This article investigates the philosophy of Lai Zhide from three aspects: his life commitment, his relationship to Neo-Confuciani sm, and his understanding of the Yijing. Throughout his lifetime Lai Zhide strove to become a sage and was devoted to writing in seclusion with the wish of attaining spiritual immortality. Concerning Neo-Confucian ideas, he suggested that gewu means extinction of desires, and that mingde is the acquisition of virtue in the practice of human relationships. His major contribution to the studies of Yijing was his elucidation of the difference between the natural order and human principle. He also proposed that the mind of the sage embodies the whole of the Yijing. The author of this study sees that all this points in the same direction; that Lai Zhide gradually broke the continuity, established in the Song school, between the natural and human worlds, and that he raised human values above natural ones. In these respects he may be regarded as one of the precursors of Qing thought.