peculiar as the superstitions that he was rejecting. But despite this barrier to his work, he gained some fame, though mostly after his death. He had an effect on what Karlgren called, the 'neo-Daoism' — a reformed Daoist philosophy with a more rational, naturalistic metaphysics, without much of the superstition and mysticism into which Daoism had fallen. Early scientific thought Meteorology With his acute rationale and objective approach, Wang Chong wrote many things that would be praised by later modern sinologists and scientists alike as being modern-minded. For example, much like Greek polymath Aristotle's 4th century BC Meteorology portrayed the water cycle, Wang Chong wrote the following passage about clouds and rain: Wang's reference to Gongyan Gao's (i.e. Gongyan Zhuan's) commentary perhaps demonstrates that Gongyan's work, compiled in the 2nd century BC, explored the topic of the hydrological cycle long before Wang wrote about the process. The British biochemist, historian, and sinologist Joseph Needham asserts that: "As to the seasonal lunar and stellar connections, the thought of Wang Chong (about 83 AD) is that in some way or other the cyclical behavior of the qi on earth, where water is distilled into mountain clouds, is correlated with the behavior of the qi in the heavens, which brings the moon near to the Hyades at certain times." Thus, Wang Chong was uniting classical Chinese thought with radically modern ways of scientific thinking in his day. Astronomy Similar to Han dynasty polymath contemporary Zhang Heng (78–139) and Chinese scholars before him, Wang discussed theories about the causation of eclipses, with solar eclipse and lunar eclipse. However, Wang Chong's theory went against the correct 'radiating influence' theory supported by Zhang Heng (that the light of the rounded moon was simply a reflection of the light emanating from the rounded sun). Writing little more than a century before Zhang Heng, the mathematician and music theorist Jing Fang (78–37 BC) wrote in the 1st century BC: Zhang Heng wrote in his Ling Xian (Mystical Laws) of 120 AD: Going against the grain of the accepted theory, and thinking more along the lines of the 1st century BC Roman philosopher Lucretius, Wang Chong wrote: Although Wang Chong was certain of his ideas about eclipses (without the knowledge of how gravity forms naturally large spherical bodies in space), his ideas on this would not be later accepted in China. Although there were some figures like Liu Chi,