Wang Ch'ung (27-ca. 100) was a Chinese philosopher who questioned the validity of contemporary belief and applied a new standard of critical inquiry to the problems of the natural world.

Wang Ch'ung may be described as a rationalist in the sense that he sought explanations that were intellectually satisfying to his reason; as a naturalist insofar as he believed in the independent working of the world of nature; and as a protestant as he rejected current beliefs as ill-founded, misleading, and pernicious. Of his several writings the Lun-heng, or Balanced Discourses, survives complete except for one of the 85 chapters. The work set a new standard of ordered systematic thinking in Chinese philosophy, with separate treatment of subjects as diverse and as all-embracing as the creation and working of the universe, the place of man in creation, or the acceptance of dogma.

Wang Ch'ung's clarity of thought is apparent in...