The Ming Dynasty's Five Hundred Years

Chapter 22 The Science of Psychology

The Imperial College of the Ming Dynasty.

It stands at the pinnacle of the Ming Dynasty's scholarly circles, with over 70% of the Jinshi (successful candidates in the highest imperial examinations) coming from here.

Furthermore, Zhu Yuanzhang stipulated that all those who failed the imperial examinations should enter the Imperial Academy to study, and even those who failed to pass the metropolitan examinations could be appointed as officials outside the capital.

Ninety percent of the county magistrates, as well as the principal officials and academic instructors of various departments in the Ming Dynasty, were selected from the Imperial Academy.

Whoever attains enlightenment here holds the key to the world.

Whoever controls this place controls the world.

Even though Zhu Yuanzhang was the emperor, he never truly controlled this place; otherwise, Li Qi wouldn't have come here today to take action on behalf of the emperor.

Li Qi stepped down from the carriage and gazed at the gate of the Imperial College. He was filled with emotion. Many people may not know that Li Shanchang had once concurrently served as the head of the Imperial College and had even quelled the first rebellion at the Imperial College in the eighteenth year of the Hongwu reign.

An old man stood in front of the prison gate. After Li Qi got out of the car, he cupped his hands and said, "I have long heard of Scholar Li's name. Today I see you. You are indeed a person of outstanding talent and noble lineage!"

Li Qi knew that this was the Chancellor of the Imperial Academy. The previous Chancellor, Song Ne, had passed away in the twenty-third year of the Hongwu reign. The current Chancellor was named Hu Ji'an.

There are few historical records about him, but he was a friend of Liu Sanwu and participated in the North-South Examination Case in the 30th year of Hongwu's reign. He was eventually executed by slow slicing, which shows that he was also a member of the Jiangnan faction.

"I was born of a commoner, but I was fortunate enough to be favored by His Majesty and married to a noble lady of the imperial family. That is all that I have."

Creating a persona is something you must never forget, no matter what.

As Li Qi approached the Imperial Sacrificial Minister, everyone watched as this son of the Duke of Han, who had risen to fame in the imperial court, and who was now the emperor's son-in-law.

Then, almost everyone was involuntarily drawn to Li Qi's eyes.

His eyes were like mountains and seas.

It is not covered in sharp thorns that would burn people as the legends say, nor is it that sharp. Instead, it is soft yet resilient, like a weed that survives in the cracks, carrying endless vitality.

Everyone recalled the four-line teaching that had been circulating some time ago: "The mind in its original state is neither good nor evil; the movement of the mind can be good or evil; knowing good and evil is conscience; doing good and eliminating evil is the investigation of things."

No wonder he could write such clear words about good and evil; he is truly extraordinary. Even those who are enemies of Li Qi cannot help but sigh in admiration.

After the crowd escorted the Chancellor and Li Qi into the Imperial Academy, the atmosphere changed again.

The scholars in the Imperial Academy were already seated, a large, dense crowd, all dressed in the robes of students. More people continued to arrive and sit on either side, their expressions varied.

Students occasionally whispered among themselves, "The Hanlin Academician Xie Jin has actually come!"

"Could that be Qi Tai, the tutor of the Crown Prince?"

"That is……"

"So many scholars from the Hanlin Academy have come!"

"Although they are all talented men, in terms of Confucian scholarship, they are far inferior to Scholar Li, so it is not surprising that they have come here today."

"Scholar Li is a man of extraordinary talent, far surpassing ordinary people."

As the bell rang, the hall fell silent as everyone waited for Li Qi to begin his sermon.

Arriving at the Imperial Academy was naturally different from being in the imperial court. First came the lectures on the classics, then the discussions on the principles of life and death. There was no rush to refute anyone; the focus was on reason, and the truth resided in the hearts of the people. Li Qi looked at the dark mass of people in the hall, but he was not nervous. He had been preparing for a long time. "Today we will discuss the distinction between psychology and the difference between good and evil."

