 23, 75, 113, 143, 164,
Taiping jing, 7 174175, 179, 181, 232. See also
talismans, 120, 246248; matching, 194, nothingness
196197, 200, 210211, 237 wuwei, xviii, 54, 73, 162. See also indeter-
Temple of Cleansing Vacuity, 138 minate action
tetragrams, 9
Thales, xvii, 3235, 298 Xiang Xiu, 20
theogony, 56, 118, 143, 171172, 178, Xuan: as dark night sky, xv, 56, 18, 62,
180181, 185, 212, 217, 316 154, 164; rhapsody of, 13, 6, 59,
Three Pure Ones, 118 62; Xuan-Dao, 1, 3, 7, 28, 30, 5558,
time: alchemical, 17, 258; the beginning 124, 142, 272, 323; Xuan-One,
of, 29, 5455; celestial, 17, 119, 199, 5960, 62, 64, 6869, 130, 134, 264;
203; concept of, 17, 130, 258; the Xuan-Qi, 4, 18, 53, 55, 57, 62, 69,
creation of, 215; cyclical, 187, 249, 75, 161, 170, 175177, 181, 185,
264265; and eternity, 116, 214; 188, 228, 264; Xuan upon Xuan,
material, 130, 199, 312; a scale of 5, 23, 26, 29
genealogical, 118, 130; unit of shi, Xuanye (cosmology), 187, 189190,
243 209210
364 index
Yang Xiong, 710, 1415, 1820, 2931, zhuan: alchemical, 19; astronomical, 197
210211 Zhuangzi, xiv, xxiv, xxv, 17, 20, 21, 6364,
Yuhan Fang, 60 75, 108, 134, 166, 175, 180, 227, 265,
318
Zeno: denial of plurality, 42; of Elea, 45; ziran, xviixviii, 24, 5455, 75, 162,
logic of exclusion, 55; paradox, 46; 176178
Parmenides and, 40 Zuo Ci, 60, 240, 248
Zhang Daoling, 122, 125126
Zhang Heng, 15, 19, 184, 190, 194195,
197, 200202, 206207, 211
About the Author
No. 1. The Sage and Society: The Life and Thought of Ho Hsin-Yin,
by Ronald Dimberg, 1974.
No. 2. Studies in Comparative Aesthetics, by Eliot Deutsch, 1975.
No. 3. Centrality and Commonality: An Essay on Chung-Yung,
by Tu Wei-Ming, 1976.
No. 4. Discourse on the Natural Theology of the Chinese, by Gottfried
W. Leibniz, translated with an introduction, notes, and
commentary by Henry Rosemont, Jr., and Daniel J. Cook, 1977.
No. 5. The Logic of Gotama, by Kisor Kumar Chakrabarti, 1978.
No. 6. Commentary on the Lao Tzu by Wang Pi, translated by Ariane
Rump, introduction by Wing-tsit Chan, 1979.
No. 7. Han Fei Tzus Political Theory, by Wang Hsiao-po and Leo S.
Chang, 1986.
No. 8. The Mkya Upanisad and the Agama stra: An Investigation
into the Meaning of the Vedanta, by Thomas E. Wood, 1990.
No. 9.
Mind Only: A Philosophical and Doctrinal Analysis of the
Vijnavda, by Thomas E. Wood, 1991.
No. 10. Accomplishing the Accomplished: The Vedas as a Source of Valid
Knowledge in Sankara, by Anantanand Rambachan, 1991.
No. 11. Ngrjunian Disputations: A Philosophical Journey through an Indian
Looking-Glass, by Thomas E. Wood, 1994.
No. 12. Chen Liang on Public Interest and the Law, by Hoyt Cleveland
Tillman, 1994.
368 series list