明末大儒王船山的人格與思想

The Personality and Thought of Wang Fuzhi in Late Ming

船山明亡後隱於深山四十餘年,以漢衣冠終其身,並世殆無第二人。其所以能如此,在深信人能以“養性”爲功於天地。船山以爲,通天下一氣,一陰一陽,絪緼相繼而不息。最清者》太虛“天氣”,純粹而靈;降而爲“地氣”或“五行之氣”,則稍濁而有礙;地氣凝結,則爲形質。人之所以有靈,在於有心,心中函有太虛天氣,是爲“神”,爲“性”。此神爲地氣所包,地氣則限於形質。心中之神雖得自太虛,然既生之後,則與地氣交通往來,人能自取自用。神之爲清爲濁,於是端賴於己。且人一生所爲所思,皆不滅而融入其神,死後同歸太虛。故君子“存事没寧”,不遺造化以疵纇。如此信仰,直可名爲儒家士君子之宗教也。

Under the stern Manchu rule, Wang Fuzhi, an uncompromising Ming loyalist, lived as a hermit in the mountains of Hunan, keeping intact his Han Chinese hairstyle and dressing for more than four decades. It is hard to find a parallel in the Ming-Qing transition. Such moral perseverance is rooted in his strong belief that a real Confucian could "assist" Heaven and Earth with his own refined qi even in reclusion or after death. The basis of this belief is his metaphysics of qi, according to which there are three levels of qi: the original Heavenly qi, the less pure qi which circulates within a thing, and the most thickly condensed qi which becomes "matter" (质,zhi). Correspondently the constitution of man is also three-leveled: the spiritual qi, which is contained in his mind-and-heart (xin) and derived directly from the Heavenly qi; qi that circulates within his body; and the body itself. These three levels of qi comprise a feedback system. It is on the second level of qi, Wang insisted, that man can exert influence through purification of his own spiritual qi and thereby benefit the cosmic transformation as a whole. Such a vision demonstrates the religious dimension of Confucianism, which is individualistic characterized by self-cultivation.