Chang was a native of Ch'ang-an in modern Shensi, four years junior to Chou Tun-i. Chang was son of a prefect. At twenty-one he wrote to and then saw the outstanding scholar official, Fan Chung-yen (989-1052), who told him to study the Doctrine of the Mean. He started his search from Confucianism through Buddhism and Taoism and back to Confucianism, especially the Book of Changes and the Doctrine of the Mean, which eventually formed the basis of his own philosophy. He obtained a "presented scholar" degree in 1057 and was appointed a magistrate. In 1069 he pleased the emperor with his orthodox Confucian answers to questions on government and was appointed a collator in the imperial library. But he disapproved of the radical reforms of Wang An-shih, and eventually resigned. In 1077 he was a director of the board of imperial sacrifices but was unhappy and resigned. He became sick and died on his way home. See Sung shih (History of the Sung Dynasty, 960-1279), PNP, 427:15b-18b and Bruce, Chu Hsi and His Masters, pp. 50-52.
When he lectured on the Book of Changes in the capital, his students included the outstanding Neo-Confucian scholar and statesman, Ssu-ma Kuang (1019-1086), and his two nephews, Ch'eng Hao (Ch'eng Ming-tao, 1032-1085) and Ch'eng I (Ch'eng I-ch'uan, 1033-1107) who became his critics and central figures in the Neo-Confucian movement. In his political views, he was at odds with the reformer Wang An-shih (1021-1086), for he insisted on reviving ancient Confucian economic systems, including the "wellfield" system in which a field was divided into nine squares with eight families each cultivating one square separately for its own support and one square jointly for governmental revenues. He retired from minor governmental positions to teach in his home and actually attempted to have other scholars join him to put the "well-field" system into practice.
LIKE OTHER Neo-Confucianists, Chang Tsai (Chang Heng-ch'u, 1020-1077) drew his inspiration chiefly from the Book of Changes. But unlike Chou Tun-i (Chou Lien-hsi, 1017-1073) according to whom evolution proceeds from the Great Ultimate through the two material forces (yin and yang) and the Five Agents (Metal, Wood, Water, Fire, and Earth) to the myriad things, and unlike Shao Yung ( 1011- 1077) according to whom evolution proceeds from the Great Ultimate through the two material forces and other stages to concrete things, Chang Tsai identifies material force (ch'i) with the Great Ultimate itself. He discards both yin and yang and the Five Agents as generative forces. To him, yin and yang are merely two aspects of material force, and as such are basically one. As substance, before consolidation takes place, material force is the Great Vacuity. As function, in its activity and tranquillity, integration and disintegration, and so forth, it is the Great Harmony. But the Great Vacuity and the Great Harmony are the same as the Way (Tao), the One. As contraction and expansion, the two aspects of material force are kuei-shen, or negative and positive spiritual forces. Here Chang replaces the traditional theory of spiritual beings or spirits of deceased persons and things with a completely rationalistic and naturalistic interpretation, and establishes a doctrine from which later Neo-Confucianists have never deviated. Also, believing existence to be perpetual integration and disintegration, he strongly attacked Buddhist annihilation and Taoist non-being. In this process of perpetual integration and disintegration, certain fundamental laws of the universe follow. Evolution abides by definite principles and has a certain order. Nothing is isolated. And yet everything is distinct from others.
The universe is one but its manifestations are many. This is a fundamental idea in Chang Tsai, an idea that exercised a tremendous influence over his contemporaries and later Neo-Confucianists. As applied to the way of life, this idea becomes the concept of Heaven and Earth as universal parents and love for all in the "Western Inscription." This is one of the most celebrated essays in Neo-Confucian literature. Each human relation has its specific moral requirement, but love embraces them all. At the end, the man of love not only has affection for all men but identifies himself with Heaven and Earth. Here we have another fundamental idea of his, which has also exercised an extensive influence over his contemporaries and over later Neo-Confucianists.
Source : Wing-Tsit Chan, in Chinese Philosophy
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