ABSTRACT
What is the relation of disputation to vitality? Is it simply tautological to suggest any relation at all; are we just saying that where there is action there is life, and that disputation is action? Or do we see vitality precisely in the result of disputation, the fact that the late-Chou controversy among the 'Hundred Schools' established Confucianism's title to a long-sustained acceptance? Confucianism owed its long life 'to its character, and owed its character to the original conditions of combat.
