Professor Edward Ch'ien's book is a vanguard research in America's study of Confucianism which has been under the influence of humanistic hermeneutics. By a comparsion of Neo-Confucian and Western phenomenological hermeneutics, Ch'ien suggests that both Lu Hsiang-shan and Chu Hsi reject the lexical glossing of Han philology as superficial and inadequate to the task of approhending the Tao. They differ only over ”the relationship between mind as the knowing subject and ii or Nature as the object to be known.” By stressing unity between reading subject and Ii, Lu's metaphysical monism leaves a crucial imprint on Tai Chen, an issue which is unexplored in American sinology.