Among those Chinese thinkers who treat philosophically the theoretical problems in modernization, modern Confucianists have devoted most attention to ontology. They have worked most painstakingly and achieved the greatest success in this sphere. Most Chinese philosophers have been doing their best to find weapons of philosophical thought to criticize autocratic ideas and systems and to solve urgent practical problems in the political, social, economic and cultural realms. The neo-Confucian thinkers, however, have been cudgeling their brains to explore the deepest reality of the universe, the noumenon of the world and the Absolute, and thus define the real meaning of life and the funda-mental values of culture. They hold that ontology is the crux of the matter, and provides the essential solution to the problems of modernization. According to them, only by a clear understanding of the noumenon of the universe can the modern person find the dwelling place for his or her spirit; only by expounding ontology can theorists show clearly the correct orientation for the development of modern culture and solve practical problems in the political and economical spheres. If they failed to clarify an unshakable ontology, the modern world would sink into spiritual poverty. The measures to deal with affairs would then merely be utilitarian; Western thought would be introduced fragmentarily, incoherently, superficially and thus would arouse shallowness and confusion. That is why neo-Confucianists have been exerting every effort to expound ontology, and to use it as the major premise from which they deduce their philosophy of life and culture, their ethics and political theory.

The partiality of contemporary Confucianism for ontology is a peculiar reaction of Chinese traditional philosophy to the trends of modernization. Traditional Confucianism regarded Heaven as the supreme noumenon, which was transcendent; it is the most fundamental being generating and transcending all things. Moreover, Heaven is also thought to be immanent; it endows the human with Nature (Xing) whose essential content is humanity (ren). Nature forms the moral or spiritual ego, which as the real nature of man transcends the empirical ego and the physiological ego. Mencius said: "He who exerts his mind to the utmost knows his nature. He who knows nature knows Heaven." (Mencius 7A1). This implies that only by cultivating one’s moral character does one recover one’s nature and experience the noumenon. Humanity is both the embodiment of the way of Heaven and the manifestation of human nature. Thus, by searching for humanity one can realize the unification of Heaven and man, and thereby acquires the real meaning and true sacred value of human life. The Doctrine of the Mean said: "What Heaven imparts to man is called human nature. To follow our nature is called the Way. Cultivating the Way is called education." Therefore Confucianism demands that the theory of guiding the activities of the whole of society, state and individuals follow the Way of Heaven and proceed from a huma-nitarian mind. So the Great Learning said: "From the Son of Hea-ven down to the common people, all must regard cultivation of the personal life as the root or foundation." That is the conclusion of traditional Confucianism.

The ontology of traditional Confucianism and the ethics and political doctrine deriving therefrom, if not reformulated, would not be suitable for modern China for they could not be used to save the nation from subjugation and to construct a new society, nor could they be used to develop new culture. But the neo-Confu-cianists have firm faith in the value of the traditional culture. They firmly believe that only by returning to the noumenon of the universe can the human spirit find its dwellings; only with the help of ontology can our way of governing society and our schemes for making the state powerful and people rich not lead to new political and social evils. They would not repeat the doctrine of "preserving heavenly principle and extirpating human desires," and have aban-doned the dogma of "the three cardinal guides": ruler guides sub-ject, father guides son, and husband guides wife. However, when they come to solve the problems of modern society they still follow the Confucian thinking of subordinating the incidental to the fun-damental and uniting substance and function.

For modern Confucianists, the theory which regards the ori-ginal mind (i.e. the real self, the innate faculty and the humanitarian mind) as the original substance of the universe, has the following several meanings.

Secondly, the humanitarian mind has set a supreme goal for the modern striving after a happy and meaningful life. According to modern Confucianism, as the universal nature permeating all things, the humanitarian mind is both the nature of man and the ori-ginal substance of the universe. For this reason, through restoration to the humanitarian mind one can reach the realm of unification of Heaven and man, in which the man, Heaven, Earth, and the myriad things become one body. In this way the ordinary people will become lofty, and daily life sacred and spiritual, that is, ethical. People with lofty ideals cherish fine feelings for others and love all men. They transform the unfeeling money-centered relation among men in modern society, filled with cruel competition and cunning cheating, into fine relations of mutual trust, respect, love and mu-tual help. Thereby they maintain harmony and tranquility in a social life full of friendship and warmth.

