evil and vice versa, see Xiao Hanming, Chuanshan Yixue Yanjiu, 129–133. I am grateful to the anonymous reader who suggested the analogy with the contemporary Thomas Hobbes (1588–1679) for the similar role played by the concept of conatus, endeavor (see Leviathan, chapter 6).

171. Du Sishu Daquanshuo, 8: 569–572; see also Luo Guang, Zhongguo Zhexue Sixiangshi, 89–92.

172. Du Sishu Daquanshuo, 8: 570.

173. This expression comes from Lunyu, Yan Yuan 顏淵 I. See the first part. In his commentary, Zhu Xi regards it as a victory over one’s selfish desires, and although such interpretation has been subsequently subjected to some criticism, over time it came to denote the idea of “conquering,” “controlling,” and “dominating.” Analogous expressions may be encountered in Greek writers from Plato to Antiphon that lay emphasis on resisting (antechein), conquering (nikan), or dominating (kratein) pleasures (hedonai) and desires (epithumiai). See Foucault, L’Usage des Plaisirs, 71–82.

174. In certain cases of “objective responsibility,” the consequences of an act are imputable to the actor even if they have not intended to cause them or when the offence has been committed by others, especially when such action is considered to have serious effects on the fabric of society.

175. Liming is a term taken from Mencius and originally meant “establishing the [heavenly] will”; that is, that man had only the power to modify himself by winning virtue or by losing it, while success and fortune lay beyond his reach. One has the power to control only moral choices and the moral inner self in the face of the external world with a limiting reality. Yuan Huang gave the term a new meaning: one was in a position to create one’s destiny through one’s conduct. On deeper implications of the Chan prescriptions, see Brokaw, The Ledgers of Merit and Demerit, 75–95. Moreover, Yuan Huang supported a subjective criterion in moral evaluation of human actions: “‘He who wishes to accumulate merit,’ Yuan warned, ‘cannot rely on popular judgment, on the ‘ears and eyes of the world.’ He must depend rather on his own inner moral sense: ‘He can only follow the hidden tendencies to good at the source of the mind [...]’” (Brokaw, The Ledgers of Merit and Demerit, 101).

176. Noteworthy is that according to Daoist texts, the ming received by Heaven is subject to positive and negative mutation; consequently, the possibilities that something predetermined can be altered and the