The Chinese philosopher Wang Fu-chih (1619-1692) was well known for his "nationalist" beliefs and his theory of historical evolution. One of the outstanding thinkers of the 17th century, he provides an important intellectual link between imperial and revolutionary China.

Wang Fu-chih was born on Oct. 7, 1619, in the province of Hunan in central China, later the home of such famous revolutionaries as Huang Hsing and Mao Tse-tung. Mao, in fact, facetiously proposed the theory that Hunanese are natural rebels because they eat so many red peppers. Wang's father and brother were noted scholars, and they seem to have influenced his career in the direction of scholarship. As a child, Wang exhibited an enormous capacity for reading, and it was said that he had a phenomenal memory and could read ten times faster than the average educated individual. He passed the rigorous provincial civil service examination in 1642, and it seemed...