Fifthly, the Confucian thought is of eternal value and uni-versal significance. Modern Confucianists do not defend the values of traditional Confucianism passively, but try to overcome the crisis in modernization, i.e. the wrongs of modern society in the spiritual and cultural field. They clarify Confucian doctrine in order to show its value. They see Confucian metaphysics as the ele-mentary part of Confucianism and the quintessence of Chinese culture. This takes ontology as its kernel and consider it capable of solving the spiritual crisis caused by Western values. As a theory suitable for modern society, it can meet the challenge of moder-nization and Western culture; it can survive and even develop. Moreover, Confucian ontology, which aims at the ultimate concern of humankind and discusses the values and meaning of life, is a value suitable for all times and is of eternal significance. Through expounding ontology, modern Confucianism establishes the po-sition and role of Confucianism in modern society and human civilization.

From the above discussion it can be seen that the ontology of modern Confucianism not only preserves the frame and structure of traditional Confucianism, but also has been enriched by the times. Ontology is the most abstract part of philosophy and shows the least concern for the practical problems of society. Modern Confucianists keep to their own style and their old way of thinking in their absorbed study of their academic questions, regardless of praise or blame of others. Nevertheless, they still must conform to historical trends and absorb the spirit of the day. To meet the needs for developing the modern spirit, culture and society, they stress the full play of their independence, initiating creativity and making progress. In short, they pay great attention to human self-con-sciousness and subjectivity, and advocate self-realization and self-development as well as self-perfection. Certainly, the ontology of modern Confucianism can become the guideline for the spiritual cultivation for some Chinese intellectuals who are unwilling to accept either Communist beliefs or total Westernization, and who can exercise initiative. In fact, the doctrine has been inspiring some intellectuals to go their own way during a period of seventy years since the May 4th Movement of 1919. In the historical criticism of tradition, which swept across China with the momentum of an avalanche, they exerted themselves to enhance traditional culture with an incomparably firm belief, amazing courage and will-power. They realized notable achievements which have advanced the rediscovery of Chinese traditional culture and helped to explore its excellent heritage of culture and to carry forward the national spirit.

It must be pointed out that modern Confucianists, who are ambitious in academic study, are not satisfied with merely re-ela-borating traditional thoughts. Their goal is to make neo-Con-fucianism the guiding ideology for developing the modern spirit and the theoretical foundation of modern culture; their hope is that their theory can dominate the process of the modernization. But in fact the influence of modern Confucianism upon the process of Chinese modernization has been small; it hardly contributed to the destruction of the old political and economical systems and the establishment of the new ones. It seems to have no impact on the progress of modern science and technology and on the develop-ment of Chinese economy. Its effects on the formation of the mo-dern Chinese spirit and the flourishing of modern Chinese culture are not worth mentioning. Neo-Confucian views and plans con-cerning modernization remained at the level of theory, so that its influence was limited to the sphere of academy.

Among many reasons for this state of affairs, an important one has been that neo-Confucianism has been impaired by its ontology on which neo-Confucianism has been unduly dependent. Influenced by the Confucian idea of subordinating the incidental to the fundamental, they thought that the solution to all theoretical and practical problems in modern society depended on the establishment of the original Substance, so they paid great atten-tion to abstract and speculative metaphysics and looked down upon the concrete practical problems. Just as traditional Confucianism reduced bringing order to their states and restoring peace through-out the world to regrounding the mind and making the will sincere, so neo-Confucianism reduced perfecting modern society and developing modern culture to establishing the governing and do-minant position of the humanitarian mind. Indeed, contemporary Confucianists have written many works discussing problems con-cerning democracy, science, literature, arts and so on, but these were concerned mainly with how these cultural spheres should accept the guide of the humanitarian mind. Most modern Confu-cianists who drifted away from the trends of the times were un-willing to understand and participate in those trends. On the contrary, standing aside, they sometimes talked about and criti-cized it, but did not pay due attention to the urgent social problems which they rarely investigated. Thus they could not put forward practical and effective solutions and hence were unable to influ-ence the Chinese process of modernization.

History has indicated that modernization, with its own course, is not a product and accessory of a certain ideology; it does not develop according to an ideology. So long as the necessary con-ditions for social, political, economic and cultural development are given, the process of modernization advances vigorously, whether in a capitalist or a socialist society, whether in states and areas with Western democracy or without it. Modern Confucianism has reconstructed the traditional Confucianism, cast aside the latter’s support for feudal autocracy, and assimilated the ideas of science and democracy. Xiong Shili accepted socialist thought in his later years. The humanitarian mind in modern Confucianism no longer means the "heavenly principles" embodying feudal morality, but a spirit of universal fraternity, exerting oneself, progress, opening up, creating, and perfecting oneself and the outward world. In spite of their inclination to anti-utilitarianism, they do not oppose utility per se. In its substance, modern Confucianism does not run counter to the modern spirit, and hence does not hinder the course of modernization.

