Wisdom of the East series

The introduction describes Rhazes' life, includes an anecdote of him healing a king in order to illustrate Rhazes' character, and discusses the scholarly reception of his writings. The text guides the reader through the logical steps required to reform one's character, centering around principles espoused by Plato and Socrates, that of moderation and the importance of controlling passion with reason. Rhazes begins the discussion with an affirmation of the value of divinely-bestowed reason, which he saw as the foundation for his subsequent discussion and which is the most obviously religious portion of the text. Then he argues for the importance of suppressing passion, and the remainder of the text is essentially case studies of how to suppress various kinds of passion.

This ancient text records the teachings of Mencius (4th C. B.C.E.), the second originary sage in the Confucian tradition, which has shaped Chinese civilization for over two thousand years. In a culture that makes no distinction between those realms we call the heart and the mind, Mencius was the great thinker of the heart, and it was he who added the profound inner dimensions to the Confucian vision.