Page "Zhang Zai" Paragraph 5

Zhang Zai's metaphysics is largely based on the Classic of Changes, traditionally attributed to Confucius.

According to Zhang, all things of the world are composed of a primordial substance called qi.

For Zhang, qi includes matter and the forces that govern interactions between matter, yin and yang.

In its dispersed, rarefied state, qi is invisible and insubstantial, but when it condenses it becomes a solid or liquid and takes on new properties.

All material things are composed of condensed qi: rocks, trees, even people.

There is nothing that is not qi.

Thus, in a real sense, everything has the same essence, an idea which has important ethical implications.

The most significant contribution of Zhang Zai to Chinese philosophy is his concern of qi as the basis of his ontocosmology.

The qi or vital force is, according to Zhang Zai, the fundamental substance by which all processes of the universe can be explained.

First of all, according Zhang Zai, the qi or vital force is something forever in the process of changing.

Second, the perpetual change of the vital force follows a definite pattern of activity according to the two principles, the yin and yang.

The changes undergone by qi result from the perpetual activity of the yin and yang principles.

Zhang Zai's conclusion is that there is nothing in the universe that cannot be explained in terms of the interaction of the twofold activity of qi.

Third, the change of anything from condensation to dispersion, or from visibility to invisibility does not imply the idea of quantitative extinction of the thing in question.

Fourth, Zhang Zai stresses the fact that although the creation and transformation of manifold things can be reduced to one uniform pattern ( the interaction of the yin and yang ) nothing in the entire universe is the repetition of something else.

As an example presented by Zhang Zai, there are no two persons whose minds are exactly alike.

Fifth, the perpetual motion of the physical world is not originally caused by any outside force.

He states that the cosmos depends on nothing to be its first mover, for the qi as such is a vital and self-moving force that alone makes all change and motion possible ( Huang ( 1968 )).