Neo-Confucianism attempted to influence and even do-minate the course of modernization, but in fact it failed. It is not that modern Confucianism is utterly incompatible with modernization, but that it is divorced from the practical course of mo-dernization and indulges in empty talk about metaphysics. Al-though metaphysics does have bearing open modernization, empty talk about it cannot solve any practical problem, and cannot advan-ce modernization. In today’s world modernization is the most powerful force transforming society and the human spiritual world, and determining the orientation of history. Only by promoting the practical course of modernization can any idea, doctrine, party or individual have an important influence on society and man, and can an idea of value be qualified to guide modern society and the spirit of the modern man.

The undue dependence of modern Confucianism on its ontology is rooted in a fatal weakness of ontology, that is, con-fusing reality with the subject. The term "original substance" is a category with many meanings: ultimate origin, universal nature, ultimate reality, supreme unity, the absolute, supreme subject, the fundamental motive power, and the master of the world. Between different philosophers the meaning of the term "original substance" differs greatly and the ambiguity of the meaning of the term caused many debates in the history of philosophy. In the works of neo-Confucianists the term for the original substance has several meanings at the same time. However, its primary meaning is the supreme subject, so they stressed that the original substance is the fundamental power, the master and creator of the world. Therefore it is said to be the subjective dynamic spirit, namely, the original substance of mind. Nevertheless, according to the philosophy of neo-Confucianism, since the original substance of mind is the ultimate reality of the universe, the outward physical world was created by the substance of mind, thereby negating thoroughly the objective reality of the world. Xiong Shili’s ontology, which con-temporary Confucians praise highly, did the most to clarify this view.

The concepts of the subject of the world and of the ultimate reality are quite different. The modern Confucians confused these concepts and regarded the dynamic, opening and creative spirit as the ultimate reality of the universe. For this reason, they were bound to fall into the pitfall of the doctrine of "emergence of being from non-being". Although the visible world is humanized, and outward things become the objects determined by the subject once they enter the sphere of human understanding, the outward world exists objectively and has its reality: the subject cannot create the object from nothing; the outward thing has its own definition and law. The complete negation of the objectivity and reality of the world undoubtedly will lead to a void and bring about subjectivism. By disregarding the nature and law of things and placing blind faith in a miraculous omnipotence on the part of the mind in opening and creating all, modern Confucianists overlooked the practical pro-blems of modern society and did not study the theory of moder-nization. Thus they have had little influence upon modern society. Though the neo-Confucianists knew that traditional Confucianism failed due to its focus upon inner sageness (nei sheng) to the detriment of outer kingliness (wai wang), they failed to overcome this drawback in their own philosophy.

Another problem caused by confusing the subject with reality is that the reality of the universe had a moral coloring. In modern society it is difficult to understand the traditional Confucian view that the mind is the original substance of the universe. Undoub-tedly, the subject of cognition has a moral sense, but the substance of the universe does not possess consciousness. Regarding the mind as the original universe or its origin leads to mysticism.

Judging from the destiny of neo-Confucianism in modern society, ontology, which can establish the value and meaning of life for some people, can play a certain role in developing their spirit. Nevertheless, due to its own limitations, its effect on modern society is limited. Only a philosophical theory which can advance the process of modernization can produce a great impact on modern society.

1. Tang Junyi, "The Limits of Scientific Reason and Huma-nitarian Mind", Democratic Review, n. 6, 13.

2. Tang Junyi, "Our Illness of Mind", Democratic Review, n. 2, 7.

3. Xiong Shili, The Neo-Consciousness only Doctrine (Com-mercial Publishing Company), p. 4.

4. Ibid.

5. Tang Junyi, "Limits".

6. Mou Zongsan, Intellectual Intuition and Chinese Philo-sophy.

7. Tang Junyi, "Limits".

8. Xiong Shili, The Inquiry on Confucianism, vol. II, chap. 4.

9. Xiong Shili, The Neo-Consciousness only Doctrine (Zhonghua Publishing Co. 1985), chap. 4, p. 327.

10. Xiong Shili, An Inquiry, vol. II, chap. 4.

11. Xiong Shili, The Neo-Consciousness-only Doctrine, chap. 4, p. 325.

12. Ibid., p. 328.

13. Ibid.