Wang Fuzhi (; 1619–1692), courtesy name Ernong (), pseudonym Chuanshan (), was a Chinese essayist, historian, and philosopher of the late Ming, early Qing dynasties. Life Born to a scholarly family in Hengyang in Hunan province in 1619, Wang Fuzhi began his education in the Chinese classic texts when very young. He passed his civil-service examination at the age of twenty-four, but his projected career was diverted by the invasion of China by the Manchus, the founders of the Qing (or Ch'ing) dynasty. Staying loyal to the Ming emperors, Wang first fought against the invaders, and then spent the rest of his life in hiding from them. His refuge was at the foot of the mountain Chuanshan, from which he gained his alternative name). He died in 1693, though it is not known for certain where or how. Philosophical work Wang Fuzhi is said to have written over a hundred books, but many of them have been lost. The rest of his works have been collected in the Chuanshan yishu quanji (). He also wrote a commentary on Zizhi Tongjian, titled "Comments after reading the Tongjian" (讀通鑒論, "Du Tongjian Lun"). Wang was a follower of Confucius, but he believed that the neo-Confucian philosophy which dominated China at the time had distorted Confucius's teachings. He wrote his own commentaries on the Confucian classics (including five on the Yijing or Book of Changes), and gradually developed his own philosophical system. He wrote on many topics, including metaphysics, epistemology, moral philosophy, poetry, and politics. Apart from Confucius, he was also influenced by the prominent early Song dynasty neo-Confucians Zhang Zai and Zhu Xi. Metaphysics Wang's metaphysics is a version of materialism. He argued that only qi ( or ch'i; energy or material force) exists; li (, principle, form, or idea), which was the central concept in the orthodox neo-Confucian thought of Zhu Xi, for example, doesn't exist independently, being simply the principle of qi. In this his metaphysics represents a continuation and development of that of Zhang Zai, as expressed most clearly in his Commentary on Master Zhang's Correcting Ignorance, and has also been highly regarded as 'proto-materialist' in the Marxist period in the PRC after 1949. Ethics Wang's metaphysical ideas led him to a naturalist moral philosophy (precipitating a revival of interest in his teachings in modern China). In particular, he believed that human desires are not inherently evil, but in fact