debates, contemporary psychological studies, and personality theories, with special attention to the value of metaphors. He also worthily deals with the dyad spontaneity-tension (185–187). On Daoist concept of ming and xing in self-cultivation practices of internal alchemy, see Pregadio’s “Destiny, Vital Force, or Existence?.”

27. The expression, that is now a chengyu, comes from the Analects, Weizheng 為政: “If the people be led by laws, and uniformity sought to be given them by punishments, they will try to avoid the punishment, but have no sense of shame. If they be led by virtue, and uniformity sought to be given them by the rules of propriety, they will have the sense of shame, and moreover will become good” (道之以政，齊之以刑，民免而無恥；道之以德，齊之以禮，有恥且格). There are several studies on shame in Chinese culture; for example, Tiwald “Punishment and Autonomous Shame in Confucian Thought,” and Barrett’s “Punishment and Autonomous Shame in Confucian Thought.” This sense of honor and dignity is well expressed by the term lianchi 廉恥. Exemplary is Yongzheng’s proclamation on the occasion of his reforms on the status of qianmin: “we encourage the sense of dignity and shame and we extend the transformation of customs and mentality [in the empire] 勵廉恥而廣風化也” (Sommer, Sex, Law, and Society in Late Imperial China, 264–266).

28. Roetz has demonstrated well in his essays (“Tradition, Universality, and the Time Paradigm of Zhou Philosophy,” 359–375; and “A Comment on Pragmatism in Chinese Studies,” 279–299) how the innovative attitude of early Confucianism and of other schools of thought of the ancient period contributed to the assertion of human moral autonomy. In particular, he singles out a kind of gentleman’s dialectical process which is aimed at redirecting the individual’s attention away from society toward their inner self and finally back into society, hence attesting to a full range of self-cultivation practices for autonomous action (“Tradition, Universality, and the Time Paradigm of Zhou Philosophy,” 368). See also Roetz, Confucian Ethics of the Axial Age.

29. See the so-called “method of benevolence or humaneness” (renzhifang 仁之方) and the Golden Rule (Lunyu, Yong Ye 雍也, 6, 28/30). See Roetz, “A Comment on Pragmatism in Chinese Studies,” 291. A few passages in Mencius are quite explicit in matters of priority of “good innate conscience” (liangzhi 良知) and “independent action” (duxing 獨行).

30. According to Kim-chong Chong (“Autonomy in the Analects”), in Confucian doctrine a scholar has the autonomy to set his mind upon the Way,