The Cheng-Zhu school of thought is the orthodox official school of thought today, and the most famous sage of the Ming Dynasty was none other than Wang Yangming's philosophy of mind.

As for Li Qi, he believed that both of these schools of thought had huge flaws. The Cheng-Zhu school of thought advocated learning through the Way, emphasized the investigation of things to acquire knowledge, that is, to thoroughly understand the principles of things, and stressed the importance of learning knowledge.

Doesn't that sound reasonable? But the absurd part comes later: in Cheng-Zhu Neo-Confucianism, learning knowledge is for the purpose of enhancing one's moral standards!

Zhu Xi believed that people's moral standards would inevitably improve as their knowledge grew.

This is simply a joke, which has led to Confucian scholars being most adept at empty talk and attacking each other's morality.

Therefore, Wang Yangming proposed the philosophy of mind, believing that there is no need to investigate things and learn knowledge, as good and evil, morality, reside in the heart. This is the Four-Sentence Teaching.

The philosophy of mind is a typical form of idealism, and Li Qi, who had received decades of materialist education, naturally could not accept it entirely.

In comparison, Li Qi agreed more with Zhu Xi's Neo-Confucianism, believing that continuous learning of knowledge was far more important than understanding the mind.

The solution is simply to change the purpose of learning from increasing moral standards to improving practical skills and discovering objective laws.

However, Li Qi believed that the concepts of the nature of good and evil, as well as the unity of knowledge and action and conscience, in the philosophy of mind were quite valuable. This kind of knowledge, which integrates the philosophy of mind for being a person and the philosophy of reason for doing things, is what Li Qi is talking about today as the psychological debate!

"If the greater one's knowledge, the better one becomes, then those who die under the laws of the Ming Dynasty should not be corrupt officials, but the ignorant masses. Since the rise of the Ming Dynasty, tens of thousands of officials have died for their crimes of deceiving and abusing the people. Is it because they never read the words of the sages?"

"In the case of Liu San Niangzi, the people of the capital felt sorry for her plight and condemned the viciousness of the Li clan. If one person had such a heart, one would not know what good is. However, if millions of people have such a heart, why is that?"
It is merely a touch of kindness and conscience in people's hearts that makes them feel compassion, yet this innate human compassion is nowhere to be seen in the hearts of these students—how absurd!

"The principles of good and evil, and the teachings of morality, reside in the hearts of people. Although the world is vast, as long as one has a thought of doing good and a conscience, even an ordinary person can become a sage."

"This is what is meant by the nature of good and evil!"

Li Qi's words were like a sharp sword piercing the heart, making everyone in the hall uneasy. Even before the debate and discussion had begun, some people couldn't help but speak out.

"May I ask you, Scholar Li, according to your words, are we wrong to study and understand principles?"

What Li Qi had just said and the various examples he had given were so compelling that they couldn't refute him, and now they could only ask such tricky and strange questions.

The very act of raising this question was an admission that Li Qi was right, but it was merely an attempt to get Li Qi to give the scholars a way out.

After all, Li Qi, you yourself are a scholar!

Li Qi smiled slightly and said, "It is certainly not wrong to read books to understand principles, but it is wrong to simply reduce principles to good and evil morality."

Ordinary people possess only a sliver of conscience within their hearts, which is only beneficial to others and of no use to the country. This is a small act of righteousness and a minor act of kindness, which is fleeting.

Reading can help one understand the greater principles, acquire knowledge, and govern the country and bring peace to the world—this is a great virtue.

Learning the principles of governing the country and bringing peace to the world from books is what Zhu Xi meant by "investigating things to acquire knowledge and reading books to understand principles."

If someone spends their entire life seeking moral teachings, then I must ask, what kind of inherently wicked person must they be, to have been taught by sages and saints for decades yet still unable to attain goodness!

Confucius once said, "Rotten wood cannot be carved, nor can a wall of dung be plastered." Shouldn't such inherently wicked people, who are beyond redemption, be killed to rectify the world?

As soon as he finished speaking, the entire room fell silent!
(End of this chapter)