Biotechnology is set to be one of the hottest industries of the 21st century. But if the ancient Chinese made the first steps towards biotechnology by using genetic changes in organisms to improve crops and livestock, the thanks is due to Wang Chong (27-c.104), who first studied the transmission of characteristics across generations.

In his life's work Lun Heng (Critical Essays), Wang proposes many concepts to do with species, and identifies different species' inability to interbreed as one of their defining characteristics. His ideas are very "modern." Based on his recognition of species' stable characteristics, he rejected the notion of magical creatures such as dragons.

Death is like a fire going out

According to Wang Chong's own writings, he was an orphan. At about the age of eight he began to read widely, and as an adult he went to study in the capital. He was briefly an official, but then returned home to study and write. In old age he was still "so poor [he] didn't have an acre of ground to [his] name, nor a peck of grain." Yet he was celebrated in his own lifetime as one of the three greatest geniuses of the age.

Wang wrote four books, but only Lun Heng survives. Its 85 essays mainly criticize the social customs of his day.

In the Han, elaborate funerals were the norm, not only for kings and nobles, but also for commoners. In Wang Chong's view, this practise was of no benefit to people in their old age, and did nothing to increase filial piety, so he advocated simple funerals instead.

Since the premise behind lavish funerals was the existence of a soul, Wang believed that to eradicate such rites one had first to get rid of people's belief in ghosts and spirits. He argued: "When a man dies his pulse stops, his vital energy disappears, and his body decays into dust-how could he become a ghost?" and: "When a man dies his bones rot, his flesh loses its strength, his arms and legs do not move-how could he harm anyone?"

In A History of Chinese Thought, Chien Mu observes that Han thinkers from Dong Zhongshu on made fanciful connections between cosmological and human events; scholarship became perverted, with the writing of commentaries on the classics replacing original thought, and scant attention was given to solid evidence. In this atmosphere, belief in chen and wei gained great currency.

Chen were omens or divinations, and wei were books which interpreted the Confucian classics as divine predictions about human affairs. Today, on the threshold of the third millennium, predictions of catastrophe abound. But 2,000 years ago the Chinese were much more practical, for they made use of omens to usurp imperial power and instigate revolution. Wang Mang (45 BC-23 AD) was well versed in this art. In 5 AD the emperor Ping Di died, and was succeeded by his great-great-grandson, aged two. But then a report reached the court of a stone, found while a well was being dug, on which was written: "Proclaim the Emperor, the Lord Mang, Protector of the Peace of Han." The prime minister petitioned the empress dowager to make Wang Mang regent, and this enabled him to later seize the throne.

In view of the political and social uncertainty caused by such machinations, intellectuals were eager to discredit belief in chen and wei, and Wang Chong was at their fore.

The limitations of his age

Wang argued that the workings of heavens and earth happened "of themselves." Heaven did not intentionally produce the fruits of the earth to sustain us, nor did it send natural disasters to warn or punish. Events such as earthquakes occurred spontaneously, and had nothing to do with human actions.

He had even less time for the idea that the sages (a term applied to both the great teachers of old such as Confucius, and to the emperor) were divine beings: "Those we call deities know without learning; those we call sages have to study to become wise. . . ." Chien Mu observes that the ideas that the world is not ruled by supernatural forces, and that the sages were mere mortals, had been around in pre-Qin times. But against the background of the exaggerated veneration of Confucius in the Han, Wang Chong's ideas were still earth-shattering.

In his A Source Book in Chinese Philosophy, Chan Wing-tsit writes that Wang's main contribution to the history of Chinese thought was to dispel superstition and strengthen the critical and rational spirit which was already emerging. Thus people wonder why his ideas did not herald the dawn of modern science in China.

But Wang Chong's explanations of natural phenomena were prompted less by an interest in nature per se than a wish to explain societal issues in terms of causes not centered on human will. However, the laws of nature are not sufficient to elucidate the reasons for order or disorder in society.

Wang insisted that any theory must stand the test of evidence. But to make this a pretext for rejecting everything that cannot be proved is itself anti-scientific. Perhaps, as Fung Yu-lan wrote in A History of Chinese Philosophy, we cannot expect a philosopher to transcend all the limitations of his age!

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A replica of a burial suit, comprising over 2,400 pieces of jade, from the tomb of a Han prince. In the Han, lavish funerals were the norm. Wang Chong opposed such extravagance, maintaining there was no such thing as the soul. Thus he established his image as a rational thinker. (photo by Pu Hua-chih)