on philosophy, his Jisu ("On Common Morality"), Jeiyi ("Censures"), Zheng wu ("On Government"), and Yangxing shu ("On Macrobiotics"). About eighty of these essays were later compiled into his Lunheng ("Discourses Weighed in the Balance"). Despite his self-imposed retirement, he eventually accepted an invitation of Inspector Dong Qin (fl. AD 80–90) of Yang province to work as a Headquarters Officer. However, Wang soon resigned from this post as well. Xie Yiwu, a friend of Wang Chong's and a long-standing inspector and official, made an official recommendation to the court requesting that Wang serve as a senior scholar under Emperor Zhang of Han (r. 75–88). Emperor Zhang accepted this and summoned Wang Chong to appear at his court, yet Wang claimed ill health and refused to travel. Wang later died at home around the year 100. Although Wang's rationalistic philosophy and criticism of so-called New Text Confucianism were largely ignored during his lifetime, the prominent official and later scholar Cai Yong (132–192) wrote of his admiration for Wang's written works. The politician Wang Lang (d. 228) acquired a copy of Wang's Lunheng and brought it with him on his trip in 198 to the Han court established at Xuchang by Prime Minister Cao Cao (155–220). As some of the questionable tenets of the philosophy of New Text Confucianism fell out of use and repute, Rafe de Crespigny states that the rationalist philosophy of Wang Chong became much more influential in Chinese thought. Work and philosophy Wang Chong reacted to the state that philosophy had reached in China. Daoism had long ago changed into a religious and magic way, and Confucianism had been the state religion for some 150 years. Confucius and Laozi were worshipped as gods, omens were seen everywhere, belief in ghosts was almost universal, and fengshui had begun to rule people's lives. Wang derided all this and made a vocation of giving a rational, naturalistic account of the world and the human place in it. At the centre of his thought was the denial that Heaven has any purpose for us, whether benevolent or hostile. To say that Heaven provides us food and clothing is to say it acts as our farmer or tailor — an obvious absurdity. Humans are insignificant specks in the universe and cannot hope to effect changes in it, and it is ludicrous arrogance to think that the universe would change itself for us. Wang insisted