In this chapter we shall pursue further the subject of Chu
Hsi's relation to another controversy, and see how much of an
ethical rigorist he was. Though Lu Chiu-yüan and he were both
Confucianists, Chu Hsi was against Lu because Lu was opposed
to the idea that the correct approach to Tao lies in knowledge-
seeking. Like Mencius, who attacked Mo Ti and Yang Chu in his
day, Chu Hsi took a militant attitude towards all those whose
views differed from his own. When he fought Lu he used as his
pretext that Lu was a follower of the Ch'an sect; and when he
fought Ch'en Liang the charge was utilitarianism.

Utilitarianism as understood here is an ethical and political
theory. It takes the view that thought must begin with the given
data of human nature in general, including desires, tendencies to
avoid pain, preferences for pleasure, ambition to strive for achieve-
ment, etc. It maintains also that this realistic attitude towards
life is the only rational view and that we should be reconciled to the
idea that realization of what is morally right, of what is idealistic,
is too much to expect of a human being. This utilitarian attitude
was espoused by Ch'en Liang in his ethical and political thinking,
and it was this which Chu Hsi took strong exception to. There
was a long and bitter debate between the two philosophers.

Before I go into the subject I should like to explain the two
terms "rational" and "real", as understood by Hegel in his Rechts-

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