Balanced Inquiries (Lunheng)

A large collection of essays, eighty-five in number with one lost, in which Wang Chong, a scholar of modest official rank in the Eastern Han, tests the beliefs of his time against evidence and argument. His main target is the widely held view that Heaven responds to human conduct, and above all to the conduct of rulers, by sending portents, prodigies and disasters. Wang argues that Heaven acts spontaneously and without purpose, that natural events have natural causes, and that the idea of a responsive Heaven projects human motives onto the cosmos. He criticises belief in ghosts, arguing that the dead do not become conscious spirits, since consciousness depends on the living body; he examines stories about sages; and in chapters questioning Confucius and criticising Mencius he points out inconsistencies in the revered texts themselves. Throughout he insists that claims be checked against evidence and effects.

It is one of the great sceptical and naturalist works of the ancient world, and a reminder that the criticism of superstition is not the property of any one tradition.