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108 P. F. Neo

We must first admit that ancient Chinese culture was clearly focused on practical technology.
Therefore, the legendary sage-kings were all inventors of tools. According to Confucianism,
what is metaphysical (referring to Dao) is represented by what is physical (referring to ob-
jects). Therefore, it emphasizes “improving virtues, making use of all things, and making life
better for everyone.”

The Western spirit of science originated from the Greek idea of seeking knowledge for the sake
of knowledge. According to this attitude, we should first set up an objective world as the
object (of study), and, at least for the time being, restrain all our practical and moral activities,
transcend all our judgments of interest and moral value concerning objective things. On the
one hand we should let our mind be like all the objective things and phenomena presented to
it, and on the other hand engage in purely theoretical deduction by applying its reason, so
that the categories of thought and the laws of logic revealed by the application of reason are
also presented to the mind, and are clearly examined and taken in by it. This kind of spirit of
science, after all, is what ancient Chinese philosophers lacked, and therefore their theoretical
science could not continue to develop.
A world of purely theoretical scientific knowledge, or an independent cultural field of sci-
ence, must be established in Chinese culture. In addition to the traditional Chinese moral
concept of morality, it is also necessary to establish a system of preservation and continuation
of scientific knowledge. 8
Based on the inherent Chinese ideas of “making the best of the natural resources”
and “making living better for everyone,” the New Confucianists hoped that in
addition to making “all our judgments of interest and moral value” of objective
things, the subject of our knowledge of the contemporary Chinese people will also
be able to “engage in purely theoretical deduction in accordance with the appli-
cation of its reason.” This is vividly reflected in Lesson 9, “The Spirit of Investi-
gating Things and Extending Knowledge” of Confucian Ethics, which illustrates
that:

Confucianism is traditionally concerned with the problems of life and neglects the study of
natural sciences, but we cannot say that Confucian scholars do not have a scientific spirit of
truth-seeking. For example, Xun Zi, in his essay “On Heaven, (天论)” pointed out that the
movement of the sun, moon, and stars, the transformation of spring, summer, autumn, and
winter, eclipses of the sun and moon, floods and droughts are all natural phenomena. For

8 This is a quotation from Chapter 8, “The Development of Chinese Culture and Science,” of “A
Declaration for Chinese Culture to the World: Our Common Understanding of Chinese Academic
Research and the Future of Chinese Culture and World Culture,” by Mou Chung-san, Hsu Foo-
kwan, Carsun Chang, and Tang Chun-i, published on New Year’s Day, 1958, simultaneously in the
magazines The Democratic Review and Regeneration. The article was later published as “Chinese
Culture and the World: Our Common Understanding of Chinese Academic Research and the Future
of Chinese Culture and World Culture” in Tang Chun-i’s Chinese Humanities and the World Today
(Taipei: Taiwan Student Book Co., Ltd., 1975, Vol. 2, pp. 866–929).